Author: Terry Golway

Irish immigrants went from cabbage and bacon to corned beef and cabbage -New Jersey Monthly - Best of NJ

Seen in: Eat & Drink

In Your Face

February 6, 2008

Richard J. Codey speaks frankly—doesn’t he always?—about fourteen intense months as boss of the Garden State.

Seen in: Jersey Celebrities, Jersey Living

Best Downtowns

December 20, 2007

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

Forty years after the riots that ripped Newark apart, a city scarred by violence and neglect tries to make peace with its past and plant hope for its future.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

Follow the Leader

December 19, 2007

She came from nowhere to nearly capture Bill Bradley’s U.S. Senate seat in 1990, a development that helped persuade the former Princeton basketball star not to seek a fourth term in 1996. Whitman then took on Jim Florio in 1993, becoming the first woman governor in state history and defeating an incumbent—no small achievement—in the process.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

After serving as president of Princeton University, this transplanted southerner was elected governor of New Jersey in 1910. Without that step, it’s hard to imagine that he could have been elected the 28th P.O.T.U.S. two years later.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

As Newark commemorates the 40th anniversary of the catastrophic disturbances of 1967, Gibson has enjoyed a brief return to the public spotlight, and understandably so. Gibson became the city’s first African-American mayor after a bitter election battle with Hugh Addonizio in 1970. His victory did not lead to a revival of the shattered city. But it did mark a victory for the state’s African-American population.

Seen in: History, Towns & Schools

If he weren’t on this list, the legendary mayor of Jersey City and boss of Hudson County surely would have found a way, even from the great beyond, to exact retribution from the wards. Hague was the most powerful New Jersey politician during the New Deal, a man Franklin Roosevelt took care to cultivate.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey

As two-term governor (1982–1990) and then as chairman of the federal 9/11 Commission, Kean remains one of the state’s most popular political figures. As a candidate for reelection in 1985, Kean forged a diverse coalition that Republicans have been looking to replicate, without success, ever since.

Seen in: Best Of Jersey