People Here are Weird (Don't You Look at Me!)

I have spent just four days here in New Jersey, and already I am experiencing some culture shock. Living here is going to take some serious readjustment on my part, and its definitely going to take some getting use to.

First, people walk around here at night and aren't out to mug someone and/or worried they might actually get mugged. The South Side of Chicago is not a post-apocalyptic nightmare world marred by some perpetual state of anarchy, but it also isn't Lincoln Park or Naperville. Security concerns are legitimate, and the exaggerated shadows of nightfall can really amplify those fears. Here, I think the sketchiest thing I saw was someone rolling down a residential at about 70mph. When I lived in Chicago, I wouldn't say that I walked around with my eyes constantly darting around and expecting to be shot or stabbed at any given corner, but I certainly grew accustomed to the fact that bad things happen in a city. That's just the way it is. Every walk at night comes with some level of risk. But that seems to disappear here.

My girlfriend and I walked down to Nassau street the last two nights, and it certainly is a bustling little avenue. It has a lot to offer, certainly, and its very quaint. But it really felt like the only center of activity vis a vis a population density. As soon as we started walking away from Nassau things got quieter. But not quieter like "Hey, your wallets gonna be mine and if you yell someone is probably only going to tell you to be quiet." There are just fewer people. Doorways down Leigh Ave were left wide open and the sounds of people settled in their homes wafted out onto the street. There's just a certain tension missing from the air.

God, I miss that tension.

But here's a huge draw back to the way people relate to space here. If you aren't on Nassau street you must be on your way somewhere else immediately. There are fewer places with storefronts and places to linger, so people move about from one center to another, disjointed from any sort of cohesion in the borough. Perhaps once the undergraduates arrive things will change, but the way a place is during the time only permanent residents are around is certainly telling.

So Princeton is really a place characterized by several centers for communal exchange and many places people live. Its a suburb without the city and slightly more people. Movement is highly dependent on either a car or a biker with some street smarts. There's very little worry of being the victim of a crime on your way home from class, but there are also no other places of interest besides your immediate points of destination.

Let me also say that roads here make no sense. I understand Princeton was laid out before the invention of cars, but you'd still expect there to be some sort of order. Instead there are roads and destinations. That's about it. I will miss having the grid system.

What I'm learning is that I actually internalized a lot of things from living in Chicago that don't necessarily translate here. I watch my back a lot when I walk at night, which probably makes me look like a crazy person. I'm also expecting most idlers to ask me, aggressively, for money for the "bus" so they can get "home."* I'm a bit of a fish out of water at this point, but I am enjoying it at the moment. Though, that's probably because classes haven't started.



*Here, bus means drugs. And home means high. Just for those of you who didn't know.