Fun with Highways: Piscataway, NJ

Today we visit another of the locales featured on our Facebook Insights, which provides geographical data about where our page receives its “likes”, etc. New York remains our top city, but some interesting other towns made the list as well, including Piscataway, New Jersey.

Piscataway is in Middlesex County in central New Jersey at the southern edge of the New York metropolitan area. The main highway running through the area is I-287, which connects to I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike to the east, and then travels north and west into northern New Jersey and then back into New York. It is also served by Highway 18, one of the frequent limited-access highways that cover this part of the state.

Unlike Saint Catherines, Ontario, which we profiled a couple of weeks ago, it is possible to draw a specific connection to Piscataway. Just south along Highway 18 is New Brunswick, which is home to the Alfa Art Gallery and the Omega Sound Fix festival from last November. If you have not read the original article from that event, I recommend following this link. The area supports an art and music scene via its proximity to Rutgers University.

Like many towns in this part of the U.S., Piscataway has a long history, dating back to the late 1600s.  It is listed as “one of the first five New Jersey settlements” (I am not sure what the significance of “first five” is).  It has morphed from a more rural community to an established suburb that has been featured in real-estate sections in the New York Times, CNN and elsewhere.

I also have read and personally experienced the area in Middlesex County as one of the highest concentrations of South-Asian Americans (aka “Indian Americans”) in the U.S. I have had relatives in and around the area for years (and I will further embarrassing them at this moment).