And Birmingham, Alabama beats both Portland and Jersey City...not to mention being more liberal than NYC? Surveys...gotta love 'em.

While born in Jersey City, my Dad moved his family out to Long Island when I was one (and got an editorial in the Jersey Journal thanking him for leaving...he'd been active in organizing the teacher's union.) Still, we never escape our place of birth, we're asked all the time and there it is on my passport.

My granpa never left, though, so I got to visit a lot, his old tenement with the goats, chickens and pidgeons. Knocked down by now, no doubt, and replaced with condos as it's becomes a bedroom community for the young NYC workers who can't afford Manhattan.

the more people quote studies and lists, the less i believe them...

...if you want to read a truly great study, check out the washington post article yesterday that claimed LA has a higher population density than New York City.

Yea, Teddy is a lot more fun, unless you have a skirt and need a ride home...

Frank Lautenberg is a party animal too. He's looking forward to a wild time at a "Weekend at Bernie's".

Too scary. Between this and Tony Bourdain's "No Reservations" hour about New Jersey (on the Travel Channel this week) my Oregon-at-the-center-of-the-universe attitude is feeling threatened. Maybe a moonlight drive to Chappaquiddick will settle me down.

Frank: What hospital were you born in? Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital?

"I was a professional reporter on a daily newspaper there"

So there were some unprofessional reporters on that paper?

Frank: What hospital were you born in? Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital?

Jack, you posed a question I couldn't answer. And with my Mom deceased, I couldn't ask her. But I've got her papers, and, yup, there on the little birth annoucement: "Born - April 13, 1951; Weight - 7 lbs, 15 oz; Place - Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital."

Interesting. And thanks for asking. I never realized I was born in a place of such historical significance...and, no kidding, soon to be turned into condos. :-)

Were you born there as well? The card says we lived at 3 Wegman Court.

So there were some unprofessional reporters on that paper?

Heh, there were indeed.

Were you born there as well? The card says we lived at 3 Wegman Court.

Nope, St. James Hospital, Newark. But I did cover that hospital on my reporter's beat, along with the Jersey City Medical Center next door. In the '70s, those were public hospitals -- the Margaret Hague was operated by the county and the JCMC by the city, as I recall. Don't tell Mr. Sten...

There was a Wegman and a Stegman. I'll have to Googlemap the former when I get a minute.

Great memories in J.C.

Frank:

Here's where your mom brought you home to.

That's in a section of town called Greenville. You were right on the railroad tracks, on the other side of which was industrial wasteland. Now there's a nice state park there looking at the Statue of Liberty's backside, and the New Jersey Turnpike extension, which probably was just going up around the time you arrived.

I played basketball in Bayside Park once. A couple of my buds, the Kerber brothers, were from over there. Fred Kerber now covers the New Jersey Nets basketball team for The New York Post. His brother, Cubbie, taught us how to nurse a "'ball and a beer" so as to be able to drink and shoot pool all day.

Put on Springsteen's second album, and you will get the rest of the picture of how it was circa 1970.

77% of all statistics are wrong.

Here's where your mom brought you home to.
That's in a section of town called Greenville. You were right on the railroad tracks, on the other side of which was industrial wasteland.

Y'know, Jack...that's more than my folks have ever told me about where I lived in Jersey City. No photos, besides the one of me on my first birthday, sitting in my high-chair with a piece of cake, wearing mittens. The mittens, I was told, were to keep me from scratching myself bloody from my itchy rashes...wonder if that had anything to do with living across from an "industrial wasteland." :-)

Anyway, it helps explain my Dad's drive and work ethic (teacher by day, Rhinegold beer warehouseman at night) to keep the distance between our nice home in Bethpage, Long Island, and where we'd come from. (Hard work and the GI Bill and Jersey State Teacher's College.)

Helps explain, too, why the sound of trains passing through our Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood late at night, feels right to me. The wistful sound of a train whistle, calling me home...

Thanks.