The 26-square-mile Ocean County municipality was recently named America’s safest city, after it had hovered for six years among the top five safest cities with a population of at least 75,000. The annual study by Morgan Quitno Press factors in six types of crime: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor-vehicle theft.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

Back in October, Eastampton-based humor writer Gregg Podolski wrote a column entitled “McGreevey Book: Let’s Get Past Squeamishness,” which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The premise: “Haven’t we matured to the point where we can see two boys kissing and not throw rocks like we’re back in third-grade recess?”

Seen in: Jersey Celebrities, Jersey Living

Petula Clark had it right when she sang, “The lights are much brighter there, you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares....” It was 1964, and everyone understood the allure of that one-word title, “Downtown.” It was a glamorous, skyscraping, urban beehive where “all the noise and the hurry seems to help.”

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

Musician Andrew Holtz remembers the seven miserable months he stuck it out working as an accountant at KPMG in Manhattan after graduating from Fordham University in 2003.

Seen in: Jersey Celebrities, Jersey Living

Though she would like to, Megan McCafferty won’t forget the day that Charmed Thirds—the third in her series of beloved novels about plucky young Jessica Darling—was published in April 2006.

Seen in: Jersey Celebrities, Jersey Living

Musician Andrew Holtz remembers the seven miserable months he stuck it out working as an accountant at KPMG in Manhattan after graduating from Fordham University in 2003.

Seen in: Jersey Celebrities, Jersey Living

Gregory Hines, a candidate for the title himself, once called Glover “the greatest tap dancer that ever lived.”

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

Born in 1934 as Everett LeRoy Jones, the lifelong Newarker founded the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s and gained fame for his Beat-influenced poetry and jazz criticism.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

On the air since 1979, this noncommercial Newark jazz station (88.3 FM) has become one of the city’s most influential cultural forces.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

The prolific writer, who has taught at Princeton University since 1978, is scary in more ways than one.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey