It is not easy to draw a dividing line between North and South Jersey. Many factors influence perception of where the line could be; accents, highways, population density, industry, agriculture, geography, political influence, even convenience stores differ between either half.

New Jersey residents, depending on their age and where they are from, have a wide range of opinions about what constitutes North and South Jersey.

“I couldn’t live anywhere that didn’t have good bagels,” said Shane Oberman, a painter from Edgewater, New Jersey. “North Jersey moves fast, but I’m used to it. I never really have a reason to go to South Jersey.”

“Jersey is the only state that I know about where people vacation less than an hour from their house,” said Graig Arfston. “In North Jersey, we usually call Seaside and LBI the beach… I think the rest of Jersey calls it the shore though.”

“Pork roll is nasty,” said Lauren Smith, a florist from Bergen County. “I take cream cheese on my bagel, thank you.”

Richie Pryce, a 23-year-old Jamaican immigrant, grew up in Perth Amboy. The Sociology Major currently resides in Glassboro, a college community wrapped in a pastoral setting.

Sometimes slight, sometimes more pronounced, Pryce sees and hears differences in his adopted community from his home town.

“Up North, you could say we have the tougher attitude. Our towns like Newark, Elizabeth, Irvington, are more violent. Down in South Jersey, they have Camden, but Newark is way bigger.”

“We got the cocky New York attitude. We feel like we’re damn there, right over the bridge; we can relate to them. South Jersey, they got the Philly attitude. They’re more relaxed and humble, more laid back, but they have a chip on their shoulders too.”

Steve Chernoski, who recently made a film about the North and South Jersey divide, believes that Central Jersey exists.

“When making the film, http://www.newjerseythemovie.com, – immigrants were tough to get to comment. It’s almost like you need to be in Jersey 10 – 15 years to truly get a grip on this North-South divide. But I met a recent Indian immigrant in Pennington and he leaned them South, but said that his staff disagrees. He said, “I am learning that this debate is important.”

For me (and for the film) if there is, indeed, a Central Jersey, it is where the cultures of Philly and NYC overlap. It doesn’t happen in Middlesex, Somerset or most of Monmouth (Hunterdon is more complicated). Those guys are all NY sports fans, all fly out of EWR, all call it a sub, sprinkles & slip in “w”s into the words like coffee and chocolate just like their Northern brethren. The cultures DO overlap in all of Mercer and half of Ocean. I mean, I was in in Middletown Twp. (Monmouth C), where Kevin Smith filmed Clerks, this weekend and I could see the NYC skyline from the shore of Leonardo. . . . so how can it be Central NJ if you can see a city’s skyline from your area? That doesn’t add up. . . . unless that skyline is Trenton.”

Over the course of the weekend, I plan on bothering friends, neighbors, and strangers in the hopes of getting some different viewpoints on New Jersey.

Of course, I will brush on important topics, such as breakfast foods, convenience stores, and vacation destinations less than an hour from your home?

Richard Pryce, a Jamaican immigrant who came up in the projects of Perth Amboy, a town in what some would call North Jersey, and others would call Central Jersey.  Pryce defines himself as a North Jersian because of the Amboy’s proximity to Staten Island, the most removed, and worst burough of New York City.  Now a South Jersey resident, Pryce has become involved in the local community, made friends… but he still drives an hour and a half to get his hair cut “up north.”  He will talk about South Jersey barbers like I talk about South Jersey bagels… unfavorably at best.

Pryce and others will be asked to answer some of the following questions:

Do you ever have any reason to go to cross into North/South Jersey?

What kind of personality does North Jersey have?

Does South Jersey have any personality?

What do North Jersians think defines South Jersians, and vice versa?

What kind of food is the local favorite?

Do you eat pork roll?  Where can you get a good bagel around here?

What is your favorite conveniece store?

What’s the best diner in Jersey?

Is it the beach or the shore?

What’s a bennie?  A piney?  A jackson white?

Who’s the Jersey Devil?  Corzine?

Pan the picture to the right. A case contains a skull from every ethnic background imaginable. Zoom in, holding the shift key. Creeeepy, right?

In the lower gallery, there is a case with the skeleton of a man of over seven feet standing next to a skeleton of a person that comes up to his kneecaps.

For instance, I have been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Natural History museum dozens of times, but the only museum in New Jersey that I am even aware of is the Liberty Science Center, which is definitely geared towards children.

I have gone on two ill-advised dates; one to the Mutter Museum in Philly, and one to the Bodies Exhibit in New York.  The only advantage to bringing a date to either place is that I promise your bill for dinner after will be cheap.

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia collected the exhibits at the Mutter Museum to allow med students to study medical anomalies.  The subject matter ranges from the history of medical procedures to unusual medical oddities.  One of the most unusual exhibits is the displayed body of a woman who was buried in an alkaline field.  Her body reacted with the element, and literally turned into soap.  There is also a display case filled with skulls of every imaginable ethnicity.

The Bodies Exhibit is a controversial display of bodies preserved using Polymer Preservation.  The bodies, which human rights activists claim are displayed without consent of the deceased, are all of Asian decent.  They are displayed in a variety of ways, ranging from a cross-sectioned cadaver to examples of bodies in motion. There are examples where just the circulatory system has been preserved, as well as examples of other anatomical systems.

