Classy

 

LOW RENT, HIGH EXPECTATIONS

BY JACKIE ATKINS
[WRITERSCLEARINGHOUSE NEWS SERVICE]
CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY

New Jersey's shore communities in Cape May County are class conscious. Ask someone their summer vacation town, and the response will likely reveal the respondent's perch on the economic social scale  and/or  that of his family's. Here's the run-down:

Ocean City has Old Guard Philadelphia professionals, to grandchildren of the doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs who settled in the this Methodist meeting ground in the 1920s.
Sea Isle, after 1962, drew heavily from the union officials and contractors who helped rebuild the place after the devastating nor'easter. Today, the island is wall to wall condo homes, staked sky high, an obvious tribute to crass consumerism and the ability of some people to rise above their station by living on credit. People there long to be considered established and those who live close to Townsend Inlet are fond of telling others they reside in Avalon which is a lot farther on the collective scale despite being just a short waterway away.

Cooler by a mile, Avalon is home to families from the inner regions of Pennsylvania, sons and daughters of Reading stockbrokers and Lancaster surgeons who now have homes on the outer edges of the Main Line while captains of major industries in the region build their mansions on the little available land left.

Camden, New Jersey



Setting Out



Philly skyline recedes

Camden skyline advances

Closer view of Campbell's Field

On a Clear Day in Camden
You Can Almost Be in Brooklyn
Camden, New Jersey
By many accounts, Camden ought to be part of Philadelphia.

Something like our 'fifth' borough, our Brooklyn -- even with a great, old bridge. New York has the Brooklyn Bridge. We have our Ben. To be sure, Camden lacks Brooklyn's zeitgeist. Instead of hipsters, this city has mobsters. Instead of Orthodox Jews, this city has Orthodox Black Muslims. As for Camden's notorious slums. Well, they would fit nicely in the Badlands of North Philly, thank you. All in all, same church. Different pew.

I got here by walking over the Ben. You can drive. Toll. You can take the PATCO subway. Fare. There's a ferry. Fare. And I suppose you can swim. Fine if you get caught. I walked. The trek took a leisurely 30 minutes. Here's the thing. I was -- like -- the only one. True, I was passed by -- from the Camden direction -- by a couple of deadbeats. They were obviously dodging the PATCO fare.

On such a good, glorious day, on the Brooklyn Bridge, the footpaths would be mobbed. In all my journey from Old City, Philly, to downtown here was about two miles. Not such a long distance -- unless you work for PATCO, it seems.

I wound up at the PATCO Transportation Center to arrange for a commuter ticket. (I have plans with Camden in my sights, you see).
'Did you come over on a paper ticket?' the clerk, a young female, asked.
'No, I walked.'
''You walked! All the way from Philly!'
'Yep, two miles isn't very much, really.'
'Shenayda,' the clerk calls out, 'this guy walked all the way from Philly.'
'What some people do,' Shenayda said.
'Do you walk in marathons? the first clerk said.
OK. It's not Brooklyn.
-- Richard Carreño