A visual chronicle of suburban NJ
As I’ve mentioned, for the most part, trains in this area don’t interfere much with traffic, which I find pretty impressive. In the area where I grew up, those roadblocking gates and flashing lights always came to life right when you were running late for something. But around here, that’s barely ever an issue, because of bridges like these.
(posted for Sunday Bridges.)
I mentioned that we got nearly two feet of snow a few days ago, right? Well, it is VERY sticky snow. Usually it all falls off the trees after a day of them blowin’ around, but THIS snow remains stuck after, what, three or four days now.
(And sticky snow = great packing snow, which is always a great thing!)
Er. Not much to say about this. Suns set.* Sometimes they set behind trees, and over snow-covered playsets.
Initially, I posted this on Friday, January 28. This was a mistake. It was intended for Saturday, January 29. I’m sorry for any weirdness this causes.
Posted for Skywatch Friday.
* Okay, suns don’t set. Planets revolve. Whatever.
So we had another blizzard between Wednesday and Thursday (1/26-1/27, 2011), which, according to the radio, was only one inch less than the Snowpocalypse we had on the day after Christmas, but this one passed quietly with just a couple of grumblings. Granted, my trains were running over an hour late, but that was unique to my particular branch of NJ Transit (lucky me!). Kudos to employees everywhere who made this mess very bearable.
It’s really good packing snow. I made a snow rat on my lunch break in New York City.
The photos above were taken with my iPod Nano. You didn’t know the Nano had a camera, you say? Well, it doesn’t, really, but it DOES have a video camera, and computers can take screenshots of anything. With the popularity of old junk cameras like Lomos and Polaroids, I figure it’s only a matter of time before the low-quality but honest charm of crummy digital cameras like cell phones and iPods are in back in high demand.
(Really, I’m just trying to justify the validity of an artifact-y photo taken with a less-than-awesome camera.)
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first place between New York and Murray Hill (about an hour out of NYC) on the NJ Transit Morris/Essex line (on the Gladstone branch, anyway) that actually interferes with traffic at all. From here to the City, every traffic crossing involves a bridge over everything or a tunnel under everything.
(For a more in-depth history and 19th-century rail company drama, read the Wikipedia article.)
Berkeley Heights is riiiight next to New Providence! They actually kind of nestle together. Here’s a map; New Providence is slightly northeast of Berkeley Heights (exactly in that spot that looks like it’d be good for nestlin’.)
Posted for ABC Wednesday.
Look! Churches have roofs too!
I’ve been holding off on showing you the New Providence Presbyterian Church in its entirety, because it has some noteworthy history that goes along with it, and I want to be able to write about it with as much attention as it deserves. Ergo: I’m holdin’ off for a little while.
Wellllllll, snow is still a thing here.
According to WNYC, these tiny little snowfalls we’ve been getting all count as “storms.” I’d tend to disagree about the “storm” thing, but I will admit that we’ve been in a state of icy permafrost since December 26 (2010). My shortcut to the train station has been blocked by a snowplow buildup since last week, and I would be very happy if it decided to melt thank you very much.
Also: Today is my 100th post on NPDP.
I was pretty excited to find this unexpected little footbridge on one of my explorations. (I get excited very easily.)
It involved some tricky shooting to block out the obscene paint-pen graffiti of some frustrated high-schooler on both sides.
(Posted for Sunday Bridges.)
As the crow flies, New Providence is about 8 miles from Newark International Airport, and unsurprisingly, we get some planes flying overhead. I don’t really notice them, though.
(Posted for Skywatch Friday)
