N.J. has last laugh: No. 5 in livability

New Jersey, the state that spawned a thousand wise-guy bumper stickers and became the butt of a million late-night jokes, is actually a nice place to live.

The research group Morgan Quitno crunched the numbers this year and yesterday ranked New Jersey the fifth-most-livable state.

"The people we talk to say they wouldn't live anywhere else, and I have to go along with that," said Mark Moran, a Bloomfield resident and one of the editors of Weird New Jersey magazine. "Whether it grows on you or people just don't know any better, I don't know."

New Jersey has long had a tragically poor reputation, earned by corrupt politicians, homicidal mobsters (real and fictional), surreal traffic patterns (who invented the jughandle, anyway?), toxic waste, and big hair.

The state's image has been so bad that even then-acting Gov. Richard Codey took the time last year to rollick in some of the more humorous entries in his public slogan contest.

Among the favorites: "New Jersey: You got a problem with that?" and "New Jersey: Most of our elected officials have not been indicted."

Morgan Quitno, a Kansas-based publisher of statistical data, based its rankings on 44 factors, and New Jersey shined in many.

The state moved up from eighth place a year ago. New Hampshire was judged the most livable state for the third year in a row.

The study determined that New Jersey has excellent schools; an educated, wealthy population; and relatively low rates of crime and poverty.

"We don't claim to be finding the most exciting place or the best place to take a vacation," said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno. "It's just looking at very basic things. Other people can choose to look at other factors."

In other words, the things that make Jersey so Jersey didn't count against it. (Except for the toxic waste: Morgan found New Jersey had the most "hazardous waste sites on the National Priority List per 10,000 square miles.")

Moran also noted that if auto insurance and property tax rates had been considered, New Jersey's ranking would have sunk like a stone.

But in Morgan Quitno's world, livability is measured by factors such as student-teacher ratios and per-capita spending on the arts, and New Jersey excelled in both.

For Moran, there is no conflict in a state's combining livability with a tradition for the weird and absurd.

"You've got to take the good with the bad," he said. "The fact that it's such an odd and unique place... certainly makes it more livable for me."

Morgan visited the state last year and made a swing through Camden, the city his publishing company has famously labeled the most dangerous the last two years.

here is their next event.

WEIRD NJ MESSAGE 3/9/06

Next Wednesday, March 15, Weird NJ's "Editor-In-Freaks" Heather Wendt Kemp will be giving a presentation at the Senior Center on North Main Street in Boonton about her favorite subject—freaks in New Jersey! The talk starts at 2 pm and admission is free and open to the public. Why not stop by and get your freak on?

The following article about the event appeared in the Star-Ledger on Thursday, March 2.

For Boonton Talk, Sideshow Freaks Take Center Stage
By Paula Saha

Heather Wendt Kemp of Denville is a chronicler of "freaks," as they once were called -- bearded ladies, Siamese twins, the very small and the very tall -- a cast of characters for a vaudeville sideshow or old time carnival. She delved into this world about six years ago.

Call it ancestral curiosity.

Kemp's family has a long and storied history in Boonton. Her cousins are major figures in the volunteer fire department and her great grandfather wrote a popular history of Boonton. But there was this other relative, too. At the turn of the century, Frank Wendt owned a photography studio on Boonton's Main Street. Wendt was her great-grandfather's uncle, she recalled. "I think he was considered some sort of eccentric," Kemp said. "I know he didn't have a really close relationship with my great-grandfather and his side of the family. Nobody really knew much about him other than he was a photographer." Kemp actually inherited some negatives of Wendt's work, mostly local sites around Boonton. Then, over the last few years, she collected more than 30 of Wendt's "sideshow" images, and she will be giving a talk this month at the Boonton senior center for the town historical society.

Wendt apprenticed under another photographer, Charles Eisenmann of New York City, who was something of a pioneer in the photography of "sideshow freaks," Kemp said. When he left his business in New York, Wendt took over. Eventually, he moved to Boonton, where he took more traditional portraits. Boonton at the time had three theaters, Kemp said, so Vaudeville performers would come through on a regular basis, and that side of his business thrived, too. Wendt would make "cabinet cards," Kemp said. The performers would pay him to take their pictures, which would be mounted on cardboard so they could be sold on the road as souvenirs of their performances. "He photographed the famous Siamese Twins, Millie-Christine," the Carolina Siamese Twins,"Kemp said. "There is a three-legged man who's pretty famous -- Francisco Lentini."

Kemp splits her talk into different segments -- there are "actors and athletes, family acts of acrobats, knife-throwers, strong men, long-haired ladies and bearded women, fat people and thin people, giants, dwarfs" and "people with physical anomalies." The whole political-incorrectness of it all gives Kemp some trouble, she said. "These are people," she said. "A lot of them have handicaps or physical anomalies that today we don't have anymore necessarily because they can be corrected." At the same time, she said, "I think it's fascinating that it was a way for them to earn money." Kemp's talk will take place March 15 at 2 p.m. at the Senior Center on North Main Street. Admission is free and refreshments will be served.

Pennsylvania is not a fun place at all.

Let's see:

1. State Liquor Stores. My aunt drives two miles into Delaware to get a drinkable bottle of Chianti.

2. ZERO lighting on main roads. They claim its to "retain the country feel", even in North Philly.

3. When the roads get icy, they STAY icy until the spring.

4. If you live in PA for at least three months, you WILL hit a deer. The rats with antlers are EVERYWHERE at all times, not just in the rutting season like they are here in Central NJ.

5. You want garbage collection? Once a week, if you're lucky.

6. No beaches, unless you count the shores of the Delaware.

7. Much of the central part of the state is as dry as much of the bible belt. Lots of scary Deliverance types there are well.

8. The diners s-ck.

9. You have to pump your own gas, and its more expensive to boot.

10. Too much of the electorate is made up of retired steel workers and coal miners. Don't let the American flags on the porches of their shotgun houses fool you: they are paleosocialists.

PA has its finer points, and I have lots of family living there (who did the Jersey City-North Bergen-Wyckoff-Chester County, PA thing). Nevertheless, I am much happier on this side of the Delaware. Remember, General Washington crossed into NJ to get AWAY from PA on the first leg of his victory tour, not the other way around.

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