New Jersey and You: Incarcerated Together
June 30, 2008
The ever-interesting Web site Strange Maps has unearthed this bizarrely cheerful tourism map of New Jersey from the 1950s that spotlights all of the state’s prisons, workhouses and juvenile detention centers. If Pennsylvania can say “You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania,” maybe the Garden State slogan could be “You’ve got a cellmate in New Jersey”? Anybody wanna go for a picnic at Rahway — whoops, East Jersey Correctional? A more sinister note is the way each pen carries a description of the work to be done by its inmates. An inducement for new businesses, perhaps?
June 30, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Argh…now i can’t remember the name of that bar just around the corner from the Rahway Big House. It had a magnificent shuffleboard. The bartender could sometimes be found drunk in the alley.
June 30, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Great idea! I want to know the NJ prison that was full of cute guys like George Clooney in Ocean’s 11.
June 30, 2008 at 9:07 pm
The comments section to that post worked out that the map actually dated from about 1933.
July 2, 2008 at 7:58 am
Pennsylvania hasn’t used “You’ve got a friend” for over 20 years.