LAKES
Part I: NORTHBOUND WHORE, Chapter 1
FOOTNOTES
1.
The Lenni Lenape (pronounced leh-nah-pay, despite what a good number of South Jersey residents would have you believe) once thrived in basically all of what is now New Jersey and some parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware, but they had a particularly wide presence in current SJ. As a sort of consolation for killing most of them and sending the survivors out to Oklahoma of all places, the NJ Stave Gov't likes to name lots of locations and things after them and some of their words, obviously anglicized to absolute hell, which and q.v. APPENDIX 1.1.
2.
The term international, when referring to the Atlantic City International Airport (which, incidentally, is located in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey) is overwhelmingly generous, as the term conjures up images of transatlantic, -pacific, or otherwise long excruciating journeys—the flights from here are excruciating for a different set of reasons—when in reality the only actual international flights provided were to Toronto and those were discontinued years back, so even though the airport retains the International moniker, you can only really go to Mostly Florida or Occasionally Myrtle Beach shoulder-to-shoulder with the hellish wrinkled inhabitants of the Atlantic City-Hammonton Metropolitan Area, statistically on their way to Probably Orlando or More Likely Fort Lauderdale where they flock to whenever the temperature drops to like the low 60s.
3.
From North to South, the Mainland towns directly opposite those on Absecon Island are Absecon, Pleasantville, Northfield, Linwood, and Somers Point. Linwood is far and above the most wealthy and well-kept of these little towns.
4.
The Federal Aviation Administration is obviously headquartered in DC, but the William J. Hughes Technical Center for Advanced Aerospace out in Egg Harbor Township just adjacent to ACQUIA is probably the most important FAA facility in the country, and really the only of its kind, dealing with all sorts of aviation-related research and development, the only other major FAA installation even remotely like it but much smaller exists out in Oklahoma someplace.
5.
Lake Lenape (Mays Landing, Hamilton Township [a], NJ) empties its waters into the Atlantic Ocean via the magnificent and foul-smelling Great Egg Harbor River and its similarly named Bay, comprising much of what separates the local barrier islands from the Mainland. In the old days things and places could be named arbitrarily by any man who happened to get there pen-in-hand. Great Egg Harbor was named as such because the man, pen-in-hand, had happened to have seen some birds on a beach laying eggs when he first arrived, and subsequently the surrounding lands were named Egg Harbor Township. The areas comprising what are now Brigantine, Atlantic City, Ventnor City, Margate City, Longport, parts of Absecon, Pleasantville, Northfield, Linwood, and Somers Point were once all considered part of Egg Harbor Township. Slowly over the years bits and pieces were lopped off EHT as these littler towns began to municipalize until it achieved its current grotesque appearance. West Atlantic City is a small slice of land in the marsh between Pleasantville and Atlantic City and is still considered a part of EHT despite not being in any way attached to the Township itself. This, and a collection of other small piles of mud in the Bay were never made part of these other newer settlements presumably because nobody wanted them.
6.
Resorts Casino/Hotel is the oldest Casino/Hotel in the city, and the Hard Rock is one of the newer ones [b], having taken over the buildings that were once part of the Taj Mahal, built in the late 80s whereas Resorts's oldest building is from like the 20s, and this difference is apparent in their architecture. The Hard Rock's parking garage, for example, is bigger than any one apartment complex in all Atlantic County.
7.
Which are—and not all of these are strictly islands, but more or less are viewed the same way by the public—from North to South: Island Beach, which did actually used to be an island but was connected with Squan Beach (a barrier spit, basically a peninsula but just called something different) to the North in the early 1800s effectively lengthening the spit by about twelve miles and currently contains Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking, two offshore sections of Toms River (that was cut up in a similar way to EHT) known as Dover Beaches North and South respectively, and are situated on both ends of the next Borough, Lavalette, then Seaside Park, and then the whole rest of the skinny Island Beach, which at this point is pretty much just a beach, is considered part of the Mainland Township of Berkeley; Long Beach Island which actually is an island and while the whole island used to be incorporated as Long Beach Township, there are four boroughs scattered across it which are completely separate from each other, namely Barnegat Light, Harvey Cedars, Surf City, and Beach Haven, and all of these towns are quite awful and no one should ever visit them for any reason; Little Beach is the only Barrier Island in the State that is uninhabited, and as its name suggests it is quite little; Brigantine Island quite simply is home to the city of Brigantine and pretty much nothing else; Absecon Island is home to Atlantic City, Ventnor City, Margate City, and Longport—the title of city for a couple of those and for Brigantine is up for debate; Peck's Beach is home in its entirety to Ocean City, another place that no one should ever have to visit if they can help it; Ludlam Island which is home to a chunk of the Mainland town of Upper Township called Strathmere, and Sea Isle City; Seven Mile Island which is split almost perfectly in half by the Boroughs of Avalon and Stone Harbor; Five Mile Beach which is home to the cities of North Wildwood and Wildwood, the Boroughs of West Wildwood and Wildwood crest, and a chunk of the Mainland town of Lower Township called Two Mile Beach, which used to be its own island before being joined with Five Mile Beach, which didn't change its name since there was already an island with the words Seven Mile in its name.
8.
There are roughly four distinct clusters of hotel/casinos on Absecon Island, wherein two or more Casino/Hotels are packed closely together [c] and even connected via tunnels and skyways so that the Casino/Hotel-goer need not step outdoors for any reason. The areas between these clusters are largely irrelevant to the goer and to them seem quite sad and empty.
a.
The history of Townships in New Jersey is unworthy of explanation, but they more-or-less serve as the missing link between a City and a County, and most Townships contain several distinct communities within their borders, usually referred to as Unincorporated Communities (UCs) or Census-Designated Places (C-DPs), sometimes both. The reader is warned that because of this rather esoteric system of Townships, many places in New Jersey have two names.
b.
The newest and arguably the final Casino/Hotel to be built in Atlantic City is the Formerly-Revel, opened in something like 2012, and is an absolute monster.
c.
Which at the time of writing are the North Group: Harrah's, Golden Nugget and the Borgata; the East Group: Hard Rock, Resorts, sort of Showboat, and the Formerly-Revel; and the South-Central Group, kind of an exception to the rule, as it just consists of the Tropicana, a cluster all its own.
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