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 One problem for the state, which has long lived in the shadow of
its superstar neighbor New York, is that the new MetLife Stadium,
site of the February 2 National Football League championship game,
is in an industrial area that belies New Jersey's designation as
"The Garden State."
Officials in East Rutherford, some 10 miles west of New York City,
will roll out the red carpet for an expected 400,000 visitors, with
economic activity forecast at $500 million.
"New Jersey has been fighting a negative stereotype for a long, long
time," said Michael Rockland, a professor of New Jersey history at
Rutgers University. It "was kind of the national joke there for a
while, with a reputation for corruption, being called the armpit of
America."
New Jersey is a state of contrasts. Home to the largest number of
Superfund toxic waste sites in the country, it also takes pride in
120 miles of shoreline — some of which is still recovering from the
devastation of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 — and about 15 percent of
its land is freshwater wetlands.
The state was at the forefront of the 19th century American
industrial revolution, and its major cities remain dotted with
long-abandoned warehouses and smokestacks.
It is home as well to some of America's wealthiest communities,
including the borough of Alpine, with a median home price of $4.5
million, the most expensive in the country, real estate experts say.
Many of the residents who live in New Jersey's toniest areas commute
to New York City for work, and the state has been seen as an annex
of its more famous neighbor. In fact, two sports teams that call
MetLife Stadium home are, in name, from New York — the Giants and
Jets.
East Rutherford, where the new stadium was completed in 2010, might
not put the state's best face forward.
"People coming to New Jersey for the Super Bowl are basically seeing
the ugliest part of the state," Rockland said.
SPRUCING UP THE AREA
One of the first orders of business is to ready the 82,500-seat
stadium for the game, with thousands of workers upgrading security,
building a new broadcast center and creating decorations for the two
competing teams, the NFL said.
With an expected attendance of nearly a half million, local
officials have spent months making preparations to handle crowds
moving between New York City and the stadium area.
"Every Super Bowl is different," said NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy.
"The stadiums for the last two Super Bowls, New Orleans and
Indianapolis, were in a downtown city setting. But previous Super
Bowls were held in somewhat similar situations as this year."
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As the stadium undergoes its facelift, officials are also sprucing
up the surrounding area, long dominated by a megamall that New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie once called "the ugliest damn
building in New Jersey, and maybe America."
The American Dream project, formerly called Xanadu, stands out with
its blue, white and orange rectangular facade, evoking the towers of
shipping containers at New Jersey's cargo ports.
Dogged for a decade by funding problems, it will remain vacant on
game day although Christie has supported its completion, saying it
will bring thousands of jobs.
"It's going to be an embarrassment," said Jeff Tittel, executive
director of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, which promotes
environmental conservation. "Everyone who shows up for the Super
Bowl from all over the world is going to look at that thing, scratch
their heads and try to figure out what it is."
"American Dream is under construction," said Alan Marcus, a mall
project spokesman who called the criticism "absolutely unfair."
New Jersey tourism officials said they are ready for the influx of
visitors, emphasizing that the state "has plenty to offer, from
historic sites and national parks to world-class entertainment,
resorts and gaming in Atlantic City."
But however much they polish it up, the area around the stadium will
still remind visitors of New Jersey's industrial heritage, said
Rutgers' Rockland.
"We aren't the Garden State," he said. "We might have been during
the 19th Century but we then became one of the most industrial
states in the whole country. The Garden State idea is a total
misnomer."
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; editing by Scott Malone and Gunna
Dickson)
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