The New Jersey-NYC relationship

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by pj3000

When I first heard about it, it was hard for me to comprehend that there is a subset of NYers who willingly commute daily via bus from the Poconos to Manhattan.

Like... catching the bus between 4-5 AM so they can get to work on time, and then not getting back home until 7-8 PM. This is often the trade-off to live in a shitty, vinyl house in a crappy part of PA.

Talk about a living hell of one's own choosing.

We have a grocery store clerk in our neighborhood who does this daily bus commute. NYC supermarkets are unionized, with generous pensions/healthcare, so he's apparently doing it for the pension/healthcare. Sounds insane, though.

That ticky-tack sprawl in NE PA seems horrible. Americans will apparently endure any indignity for a cheap, big house. He could rent within walking distance of his workplace, but nope, he'd rather have a 2-3 hour commute, each way.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

A friend of mine did this for a couple of years to save money by living with his parents.

I kinda get that... but it would still suck obviously. If the daily bus fare wasn't too bad, you could obviously cut down on expenses by living with the parents.

I still think that two years of doing that would age me to the point that it just wouldn't be worth it in the long run.

And most people who have never lived in NYC just can't understand what a daily rigor this is. The process of getting to work and back home is not like it is in other cities... the stresses and obstacles put in your way can be grueling... a week of it and most people would quit.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

Is there a North Jersey accent?

It's the same as the NY accent. And close to Philly, you start to hear the Philly accent.

There is no NJ accent, despite the New Joisey stereotype. Maybe, way in the south, you get a hint of drawl? At least that rural MD/DE drawl?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I kinda get that... but it would still suck obviously. If the daily bus fare wasn't too bad, you could obviously cut down on expenses by living with the parents.

I still think that two years of doing that would age me to the point that it just wouldn't be worth it in the long run.

And most people who have never lived in NYC just can't understand what a daily rigor this is. The process of getting to work and back home is not like it is in other cities... the stresses and obstacles put in your way can be grueling... a week of it and most people would quit.

Yeah, I definitely think it is bat shit crazy, but at least you get to sleep during the commute (unless you drive). I actually would rather do a commute that long by public transit than by driving myself.

Also, now that the dust has somewhat settled, I think it is the super commuters that embraced remote work the most. I doubt many will ever return to doing those NYC to PA on a daily basis.

[Docere]

That's what I figured, it's really the same accent. Probably levels off in Central Jersey though, just as it does when you travel north into the Hudson Valley (of course a lot of people living further afield were born in NYC and bring their accents with them).

And NYC accents are to a large degree more ethnic-based than neighborhood or borough-based (in spite of what this video says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hrA9-6o4tI)

For instance Italian Americans from Brooklyn and Nutley have the same ethnolect.

A Jewish person from Brooklyn talks more like a Jewish person who grew up in the Bronx than a Brooklyn Italian.

The "Archie Bunker" Irish accent (if still around) would have been heard in Jersey City as well as in NYC.

And so on.

[eschaton]

Always find it funny that as small child, when we still lived in Bucks County PA, my father commuted daily for awhile to NYC. He drove across the river to Trenton, and took the train in, every single day.

Until his job was relocated to Greenwich. Then he had to bite the bullet and we moved to Fairfield County.

Even having grown up in the area, I can't imagine commutes like that. I'm thankful that in my young adulthood I never had to commute more than 30 minutes, and when I worked in New Haven I could just bike in every day.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

We have a grocery store clerk in our neighborhood who does this daily bus commute. NYC supermarkets are unionized, with generous pensions/healthcare, so he's apparently doing it for the pension/healthcare. Sounds insane, though.

That ticky-tack sprawl in NE PA seems horrible. Americans will apparently endure any indignity for a cheap, big house. He could rent within walking distance of his workplace, but nope, he'd rather have a 2-3 hour commute, each way.

Yeah, a friend of mine spent the first 14 years of his life in Bushwick, living in a beautiful brick/brownstone, which his parents owned with his aunt. Understandably, the neighborhood was rough then, and his parents didn't wanted a "better life".

They sold it for basically nothing and bought a 2000 sqft, 4-bedroom vinyl piece of junk in the Poconos. His father commuted everyday and he had to spend his high school years as an Afro-Caribbean kid in the junky Pocono sprawl, after living his entire childhood in Brooklyn. He told me the brownstone recently sold for almost $2M

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, a friend of mine spent the first 14 years of his life in Bushwick, living in a beautiful brick/brownstone, which his parents owned with his aunt. Understandably, the neighborhood was rough then, and his parents didn't wanted a "better life".

They sold it for basically nothing and bought a 2000 sqft, 4-bedroom vinyl piece of junk in the Poconos. His father commuted everyday and he had to spend his high school years as an Afro-Caribbean kid in the junky Poconos, after living his entire childhood in Brooklyn. He told me the brownstone recently sold for almost $2M

It's interesting how diverse those towns are in the Poconos. I suspect that's why Pike County votes Democratic in what would otherwise likely be solid Trump country. Driving through some of the towns, the demographics look more like an NYC borough than what you'd expect a rural PA mountain town to look like.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

It's interesting how diverse those towns are in the Poconos. I suspect that's why Pike County votes Democratic in what would otherwise likely be solid Trump country. Driving through some of the towns, the demographic looks more like an NYC borough than what you'd expect a rural PA mountain town to look like lol.

