If you're not a New York Times subscriber and you have a neighbor who's out of town, you might want to go over to their front lawn and steal the big package in blue plastic. In fact, you might even want to steal the Times off your neighbor's lawn if they're just a late sleeper.
That's because everybody's already talking about the Paula Span article on the front of the Jersey section -- not available at newstands until tomorrow.
Finally the New York Times comes clean: everybody at the newspaper lives in Montclair. This dirty little secret was swept under the rug for years, and the policy at the Jersey section was that you were to refer to the "M" town sparingly.
Now with today's article, comes the corollary: everybody in Montclair works for the New York Times, or is at least headed by a "media-industry dad."
Furthermore, with today's article, self-hating New Jerseyeans can finally leave therapy. Montclair isn't just racially diverse, according to Span, our suburb is flush with lesbians, Koreans and people with brogues. And (alert the media) working women:
While we're at it, let's torpedo that lingering Stepford wife image, too. It's one of the fears you hear women murmuring about when they contemplate leaving the city -- is it all bake sales and bridge clubs out there? But in these counties [six metro suburbs included], the proportion of women in the labor force is actually higher (55 to 58 percent) than in New York (52 percent).
Montclair even boasts a higher crime rate than New York (3,233 per 100,000 inhabants v. 2,183) although we fall short in violent crime.
While the Barista herself is a master of self-congratulatory "journalism," we bow our head to Span, who reports what she paid in 1985 for her "roomy old [Montclair] house... with stained-glass windows and towering oaks": $189,900. In fact, one might consider the 3,000-ish word piece the longest "for sale by owner" ad in history, except that Span doesn't reveal the current price tag.
One correction (and this isn't Span's fault), the picture of an ethnic-looking father and daughter eating Rita's ices was clearly shot on Broad Street in Bloomfield, not Montclair. Not a small point to our readers in Bloomfield or, as the cognoscenti call it, Montclair East.
"..this town has become a magnet for interracial families.."
This is hardly a new development. Montclair's reputation for interracial families was well known over over twenty years ago, which is why we moved here after we adopted our Jamaican son. Eight years ago Interrace Magazine described Montclair as "An Interracial Haven" and said "The #1 [in the United States, my note] city for interracial couples and families to live is Montclair, NJ."
As far as Montclair's diversity, African-Americans have been in Montclair is substantial numbers for generations. But, over the past two or three years, due to the increasing cost of housing, the number of African-American studnets in the public schools has decreased.
It's nice to know that the NY Times has finally noticed.