Description: This classic work reveals the fascinating history, iconography, and people behind the twelve-lane behemoth we call the New Jersey Turnpike. Now a special updated and expanded edition examines how the road has changed in the past thirty-five years yet still epitomizes America at its very best and very worst.
Review Quotes: "Two American Studies professors from Rutgers University here show how the New Jersey Turnpike--that 'ugly icon, ' America's 'widest and most traveled' road--has found its way into the minds, if not the hearts, of artists and drivers alike. In poet Allen Ginsberg, singer Bruce Springsteen, commuters and roadside homeowners lulled to sleep by its drone of traffic, this 12-lane asphalt monster has inspired powerful reactions, from admiration to anger. The authors consider the first asparagus patch plowed up to lay the road; the $70,000 salary [in 1989 dollars] a contemporary toll-taker can earn with hefty overtime; and the not infrequent lawlessness of the highway patrol. From the gray-flannel-suit diligence that built it, to the mixture of necessity, practicality and venality that maintains it, the New Jersey Turnpike proves to be an enthralling though unlikely subject."-- "Publisher's Weekly"