Wednesday, April 30, 2008

If there is a "Central Jersey" . . .

While traveling around ALL corners of the state - the most consistent counties labled "Central" by residents were:  Mercer and Monmouth.  But . . . 


There are many things different in these two counties.  For example, in Monmouth - "The City" is New York.  In Mercer it is debatable.

I got thinking about all this as the beach season approaches.   It reminded me of my high school days in Mercer.  The funniest thing to me, growing up in that county, is how we never went to the Monmouth county beaches.  The shortest commute was right across I-195 to Belmar and its surrounding communities.  But did we go there?  Rarely.  

Even in the early 1990s, it was always assumed that these towns were "ceded" to people from the farther north counties.  Instead, we would drive a longer distance to Seaside Heights or LBI. 

We'd possibly trek to Point Pleasant, but that was mostly considered a "Northern Beach" even though geographically, that didn't make much sense.

Even in these "centrally located towns" away from the beach, we always made it complicated on ourselves.  

Do you have any correlating or conflicting stories related to these theories about "Central" or why Mercer's beach choices seem odd . . . especially when gas is so expensive?  Please email or post a comment.

1 comment:

Christine said...

I totally agree with your idea. I have lived in or near both. It seems that Monmouth is full of people who commute from NYC or are from NYC. Perhaps it has to do with the train lines??? Perhaps it has to do with Comcast. (In mercer i got Phila and NY channels, In Ocean I get NY channels(recently they took away the little Phila feed i had), when i lived in Burlington I got Phila channels))Interesting though, I work in Seaside Heights and we are having trouble bringing in a crowd from none other then Monmouth County, which practically borders us. I donno if there will ever be a true answer to any of this.