Where in New Jersey have you lived and what did you think of it...

[JerseyDevil]

I was just wondering where you have lived and what you thought of it.

I've lived in Bricktown, Kendall Park - South Brunswick, Plainsboro and now Toms River.

I have to say I think the best place was Plainsboro. Don't get me wrong - I like all the other places, but as they say - location, location , location. Plainsboro is just so central to everything. Easy access to Trenton, Princeton and New Brunswick. It's incredibly clean and peaceful.

I loved Bricktown as a child. It was a lot different than it is now, although the area I lived has actually changed very very little. I lived at 543 Michigan Ave off of Lanes Mill Rd. I used to go exploring in the woods. I love the woods. I even used to go hunting for the Jersey Devil there.

After that we moved to Kendall Park where we bought a house. My father used to work at what was Webcraft in North Brunswick. It was much easier being 10 minutes away than the 1 1/2 hour drive from Bricktown. We lived at 4 Rolling Ct. The house was beautiful and it was relatively central to a lot of things. I didn't really appreciate all the things around me. I went to school in Princeton, but we never really "went" to Princeton. I never walked the university campus for instance until I moved to Indiana. Moving made me realize all that New Jersey had and how much I had taken things for granted.

Now I live in Toms River. Toms River is good. I like the downtown. It's just so congested. The traffic can be really bad. Public Transportation here sucks compared to central New Jersey. It's nice to be at the shore, but in some ways I'm so much further from things. If I could have a beach house, even if it was on the bay, that would be fine, then live in Central New Jersey as my full time residence, then I would be in heaven.

This is my dream... Beach House along the Jersey Shore, preferably somewhere between Pt Pleasant and Seaside Park. House in Princeton. A Condo in Jersey City, Newark or Hoboken. Okay - now everyone please start donating to my dream fund.

[usv8lover]

I was born and lived for 3 years in Elizabeth...lived on Mellon Place and spent a lot of time at my grandparent's house on Decker Ave near Kean College.

My childhood was spent in a middle class section of Colonia...near the golf course and in walking distance of the wealthy section. It was very white...no cultural diversity (1967-1982). Very safe neighborhood. Mostly a bedroom community although the other side of town had supermarkets and stores.

Found myself drawn to the Cranford/Westfield area.

First moved to Woodsville on my own (between Lambertville and Hopewell). Enjoyed peace and fresh air (farms & woods).

Moved to Princeton, Lawrenceville, Ewing and Princeton again before exiting the state. Nice place to live...you have civilization but the horse farms, farms and woods are there.

NJ has it all...I fished freshwater and saltwater...enjoyed the shore (Belmar, Ocean Grove, Point Pleasant, Seaside and Wildwood), the mountains, we have culture, amusements...is there anything NJ lacks?

Wendy

[Jersey Warren]

Don't worry — I'll make it the Readers Digest condensed version! I was born in Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, where Ricky Nelson (son of Ozzie and Harriet and later a famous singer) was born a few years before me. We lived in Hackensack until I was five. The neighborhood was centered around a park called Staib Park, and even four-year-olds in those days played in the park without parents. At age five, we moved to what was then called Saddle River Township (now known as Saddle Brook). It was a newer neighborhood of street after street of small Cape Cod-style houses, much like the more famous Levittowns. I loved it because therre were lots of kids — my parents hated it because it was too conformist and "cookie cutter." In 1955, we moved back to the same house in Hackensack (where my grandparents still lived) and a few months later to another, two-family house in Hackensack that my parents bought. That was 1955, right around my seventh birthday. That neighborhhod was within walking distance of downtown Hackensack and from ages 7 through 10 I became very independent, walking to the library, the YMCA, and my favorite store — Hobby Land. There were also several old-time, mom-and-pop delicatessans and drugstores with soda fountains, great places for kids to hang out.

In 1958, shortly after I turned 10, we moved to Upper Saddle River. USR (as it's known by locals) was then a small town with apple orchards, vegetable farms, a dairy farm, a four-man police department and a volunteer fire department. There was (and still is) one store in town, an old-fashioned general store called Elmer's. Nothing was within a comfortable walking distance, except woods. On Saturdays I went to Ramsey with my mother and hung out at Grant's while she shopped, mostly in the record department and the pet department.

After getting married in 1967 I lived in Oakland, Ridgewood, and (my first venture outside Bergen County into Passaic County) Hawthorne. Ridgewood was by far the nicest of those towns. It has a vibrant, upscale downtown and hundreds of vintage, colonial style houses in the residential areas. It is also too expensive for me! My first wife and I left New Jersey for Manhattan on Thanksgiving weekend in 1970. We were paying off a car we no longer owned and we thought we could survive better without a car with the city's transportation system. Besides, my wife was still 19 and New York's drinking age was 18, making it easier for us to go out on Saturday nights for a few drinks.

Coincidentally, the rest of my family moved to Toms River in 1968, the year after I got married, and that is where JD now lives. Over the years, I visited Toms River at least 50 times and enjoyed many holidays and family events there.

If money were no object and I could live anywhere in New Jersey, I'd have a year-round house in Princeton and a summer place on Long Beach Island. (And maybe another house in Florida or California to get away for a bit during the winter, for which my tolerence is getting less and less!)