In conclusion, both the Mutter Museum and the Bodies Exhibit are terrible places to take a date, and I never learn my lesson the first time. I don’t know how why I thought that the Bodies exhibit would be any more romantic than the Mutter Museum, but I can assure you that it wasn’t.

Sena Hong is a service coordinator for the Early Intervention System. She has the unfortunate job of deciding just how much therapy the state can provide for autistic children under the age of three, and often is the first to suggest to the parents that their child has autism. Like many of her co-workers in EIS, she has an autistic child herself.

I have heard a range of statistics of the national autism level, but one in 150 seems to be the mode. I see signs up and down the Jersey Turnpike that claim that one in 96 children born in New Jersey have some form of autism. Are there any findings on why there is such a discrepancy between the two numbers?

They do not know the exact cause, but Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey are conducting extensive studies. New Jersey is doing a lot of progressive research on autism, and a lot people are moving here to take advantage of the programs.

Have researchers made any conclusions about how environmental factors related to autism?

Heavy metals have been implicated in autism. High mercury and lead levels have been suspected as a cause, but we don’t know for sure what the environmental factors are. It is being researched, but there are no conclusions as of yet.

Is there a leading theory on why there are so many children with autism in New Jersey?

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country with a heavy industrial base. But again, we don’t know for sure whether those are significant factors or not.

How many children in New Jersey have autism?

The exact number is hard to pin down. New Jersey just mandated registration for autism. By law, any doctors who diagnose autism must register the State Birth Defects Registry, while to this point registration was infrequent, and done by our program. To this point, autism has been a voluntary registration.

What kind of services does the Early Intervention System offer?

Typically, they use ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis), speech therapy, and occupational therapy.

We offer use regular play therapy, which is when a person with a special education degree goes to their home and observes the children play. The ABA program, also called Discreet Trial, involves coming up with a program for every activity. Autistic children cannot do simple things like sit or eat with their spoon. You teach the children the desired behavior, and reward them with cookies, or something else they like to do.

Some parents do not like the therapy; they feel like it is the same as training a dog, but other parents worship ABA and maintain that it works. As the child gets older, the program changes to suit their needs.

What kind of reactions do you get from parents who are told that their children are autistic?

It is a crushing blow to any family. Often times there is denial. The first thing they notice is that a child loses language. They used to be able to speak, and then they stop speaking. Something seems to happen neurologically at about 18 months.

What other complaints do parents have with your program?

They often want the system to “fix” their child, but do not understand how critical the carryover is. Professionals will say that children need 24/7 services. They do not mean therapy; they mean that the child needs to be engaged socially as much as possible.

How does the program rank with those of other states?

Some other states do not require co-pays, such as New York and other surrounding states. The state of New Jersey spent $110 million last year, and the budget is increasing dramatically from years previous.

New Jersey has some of the best pre-school programs in the country. Alpine Institute, Eden Institute, just about every school district has an individual or regional program to address the issue of autism.

We provide services in a child’s natural environment, which some other states do not do, whether they are at home, at day care, or at a babysitter.

As the autistic get older, are there state programs to benefit them? And after high school?

There are assisted living programs, and institutions. It depends where they land on the spectrum of severity. It also depends on what kind of early intervention, and what kind of behavioural therapy they’ve had.

Generally speaking, children with autism either live with their parents or are put in a home as they get older. There is a center called Alpine Group that is well known in New Jersey. There is a huge waiting list, and it costs $80,000 a year. Insurance does not pay for it, and many people cannot afford such services.

One definite advantage about living in South Jersey is having fewer toxins in the soil and water. The autism rate in New Jersey is much higher than the national average, according to a study released by the New Jersey Department of Health. New Jersey is also one of a couple states that mandate flu vaccines for children in daycare and school. Given that an estimated 1 of 94 children born in New Jersey has autism, and the speculation about the connection between vaccinations and autism, the mystery of New Jersey’s autism rates is openly discussed on several blogs.

Adventures in Autism

Autism Vox

Fighting Autism

Age of Autism

In Bergen County, we have many Krauser’s convenience stores.  Krauser’s, which does not have a website as far as I can tell, are generally the sleaziest of the corporate convenience stores, and are mainly frequented by bearded foreign men who go right to the extensive porn magazine section. Other than that, they do all their business in tobacco and the lottery as far as I can tell. You would have to be nuts to get a sandwich where they have that much porn.

I generally prefer the Wawa in town; it is cleaner and better organized, and their sandwiches are better. Wawa’s are also a South Jersey thing; in North Jersey, we have Quick Chek. Quick Chek has more than 100 stores in North New Jersey and so-called Central New Jersey.

My breakfast sandwich ratings are as follows.

1. Quick Chek

2. Wawa

3. Heritage’s

4. Never had one from Krauser’s, and I do not plan to.

I do have to say, amazingly, I did not see a single fight that night.  People were so ecstatically happy that strangers joined hands to flip over cars.

Personally, I never understood the rioting tradition in baseball.  At what point does a game that takes hours and hours to play boil into a riot?

Incidentally, there were plenty of Jersey plates around Broad Street.

Here’s a couple videos that people shot of that hectic night.