As long as we?re crediting the calendar?s creators, here are the rest, all frequent visitors on jclist. Writers: Joshua Parkhurst, President, JCLC; Tom Murphy, Adjunct Professor, NJCU; Randall Gabrielan, Author and Historian; John Hallanan, Commissioner, JC Historic Preservation Commission; and designer: Jeff Spangler. And yes, this year?s edition does have an agenda besides looking good from across the room. It?s that quality architecture is worth recognizing whether old or new!

Passing the days New Jersey-style

Saturday, December 15, 2007

BY MITCHELL SEIDEL
Star-Ledger Staff

How do you view New Jersey? Is it the glittering sixth borough of New York City or pastoral countryside? Is it an area steeped in history, or is it just plain weird? No matter what your thoughts on the matter, this holiday season presents a collection of photographic wall calendars to suit your fancy.

The king of New Jersey calendar people has to be Walter Choroszewski of North Branch, whose self-produced line of colorful Garden State photo books and calendars has expanded to cover the region from Maryland to New England. Of his line of 13 calendars, four have New Jersey as their subject matter: "New Jersey," "The Garden State in Bloom," "Vintage Views: New Jersey" and "NJ/B&W."

The biggest departure for Choroszewski has to be the collection of black and white archival images that he assembled. Not surprisingly, it also was the first one to be back-ordered, although you may be lucky enough to find copies at your local stationery or book store. The work includes vintage images of Miss America contestants in Atlantic City, the Great Falls in Paterson and the grandstands at Newark's Ruppert Stadium.

All of the New Jersey calendars cost $12.99 and can be ordered directly from Choroszewski. For more information call (908) 369-3777, email info@aestheticpress.com, write to Aesthetic Press, P.O. Box 5306, North Branch, N.J. 08876-1303, or go to www.aestheticpress.com.

Looking at Pat McCarthy's color "Jersey Shorescapes" calendar, you'd wonder if anyone lived down the Shore. The Wall Township resident captures the serenity of tourist-less beaches, usually at twilight. There are no boardwalks, pizza places, skee-ball arcades, banner-towing airplanes or umbrellas. The lighting is subtle, the colors are rich. To view one of McCarthy's images is be the only one walking along the quiet sand.

McCarthy also produces a line of note cards, computer screen savers and fine art prints of his images, all with a similar feeling of solitude. The calendars are $12 each and $10 in multiples. For more information go to www.jerseyshorescapes.com or call (732) 280-9736.

"The New Jersey City," featuring photographs by Leon Yost as well as archival images, continues the series of calendars published by the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy that bridge the gap between old and new. This year's edition, with its emphasis on 20th century architecture of recent vintage, shows how even buildings from the 1950s can have an historic pedigree. Multiple images are used for every month, usually featuring primary shots of contemporary scenes and smaller secondary ones around the days of the month and as light-toned sepia backgrounds.

Each month also features a panel of informative text by an architectural expert to help explain the importance of a particular location and structures, some far less aesthetically pleasing than others. For example, flowery text by landmarks conservancy founder and past president John Gomez burbles with enthusiasm over the cold "Postwar Modern" architecture of the Hudson County Administration Building and Greenville Hospital while describing "an air of fall-out shelter solidarity and indefatigability."

The calendar costs $12.99 and is available at Imagine atrium, 528 Jersey Ave., Jersey City. For mail order instructions, contact the conservancy at jclccalendar@gmail.com.

Do your out-of-state friends and relatives consider the place you live, well, weird? They're not alone, and Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, the duo who edit and publish "Weird N.J.," that semi-annual magazine compendium of oddities along the Turnpike, have a calendar for them. The $11.95 calendar is full of bizarro photographs and factual tidbits.

Some of the photographs will be familiar to avid readers of the magazine. June features a decrepit classroom from Lambertville High School that includes a photorealistic black and white mural of some long-forgotten class. At the bottom of the month are selections from a running joke in the magazine: items of food that seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to the shape of New Jersey.

The days all list various events such as Ray Liotta's birthday (Dec. 18, 1955, in Newark), the day Craig "Mugsy" Calam from The Uncle Floyd show died (Oct. 25, 2005) and the day a UFO was photographed in Mahwah (Jan. 17, 1967).

The real winner for photographic weirdness has to be December's installment, an image of what looks like a finely tooled wallet that carries the inscription: "This Book is made of the skin of Antoine LeBlanc, hung and tanned at Morristown, 1836."

To order the calendar, go to www.weirdnj.com or write to Weird N.J., P.O. Box 1346, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.


Mitchell Seidel may be reached at mseidel@starledger.com or at (973) 392-1780.
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