[davegering]

i was born in Elizabeth but never lived there. Grew up in Old bridge which was then called Madison Township but went to school in South Amboy. Moved to Manahawkin when I was 20 and lived there for 7 years. After a brief stay in Virginia beach in 1989 i move back to Jersey to Eatontown. Was there for a year and then back to South Amboy were I stayed for about 6 years. Than a Year and a half in exile in Bethlaham PA and I have been living in North Arlington for almost 10 years. I will be going to South Amboy on Saturday for their St. Patty's day parade which begins at 2pm and is one of the best in the State. Most all of the bars (use to be 32 of them.) Offer green beer and free Corn beef and cabbage. A good time is had by all.

[BlueIrishEyes]

Grew up in Califon and loved every moment. The town has changed very little and still has all the special qualities of a small rural town. I want to buy a house there someday......

I have also lived in Princeton, North Brunswick, Lake Walkill, Newton and now Woodbridge, I want to be settled--maybe around the Mendham area.

[131 Dukes St.]

Born in Kearny lived in Harrison,Newark(Down Neck A.K.A. Ironbound),Belleville,Lyndhurst,Point Pleasant Beach,Point Pleasant Boro,Toms River,Beachwood.

[Director958]

Born in Bloomfield, and I still live there. I occasiannlly visit my relatives down in Malboro and Manalapan though.

[JerseyDevil]

Born in Bloomfield, and I still live there. I occasiannlly visit my relatives down in Malboro and Manalapan though.

Welcome Director958. I hope you'll enjoy your stay. If you have any questions or comments don't hesitate to contact me.

[Momz]

Hi. My first post here.

I was born in Pine Brook (ok, at a nearby hospital and then LIVED in Pine Brook) as a young kid. We left there and New Jersey when I was 10 years old, back just after the riots, and I've never really had the chance to go back.

I am now, of course, extremely curious about the places I used to know. Google Earth is a lovely thing - it's let me see Egger's Pond is still there (and, presumably, the toy boat that belonged to my brother that I sank there one summer!), and I can find my old house and still name the families that lived on the street back in the late 50s and early 60s.

I was living there when they were building route 80, and dynamited the mountain to put it through. It was still fields and O'Dowd's dairy properties then, though the old Dairy was vacant (we used to play there) and the cow barns were pretty much boarded up and some racehorses were being kept in the few that weren't.

I've always wondered if anyone ever renovated the house my family built there - and what they thought of all the beer cans that were stuffed into the cement blocks....

Would love to hear what's become of Pine Brook, the auction, the Milk Bar, the little red schoolhouse at the corner of Bloomfield Ave and Hook Mountain Road, if anyone has time.

[Rocki]

Momz-

I was born in Glen Ridge and lived in NJ for the first 27 years of my life. I've been gone since 1985 but visit occassionally since relatives still live there. I lived across Rt. 46 from O'Dowd's Milk Bar on the next to last street before Essex County., grew up playing and going to school with the O'dowd kids, I remember riding my bike on Route 80 during construction after the workmen went home for the day. That whole farm area on Maole Ave. was turned into Industrial buildings in the 70's. A new high school opened in 1970 in Montville so nobody in Montville Township went to Boonton HS anymore. My class of 1974 was the first to attend all 4 years in the new school. The little red school house you remember, Pine Brook School is no longer a long time ago. I went to kindergarten and Grade 1 there. The rest of my siblings went to kinder there. The graveyard still exists. The midget stock car race track is long gone, but remember listening to that every summer weekend. There is now a traffic light at the always dangerous Hook Mountain Road intersection by the Nelson Well Drillers, which are no longer there.

I still have a brother in Towaco.

I currently live on Guam (hubby in Navy) but will be moving to CA in September and will make a visit back to Pine Brook at that time. Any other questions, please ask me.

[beatman10]

until age 9. My dad was transferred to Atlanta, Ga so we lived there for 8 months. My dad realized they were "still fighting the civil war" down there so we moved back. I then lived in Roseland for 4 years, until we moved to Point Pleasant Beach for my high school years. I attended college in North Carolina
( yeah, I know, I should have gone to a Jersey college!) After I graduated, I lived in North Cape May, and now I live in Northfield, just outside of A.C. I would like to move back to the Northern Ocean County area. That was my favorite area because of the beaches there. I remember West Orange was pretty cool. My mother worked at the Edison factory, great shopping at the top of the hill and close to Newark where many of my family still lived at the time. In fact, newark was OUR city, New York may as well been on the other side of the country if it wasn't for all the TV stations saying "New York" all the time. Roseland was nice, but it seemed to be an extension of West Orange, because many of the kids I grew up with in West Orange also moved to Roseland. North Cape May was nice in the summer but dead in the winter, plus there wasn't a whole lot of decent paying jobs there. It's a pretty town, though, with the Delaware Bay right there and Wildwood close by. I just didn't understand why the area was so dominated by Pennsylvania people who seemed to hate everything north of Atlantic City. Northfield is okay, but still too dominated by Pennsylvania transplants for my tastes. If the feel that Philly is so great, then why do they move to NJ? I guess I'm still a "Bennie" after all!