NYC is massively changing eastern PA in general, from Scranton down to Lancaster. Particularly migration of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics to the smaller cities.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, a friend of mine spent the first 14 years of his life in Bushwick, living in a beautiful brick/brownstone, which his parents owned with his aunt. Understandably, the neighborhood was rough then, and his parents didn't wanted a "better life".

They sold it for basically nothing and bought a 2000 sqft, 4-bedroom vinyl piece of junk in the Poconos. His father commuted everyday and he had to spend his high school years as an Afro-Caribbean kid in the junky Pocono sprawl, after living his entire childhood in Brooklyn. He told me the brownstone recently sold for almost $2M

Yeah, I've heard stories like this. They should have held on a few more years in Bushwick. Their vinyl POS in NE PA probably only appreciated by like 50k.

Lots of very working class families will move to NE PA for a "better life". Italians, Dominicans, West Indians. They see the woods and equate that with good schools, peaceful living, etc. NE PA actually has piss-poor schools and is fairly high crime, but it isn't the perception. It's a weird place. I think the buyers think they're getting a dirt-cheap Westchester but they're getting a wooded semi-hood.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

It's interesting how diverse those towns are in the Poconos. I suspect that's why Pike County votes Democratic in what would otherwise likely be solid Trump country. Driving through some of the towns, the demographics look more like an NYC borough than what you'd expect a rural PA mountain town to look like.

Definitely. This area was all white and pretty conservative until it became an extension of the NY metro. When my friend moved there in the late 90s, his Black Dominican family were pioneers.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

NYC is massively changing eastern PA in general, from Scranton down to Lancaster. Particularly migration of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics to the smaller cities.

There's also now a just-established Orthodox Jewish enclave outside Wilkes Barre. I expect to hear controversy as they expand. It's supposed to be a Crown Heights West, analogous to Kiryas Joel as a Williamsburg North.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yeah, I've heard stories like this. They should have held on a few more years in Bushwick. Their vinyl POS in NE PA probably only appreciated by like 50k.

Lots of very working class families will move to NE PA for a "better life". Italians, Dominicans, West Indians. They see the woods and equate that with good schools, peaceful living, etc. NE PA actually has piss-poor schools and is fairly high crime, but it isn't the perception. It's a weird place. I think the buyers think they're getting a dirt-cheap Westchester but they're getting a wooded semi-hood.

And also pretty terrible traffic.

Originally Posted by eschaton

NYC is massively changing eastern PA in general, from Scranton down to Lancaster. Particularly migration of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics to the smaller cities.

Reading and Allentown have added over 20k in population over the past 20 years directly due to this.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

There's also now a just-established Orthodox Jewish enclave outside Wilkes Barre. I expect to hear controversy as they expand. It's supposed to be a Crown Heights West, analogous to Kiryas Joel as a Williamsburg North.

There's also a sizable number of Russians and Ukrainians flowing into Pike County from Brooklyn.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

There's also now a just-established Orthodox Jewish enclave outside Wilkes Barre. I expect to hear controversy as they expand. It's supposed to be a Crown Heights West, analogous to Kiryas Joel as a Williamsburg North.

Chabad is the least insular/reactionary of the Hasidic groups, IIRC, so I doubt there will be as much friction as there has been between Satmar and the locals.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Chabad is the least insular/reactionary of the Hasidic groups, IIRC, so I doubt there will be as much friction as there has been between Satmar and the locals.

Yeah, that's probably true. Crown Heights Orthodox are more modern and less insular than Borough Park and especially Williamsburg. This enclave is supposedly a Crown Heights satellite.

Crown Heights Orthodox even have a hipster subculture. There are some kosher Crown Heights restaurants/services north of Eastern Parkway that serve both the Orthodox and the stereotypical Brooklyn hipster crowd. That would never happen in Borough Park or South Williamsburg.

[Docere]

Chabad does a lot of outreach to secular and nonorthodox Jews and tries to "convert" them to Orthodoxy. So you'll find Chabad all over the place.

[Docere]

A news feature on NJ accents. Linguists basically say there's a North-South split (or NYC vs Philly). But some say the North Jersey accent is still distinctive within the NYC region:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOG7HYf81cw

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Docere

A news feature on NJ accents. Linguists basically say there's a North-South split (or NYC vs Philly). But some say the North Jersey accent is still distinctive within the NYC region:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOG7HYf81cw

This map implies there are five different accents within New Jersey, though the big split is of course North/South.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by pj3000

When I first heard about it, it was hard for me to comprehend that there is a subset of NYers who willingly commute daily via bus from the Poconos to Manhattan.

Like... catching the bus between 4-5 AM so they can get to work on time, and then not getting back home until 7-8 PM. This is often the trade-off to live in a shitty, vinyl house in a crappy part of PA.

Talk about a living hell of one's own choosing.

three people i knew did it -- and for years!

and thru the city to eastern brooklyn job sites!

it was incredible.

they said they would pull over and sleep sometimes.

and the very worst of it is when they got home out there they had to drive back up completely dark, icy and winding mountain roads where one slip or bad turn and you are a goner off a cliff.