Why I Moved To New Jersey

​A story by Isabella Lipuma. Blogger and Bergen Review Media contributor.

Photography by Isabella Lipuma

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the native New Yorkers who slander New Jersey.
It’s the 314s and the 574s who would sooner fly to Boulder than cross any “bridge or tunnel” (unless of course that bridge or tunnel magically transports them to Southampton). Remember that Sopranos scene where the Morgan Stanley bro calls to Christopher Moltisanti, “Hey, Bridge and Tunnel Boy, Chill Out!” and Chris responds with a few sweet, threatening nothings that send Morgan Stanley into a tailspin? Wouldn’t you rather be the gun toting, zoot suit sporting Chris than a saccharine blond? I certainly would.  ​

I grew up in downtown Philly, a parochial town (really a “city,” but the definition is loose) that rests on the laurels of its colonialism. I was then drawn to Fordham University in the Bronx for college, summoned almost magnetically to Arthur Avenue’s Italianate trattorias and bakeries. Following Fordham, I endured a short stint in Brooklyn, hipster, gentrified Brooklyn, whose curated dive bars, medi clubs, and moon circles captured my heart and wallet. After a prolonged yet clarifying return to my childhood home (and headspace), I moved to Hoboken, 
New Jersey.  Relocating to the Garden State was a long time coming. ​​I spent my childhood pressing my nose against the glass cake marquees at Greek diners in South Jersey. I got my ears pierced at the Piercing Pagoda in the Echelon Mall. Throughout high school and college, I PATCO-ed and NJ Transit-ed my way to boyfriends, Black Sabbath,  and Blink-182. I got a Thunder Road tattoo. I spent summer weekends drinking cranberry vodkas and playing Baccarat with my grandparents at Caesar’s in Atlantic City.  I won a plethora of Styrofoam-filled stuffed animals in Point Pleasant and watched the tram car in Wildwood. 

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​In many ways, moving to North Jersey felt perfectly natural—that stubborn melancholia followed me West, but it also rendered my world quite literally Kodachrome (did you know that Paul Simon was born in Newark?). 

​The New York City skyline glows like a Miyazaki film from the Jersey side, with the sky regularly splintering into shades of tangerine. “This view kicks Greenpoint’s ass!” I told a Brooklynite from the Jersey City waterfront, gesticulating towards the sunset. I like New York, but I love viewing it from across that thin sliver of Hudson. 
And while Hoboken is a little Stepford for my tastes, I fell easily into the Garden State’s duvet of Bruce Springsteen, Taylor ham, and ultraviolet radiation. I spend evenings exercising, tanning, and doing laundry (here’s looking at you, Pauly D), and weekends eating coal fired pizza and gossiping with my cousins in Bergen County or going “down the shore.”  
But if I were to be perfectly honest, it’s not the technicolor views or the Jersey Shore or even Italian food that makes New Jersey my Waterloo. 

It was somewhere between The W hotel in Hoboken and a sordid Seaside Heights motel that I first fell in love. And while I likely won’t recover the feelings of that particular amour fou, settling into New Jersey feels a little bit like coming home.

​This article was contributed by Isabella Lipuma, click here to visit her blog