The Write Angle: Imperfect Together

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Imperfect Together

While growing up in the Bronx, many neighborhood families vacationed on the Jersey Shore. It was relatively close, covered a lot of ground, and action-packed—lots of boardwalks and amusements. I was also witness to Interstate 80 at long last cutting a course through New Jersey to Teaneck, a hop, skip, and a jump from the George Washington Bridge. This welcome extension turned a three-hour trip to Bangor, Pennsylvania—home of my maternal grandparents—to a much more tolerable hour-and-a-half. The traffic snarls at the bridge were always pretty bad, but they are a whole lot worse now, even with the vaunted E-ZPass replacing human flesh toll takers and speeding up the money exchange. I haven’t soaked up the sun at the Jersey Shore in quite a while, since “New Jersey and You” were “Perfect Together.” Local television was inundated in the 1980s with commercials featuring then Governor Tom Kean extolling the many virtues of his state. Seems like only yesterday and a long time ago.

Sun, take a good look around. This is New Jersey.

I was taught that "fifty-five saves lives." Can't say what "sixty-five" does.

There are four municipalities in Essex County, New Jersey with Orange in their names. William III of Orange has quite a legacy.

When my maternal grandmother and a great-aunt first laid eyes on this building off Interstate 80 in New Jersey, they marveled at its beauty. It was originally a Holiday Inn in the 1970s.

It was an end-of-the-school-year tradition at St. John's grammar school in the Bronx. Seventh and eighth graders were treated to a bus field trip to Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, home of Bertrand Island Amusement Park. The place had a great roller coaster. But sadly, its days were numbered when we Bronx youth frolicked there in the mid-1970s. After seventy-three years, the park closed in 1983 and is now—what else—a series of townhouses.

The sign on this building reads: "This is no ordinary home." Indeed it's not. If inhaling perpetual car and truck fumes at the George Washington Bridge toll plaza is your thing, check it out.

The views of the bridge, Hudson River, and Manhattan are no doubt impressive, just don't open a window.

Only fifteen dollars...

Always an atmospheric launching pad for those teetering on the edge, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey bureaucrats have put an end to all of that.

The City on the Edge of Forever...

Imagine what the traffic would be like nowadays without E-ZPass...

Just up the river from the George Washington Bridge is the Tappan Zee Bridge. Recently, its original structure was completely replaced and—yes—renamed the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. Leave it to the politicians to mess with history. The first bridge was named for a local Indian tribe: the Tappan.