Andy Gapin

This is actually the second version of this post, I scrapped the first and started over. I had kind of gone off more about the reasons why my fiancée and I moving and how much I’m not looking forward to the process, but that’s not really want to I want talk about today–expect one of those posts in about a month. What I want to talk about is the fact that I’m leaving Highland Park and that I’m going to miss it. This is kind of an appreciation post for a great New Jersey town.

Highland Park is awesome. It’s a quiet, (very) little town with pretty much no crime, but it’s also pretty much the most convenient place I could possibly be living these days. My apartment is very close to multiple major transportation arteries in NJ. I live about a quarter mile from the road that takes us halfway to either my parents’ house or my fiancée’s parents’ house, depending on which direction we go. That same road also takes us halfway to Philly or up to 287 and towards NYC. There’s a movie theater less than a mile away which is where we see most of our movies. There’s a Wegman’s close enough to make it worth going to, but if we don’t want to go that far, there’s a ShopRite much closer and Stop and Shop even closer than that. On top of that, there’s a Rita’s just out of walking distance and the cheapest gas station in the area is just a few blocks away.

It’s a great town for walking, it really is. This is probably why the town has such an incredibly large Orthodox Jew population, it really works out for them. Within walking distance from our apartment there is a diner, a Dunkin Donuts, White Rose (if you don’t know about this, find out), a Quick Check, a great pizza place, multiple liquor stores (one of which has a great selection of beer), a Stop and Shop, our bank (it’s a small regional bank), a Rite Aid, an ice cream place, a decent sushi place, a ton of Chinese places, an amazing Greek restaurant, a so-so Thai restaurant, and multiple apartments inhabited by my friends. We also can walk to New Brunswick if we want. It’s a solid walk to get to our friends’ places or meet up anywhere in the city, but we’re big fans of walking and on a nice day, it’s great. Sometimes, we’ll just walk to New Brunswick and back for fun.

Highland Park also works out great if you’re a runner. You can do laps around the triangle or you can head on down to Donaldson Park. Either way, you can make your run as long or short as you like by going up and down streets or doing multiple laps. Being laid out like a grid means there aren’t really any dead ends so you can just go wherever. I’ve even run down to Johnson Park in Piscataway for a little change of scenery.

I’m really going to miss all of that walkability. Highland Park, as a town and a place to live, has been great to me for the last five years and I’m really going to miss it, but unfortunately, it doesn’t offer what we were looking for as far as apartments go so it’s time to say goodbye. We’re not moving far, just a few miles, but it’s enough to completely change all of that convenience.

We’ve got a little more than a month left and I plan on taking advantage of that.