I thought I'd put this in a bulletin but after reading Crabby's rant I decided it belonged here. The article concerns an age-old question about New Jersey-the location of the line between north and south. Well, maybe some of you could care less about New Jersey, but for those of us who live there, this book and film should be very interesting. ( For the record, I live in South Jersey but would be a Phillies fan no matter where I lived-born at 7th and Walnut Sts. Philapa)
What do you think?
What do you think?
N.J.'s Great Divide / Where is it?
Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Everyone who lives in New Jersey knows the Great Divide has nothing to do with continental watersheds - and everything to do with cultural ones. Those watersheds involve whether your allegiance flows to the Giants or the Eagles, whether you watch New York or Philadelphia television stations, whether you call day-trippers "bennies" or "shoobies" and even whether you'd rather see Rob Andrews or Frank Lautenberg as the next Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.
The northern-versus-southern New Jersey divide has been around for as long as New Jersey has: Benjamin Franklin famously called the state "a barrel tapped at both ends."
And now, finally, someone is immortalizing this divide in film and print. It's about time we had a full exploration of what we all know is a cultural fact of life in the Garden State (although only those of us in southern New Jersey can really use that nickname without irony). New Jersey native Steve Chernoski is making a documentary film and co-authoring a book on the subject of where the dividing line is. Chernoski interviewed people throughout the state and mapped the line they drew.
Chernoski found what we long knew - and why The Press uses the terms northern New Jersey and southern New Jersey rather than "North Jersey" and "South Jersey": The dividing line is elusive, not a hard geographical border. Some people in Cape May County, for example, considered everything north of the Great Egg Harbor Bay as northern New Jersey.
The divide can get politically acrimonious. Back in the 1980s, when many southern towns rebelled against state pinelands regulations, it came darn near to being a civil war. And even today, southern New Jersey often feels it's getting shorted in state attention and funding. Sometimes, it's right. And this year's Democratic Senate primary threatens to widen the divide even further, with southern New Jersey Democrats leaning toward U.S. Rep. Andrews, D-Camden, and northern New Jersey Democrats favoring incumbent Lautenberg, who grew up in Paterson.
New Jersey's divide grew from the dominance of New York and Pennsylvania as cultural forces. It was exacerbated through the years by everything from the reach of television signals to the old area-code divisions. Now some of those divisions are breaking down. Area codes are more splintered. Cable television makes the airwaves virtually irrelevant. The entire globe is electronically connected - yet, we suspect, New Jersey will always have its division. Where do you think it is? Is there a geographical line in New Jersey marking the division between the northern and southern part of the state? Is there a cultural benchmark?
Or are southern/northern New Jersey a state of mind, an attitude or a lifestyle more than a matter of sports teams and TV stations?
Let us know what you think. Send your comments to the Editorial Page, The Press of Atlantic City, 11 Devins Lane, Pleasantville, N.J. 08232, or e-mail them to
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