Even the Media knows it's an East-West line

New Jersey's hot right now. So hot, we'll be boasting five reality TV shows come summer (take that California and New York). The New York Times even had a recent article on this entitled, "Going to New Jersey to find America."

But when looking at the locations of these reality TV shows - seeing a divide is obvious. Let's call it, "The Media Divide."

In, New Jersey: the Movie, we theorized the cultural dividing line in the state wasn't North or South, but East and West. We drew the line, but also mentioned the historic Keith and Lawrence lines. If you look at a map of the Lawrence Line (giving East Jersey the least amount of land) and where the reality shows are located; they all fall into old East Jersey:

You could argue that this is merely a product of East Jersey's population being much larger. You could say that East Jersey just has more Italian-Americans, which all five shows focus on. And having the Zeitgeist of "Mayberry" with the voltage and excitement of New York City doesn't hurt either.

But as a half-Italian kid growing up on the west side of this line; I always wondered why big media never focused on us. Even looking at fictional shows like, The Sopranos, and oft-forgotten, That's Life and movies like Date Night and Kevin Smith's Jersey trilogy, East Jersey OWNS NJ's media portrayal to America and they always have.

And outside of films focusing on Princeton University, all the West seems to have is Boardwalk Empire - which will most likely have its fair share of New Yorkers anyway.

West Jersey people would most likely say that they would never parade their lives on camera for lowbrow television. Maybe it's the Quaker values . . .

But it begs a question:

Are people in East Jersey just more interesting?

If you had an idea for a West Jersey reality show - what would it be?

Civil War related divides . . .

New Jersey was once divided into East Jersey and West Jersey, as I have discussed here before. That eventually evolved into North and South Jersey. But in the early years of our republic, this divide was quite apparent when it came to slavery.

Taken from http://www.westjersey.org:

1) The slavery rates were much lower in South Jersey during the first three generations of the life of the nation (1790 to 1860). At the beginning of this period 92.6% of New Jersey's slaves were in the northern counties. By 1840 it was over 99%.

2) The 1860 popular vote for Lincoln in the Southern Counties as a whole was 55%, but was only 45% in the Northern Counties.

So although some people like to take the Mason Dixon Line and extend it across South Jersey, this early divide was really a kind-of-reverse Mason-Dixon Line.

Why was this? Too complicated, I would recommending further reading the linked westjersey.org site to get the answer.

But there will always be "Central" people trying to dispute that history. It all reminded me of the below clip, which inspired this post:

The above video takes about 4 seconds to begin playing.
The full above episode can be found at: http://www.hulu.com

The Line revealed!

Well . . . not quite yet, though we did show it at Ponzio's last night sponsored by 1210am - The Big Talker.  Thanks again to Dr. Mazz and his wife, Clinton and Ed and the rest of the 1210 crew who made last night happen.

But, I am willing to give more details about how the line came about by having you look at a map below.

This map compares the current divide amongst sports teams in red  (Philly) and blue (NY/ NJ), to the first line dividing New Jersey called the Keith Line which was not north and south, but EAST and WEST.  

Well before it became a state, in colonial times, New Jersey was divided.  There was an East Jersey and a West Jersey.  And the first line drawn by Surveyor General George Keith, only made it up 2/3 of the way before we realized he drifted too far west and stopped near the Raritan River branches.  The line in black represents that line and continues west, if Keith had finished it.   Just look how that original line, which still demarcates the borders between Ocean and Burlington, western Monmouth and western Somerset, matches the Sports' loyalty line.  From 1686 to 2008, it is amazing how little some cultural things have changed.