Beyond New Jersey’s bustling cities and busy turnpikes are lesser known marvels of nature and history, all within easy reach of a traveler consulting this book. Let Backroads of New Jersey guide you to the natural wonders, historic sites, and other secrets of the Garden State, from scenic lake country and bountiful farmlands to woodland forest preserves and the glistening white-sand beaches of a 127-mile Atlantic Ocean shoreline. One of the original thirteen colonies, New Jersey was the site of some of the most famous battles of the American Revolutionary War. Today you can walk in George Washington’s footsteps and revisit milestones of the Revolution at Washington Crossing State Park, the historic Morristown area, and the great Princeton Battlefield. This book’s twenty-nine backroads tours also invite you to experience nature at its most splendid, in the Meadowlands, the Delaware Water Gap, the Great Swamp, and the Pine Barrens region--the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi River. Follow the multitude of seaside routes along the boardwalks and beaches of the Jersey Shore from Sandy Hook in the north to Cape May in the south. Or turn inland and stop at a world-famous diner, buy farm-fresh Jersey tomatoes at a roadside stand, or explore the hidden corners of old, industrial cities like Paterson, Hoboken, and Newark. And don’t overlook the state’s oddities and folklore: Grovers Mill, invaded by Martians in Orson Welles’s infamous “War of the Worlds” broadcast; Flemington, where the Lindbergh kidnapping trial took place; and Leeds Point, birthplace of the mythic Jersey Devil. Whether you’re planning a day trip, looking for unusual destinations, or simply want to learn more about the region, all routes in Backroads of New Jersey will lead you to the true heart of the state.

In Backroads, New Jersey, Di Ionno leads readers off the congested interstates with their commonplace scenery to the seldom-explored secondary roads, where the real life of the state can be found. These inter-county or 500 series roads are a 6,788-mile network of mostly one-lane highways. Marked by blue-and-yellow five-sided shields bearing county names, they make up more than 20 percent of New Jersey's public roads. They are never the fastest or most direct way to get anywhere, but when you break out of the towns and hit the country, they are a pleasure to drive.

Long regarded as folklife classics, Henry Charlton Beck's books are vivid recreations of the back roads, small towns, and legends that give New Jersey its special character. Rutgers University Press is pleased to make these important books available again in newly designed editions.

Beyond New Jersey’s bustling cities and busy turnpikes are lesser known marvels of nature and history, all within easy reach of a traveler consulting this book. Let Backroads of New Jersey guide you to the natural wonders, historic sites, and other secrets of the Garden State, from scenic lake country and bountiful farmlands to woodland forest preserves and the glistening white-sand beaches of a 127-mile Atlantic Ocean shoreline. One of the original thirteen colonies, New Jersey was the site of some of the most famous battles of the American Revolutionary War. Today you can walk in George Washington’s footsteps and revisit milestones of the Revolution at Washington Crossing State Park, the historic Morristown area, and the great Princeton Battlefield. This book’s twenty-nine backroads tours also invite you to experience nature at its most splendid, in the Meadowlands, the Delaware Water Gap, the Great Swamp, and the Pine Barrens region--the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi River. Follow the multitude of seaside routes along the boardwalks and beaches of the Jersey Shore from Sandy Hook in the north to Cape May in the south. Or turn inland and stop at a world-famous diner, buy farm-fresh Jersey tomatoes at a roadside stand, or explore the hidden corners of old, industrial cities like Paterson, Hoboken, and Newark. And don’t overlook the state’s oddities and folklore: Grovers Mill, invaded by Martians in Orson Welles’s infamous “War of the Worlds” broadcast; Flemington, where the Lindbergh kidnapping trial took place; and Leeds Point, birthplace of the mythic Jersey Devil. Whether you’re planning a day trip, looking for unusual destinations, or simply want to learn more about the region, all routes in Backroads of New Jersey will lead you to the true heart of the state.

Explores haunted places, local legends, crazy characters, and unusual roadside attractions found in New Jersey.

Presented in three sections—North, Central, and South—the rides cover a variety of distances, terrain, locations, and traffic conditions, from 12- to 25-mile rambles to a 227-mile epic from northern New Jersey to Cape May.

Ask the average American anywhere in the country to answer the association question "Staten Island" and you get "Ferry" in immediate response. what is regularly billed as "America's favorite boatride"- not least because a round trip still costs an astonishing twenty-five cents- is the last public survivor of New York Harbor's once immense fleet of those doughty double-ended ferryboats. Dozens of ferryboats in a myriad of liveries crossed the harbor's waterways as recently as one generation ago Most have vanished as though they never were, leaving in their ghostly wakes only fading memories and a few gorgeously restored ferry terminals. The handsomest of these terminals, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson, is probably the one dubbed by Christopher Morley the Piazza San Lackawanna. Over and Back captures definatively nearly two centuries of ferryboating in New York Harbor, by a master narrator of the history of transportation in America. In stories, charts, maps, photographs, diagrams, route lists, fleet rosters, and in the histories of some four hundred ferryboats, Brian J. Cudahy captures the whole tale as concisely as one could hope. The transportation expert, the ferry buff, the model builder, the urban historian: each will find grist for his or her mill. The photographs capture a highly significant footnote in America's past and present; the colored illustrations preserve some of the stylish rigs in which the owners garbed their boats, despite coal soot, oil smudge, and urban grime. Fully a third of the book comprises the most complete statistical compilation that the nation's public and private archives permit. The data show, among other things, that some of the former workhorses of New York Harbor are filling utilitarian or social roles elsewhere in the United States and overseas, and that the newest boats in the harbor began life along the Gulf of Mexico and in New England.

Breathtaking tales of climbers and hunters, runners and racers, winners and losers by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. New York Times reporter John Branch’s riveting, humane pieces about ordinary people doing extraordinary things at the edges of the sporting world have won nearly every major journalism prize. Sidecountry gathers the best of Branch’s work for the first time, featuring 20 of his favorites from the more than 2,000 pieces he has published in the paper. Branch is renowned for covering the offbeat in the sporting world, from alligator hunting to wingsuit flying. Sidecountry features such classic Branch pieces, including “Snow Fall,” about downhill skiers caught in an avalanche in Washington state, and “Dawn Wall,” about rock climbers trying to scale Yosemite’s famed El Capitan. In other articles, Branch introduces people whose dedication and decency transcend their sporting lives, including a revered football coach rebuilding his tornado-devastated town in Iowa and a girls’ basketball team in Tennessee that plays on despite never winning a game. The book culminates with his moving personal pieces, including “Children of the Cube,” about the surprising drama of Rubik’s Cube competitions as seen through the eyes of Branch’s own sports-hating son, and “The Girl in the No. 8 Jersey,” about a mother killed in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting whose daughter happens to play on Branch’s daughter’s soccer team. John Branch has been hailed for writing “American portraiture at its best” (Susan Orlean) and for covering sports “the way Lyle Lovett writes country music—a fresh turn on a time-honored pleasure” (Nicholas Dawidoff). Sidecountry is the work of a master reporter at the top of his game.

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