Modern day life of a teenager in New Jersey

[beyondbeing]

I'd like to know more about life in Newark or life in New Jersey in general.
Character of my story is in his late teens, so I'd appreciate any information on how a young person would spend his free time in Newark.

Basically, so far all my knowledge about this state is limited to its' portrayal in movies like Clerks, Mallrats and Garden State.

Comments

[yourlivewire]

i'm not from the newark area, but i'll do my best to give you as much info as i can. it partly depends on where in new jersey you live. clerks and mallrats are pretty accurate as far as what people do for fun or to hang out - teenagers usually hang out in the mall or at the diner and have part-time jobs that they slack off in. garden state is less accurate - a lot of that movie felt exaggerated for the sake of making an artistic movie (not saying it's not a good movie, just that it's not the most accurate

[beyondbeing]

Thank you so much!
Your answer pretty much answered all my questions, and I will definitely read that book.

If you don't mind, I'd like to ask one more thing. I've been told that in some countries people don't go to clubs until they're 21, but it's not like that where I live, everyone and their mom go out on a friday night.
So... Is partying popular there, and how would a typical party look? Is it more of a going to a club thing or to someone's place?

[yourlivewire]

yes, partying is popular here. sometimes people will go to clubs but it's easier to go to someone's place. it depends on what your character would be into and how hold they are - there are some clubs that have age limits and some all age clubs, but you're more likely to find 21 and up clubs and bars. a party at someone's place would be similar to the scene with the party in garden state - people drinking, music playing, and hanging out and talking, and occassionally playing stupid party games.

you're very welcome! the books are called sloppy firsts, second helpings, charmed thirds, and the one that just came out is called fourth comings. sloppy firsts and second helpings have more to do with new jersey life, the second two take place largely in new york.

also, it's important to note that it's illegal to pump your own gas at gas stations, so make sure that you don't write your character pumping gas unless they work at a gas station. :)

[beyondbeing]

I managed to find only the first book from the series, Sloppy Firsts. But since only the first book portrays life in NJ, I guess it would be alright.

Thanks once again, all the details were very helpful. And it always them that make the story more realistic. :)

[eveningblue]

Teenagers in Newark and teenagers in Garden State could not be more different.

You might want to go to nytimes.com and look at the news about Newark in the past week or so. Three college kids were shot to death one night last week, and the city's new mayor is struggling with a homicide rate that refuses to go down.

Newark is an urban, inner city place. It is not the suburbia of the movies you have seen.

[beyondbeing]

Thank you for your answer.

I didn't know it was that in Newark.
I was aiming to portray more of a suburban life in my story.

[klgaffney]

hmm. newark can be a rough city. unfortunately, there isn't a "general new jersey"--like most of the pre-colonial northeast coast states, the social-economic climate changes drastically over very short distances. i'm in jackson, which is basically the same old story of suburbia eating up former farmland and pinelands; on the far end of there's six flags great adventure and shopping outlets. i drive past 2 small pony farms, a bit of marshland full of canadian geese, and a hotdog stand on my 10 minute drive to work at a shopping center. three miles down the road from there, you get lakewood, which is almost entirely hasidic jew, a community lately seeing conflict due to some folks selling out to the mexican populace and issues about slum lords--much of lakewood also considered Not A Nice Place by a lot of people's standards. *shrug* it really depends on which community you're a part of

[beyondbeing]

Might I say your answer was very inspirational. :) I vividly imagined everything you'd described.

Thank you, I'll google them.
I'm planning to write about a 17-18 year old teen from a typical middle class family.
How I understood from your answer there are no big cities on that shore, and it'd be kind of challenging for me to write about a life in a small town. I might try though. :)

[klgaffney]

oh cool. glad to be of help

[klgaffney]

...y'know, i could have made life very simple if i'd just handed this to you in the first place. =D

nj.com

[lokienvy]

Newark native here

Addendum to the transportation bit.

[lokienvy]

Oh yeah. Pennsylvania (known almost exclusively as "Penn") Station is in Downtown Newark and it's a godsend. All major trains in New Jersey and New York pass through here. If you work in New York City or are a teen and wanna go somewhere to hang out other than the typical places, for less than $2 you can hop on a PATH Train to New York City. I did it all of the time, including when I worked in NYC. Lots of fun. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(Newark)

Re: Addendum to the transportation bit.

[beyondbeing]

Wow. This was seriously very informative!
Yeah, I guess I was indeed under the impression that life there is somewhat similar to one that portrayed in the movies you mentioned.
I don't know Portuguese and Spanish. :(

To be honest I chose Newark because of its' population. I myself live in a big city, so I thought it would be easier for me to write about one.
I have no idea if there's any big city in NJ with middle class (or upper middle class) burbs.
I suppose I'll have to chose some other town with lower criminal levels, with calmer life.

Re: Addendum to the transportation bit.

[lokienvy]

You can try Elizabeth. While one or two condensed areas of it are pretty high in the crime department (mostly just drug dealing in the Port Elizabeth section near the exit on I-5), it is a city but it also has its middle "burb-like" areas -- the Portugese neighborhoods, the predominately Latino neighborhoods, Jewish, black, mixture, etc. It's ethnically diverse; it's close to major highways.

Smaller than Newark but rather large/urban-like areas of Jersey to check out that have "quiet/burb-like" sections: Union, Belleville, Rahway, Linden, Edison.

Good luck! =)

[aekiy]

If it's life in Newark you're looking to find out about, you definitely need to ask specifically about Newark. Life in different parts of the state are extremely different. I come from south Jersey -- Atlantic County -- and there's a lot of farmland, cheap schools (by which I mean poorly ran) and lackadaisic attitude toward a lot of things. Newark and Trenton have high crime, high pollution and high drug use. Of course, Cape May, further south, is far different even from things in Atlantic County.

Looks like you got a couple good answers already, though.

[beyondbeing]

Yes, all the answered were indeed good, and helped me to make up my mind. :)