The long, skinny state of NEW JERSEY
has been at the heart of US history since the Revolution
, when a battle was fought at Princeton , and
George Washington spent two bleak winters at Morristown
. As the Civil War came, the state's commitment
to an industrial future ensured that, despite its border location
along the Mason-Dixon line, it fought with the Union.
That commitment to industry has doomed New Jersey
in modern times. Most travelers only see "the Garden State"
(so called for the rich market garden territory at the state's
heart) from the stupendously ugly New Jersey Turnpike toll road
which, heavy with truck traffic, cuts through a landscape of gray
smokestacks and industrial estates. Even the songs of Bruce
Springsteen , Asbury Park's golden boy, paint his home
state as a gritty urban wasteland of empty lots,
gray highways, lost dreams and blue-collar tragedy. The majority
of the refineries and factories hug only a mere fifteen-mile-wide
swath along the turnpike, but bleak cities like Newark
, home to the major airport, and Trenton ,
the capital, do little to improve the look of the place and the
state suffers from a major image problem.
But there is more to New Jersey than factories and
pollution. Alongside its revolutionary history, Thomas Paine and
Walt Whitman both wrote nostalgically of the happy years they
spent there; while the northwest corner near
the Delaware Water Gap is traced with picturesque
lakes, streams and woodlands. Best of all, the Atlantic
shore offers many bustling resorts, from the tattered
glitz of Atlantic City to the glorious kitsch of Wildwoods and
the old-world charm of Cape May.
