Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Creatures people keep reporting and nobody has caught.
Jackson, NJ
A single-rail roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure themed on the Pine Barrens legend: 130 feet, an 87-degree drop and three inversions. Park admission is required, so this is a day out rather than a roadside stop.
Warren Grove, NJ
A winged Jersey Devil figure stands outside Lucille's Luncheonette along Route 539 in the Pine Barrens. The restaurant embraces local Pine Barrens folklore, making the sculpture a useful physical stop for travelers following the legend of the Leeds Devil.
Stories a place tells about itself, passed down and still repeated.
Alpine, NJ
This stone tower was built in the early twentieth century as part of an estate near the Palisades. Local legend claims the ghost of the owner's wife haunts the tower and that driving around it backward can summon her, but the structure is on private property and should only be viewed from the public road.
Bernards Township, NJ
A solitary oak in a public park has accumulated stories involving curses, unexplained warmth and supposed hangings. Historical evidence does not support many of the more sensational claims, but the tree remains one of New Jersey's best-known pieces of local supernatural folklore.
Knowlton Township, NJ
This small lake beside the famously named Shades of Death Road developed its eerie name from mist that rises from the water on cool mornings. The surrounding road has accumulated decades of murder tales, ghost stories and supernatural folklore; visitors should use the designated state-forest parking area rather than stop in traffic.
Hope Township, NJ
The Jenny Jump legend as told inside Land of Make Believe, where an old house tied to the story is preserved. Around 1748 a nine-year-old girl was cornered on a rocky height and her father shouted "Jump, Jenny, jump". Note this is inside the ticketed park, not at Jenny Jump State Forest.
Jackson, NJ
Stop on New Prospect Road, put the car in neutral, and it appears to roll uphill. The slope is an illusion — the surrounding land hides the true horizon, so a gentle descent reads as a climb — which has never once stopped anyone trying it with a bottle of water. A public road, so pull over sensibly and watch for traffic.
Titusville, NJ
Stop on Pleasant Valley Road, put the car in neutral, and it appears to roll uphill. The slope is an illusion — the surrounding land hides the true horizon, so a gentle descent reads as a climb — which has never once stopped anyone trying it with a bottle of water. A public road, so pull over sensibly and watch for traffic.
Hotels, theatres, prisons and back roads with a reputation.
Wharton, NJ
13th Hour Haunted House is a New Jersey horror complex offering multiple themed haunted houses at one location along with escape rooms and other experiences. The major walk-through haunts are seasonal, while some of the site's non-haunt attractions operate more broadly.
Passaic, NJ
Brighton Asylum is a large horror-entertainment complex themed around an abandoned institution, with elaborate haunted walkthroughs, escape rooms and special events. Its main haunted-house season is limited to selected dates, although the property hosts other horror experiences at different times of year.
Cape May, NJ
This 1879 Victorian mansion is preserved as a house museum filled with period architecture and furnishings. Cape May MAC also incorporates the estate into ghost-themed programming built around local reports and legends associated with the property.
Hope Township, NJ
The Haunted Halloween House is part of the Land of Make Believe amusement park rather than a standalone New Jersey haunted attraction. Visitors encounter Halloween-themed characters and spooky scenes as one attraction within the larger seasonal family park.
Perth Amboy, NJ
Built in the 1760s, this Georgian mansion served as the home of William Franklin, New Jersey's last royal governor and Benjamin Franklin's Loyalist son. The restored house is open for scheduled tours and has accumulated long-running reports of apparitions and unexplained activity.
Middletown Township, NJ
This eighteenth-century house overlooking Sandy Hook Bay is popularly known as the Spy House because of Revolutionary War stories attached to the property. It has also become one of the Jersey Shore's better-known haunted-house legends and now serves as a public activity and history center.
Sighting sites, crash lore and the towns that kept the file open.
West Windsor Township, NJ
A bronze monument in Van Nest Park marks the fictional Martian landing site from Orson Welles's famous 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Interpretive signs explain how the realistic program convinced some listeners that an alien invasion was actually unfolding in New Jersey.
Real events too strange to have made the textbook.
Atlantic City, NJ
First lit in 1857, Absecon Lighthouse is New Jersey's tallest lighthouse and contains a 228-step climb to the lantern room. The preserved keeper's complex provides an unusual historic counterpoint to Atlantic City's casinos and boardwalk attractions.
Brick Township, NJ
A bronze angel bends forward in grief as the central figure of Brick Township's September 11 memorial. The emotionally direct sculpture is surrounded by names and memorial elements honoring township residents lost in the attacks.
Shamong Township, NJ
This 1826 Greek Revival mansion was built during Atsion's ironmaking era in the Pine Barrens. The surrounding settlement largely disappeared, leaving the restored mansion as one of the clearest surviving structures from the old industrial village.
Washington Township, NJ
More than 40 surviving structures preserve a Pine Barrens industrial village built around ironmaking and later glass production. The grounds are open daily, with an 1852 post office, sawmill, mansion and other buildings forming a remarkably intact historic settlement.
Holmdel Township, NJ
Eero Saarinen's enormous mirrored Bell Labs building housed research that helped transform telecommunications and computing. The former laboratory has been reused as the publicly accessible Bell Works complex while retaining its vast futuristic atrium and distinctive architecture.
Jersey City, NJ
A memorial in Liberty State Park recalls the massive 1916 Black Tom explosion, when German agents sabotaged munitions stored on the New Jersey waterfront before the United States entered World War I. The blast shattered windows miles away and damaged the Statue of Liberty.
Small, specific collections run by people who care far too much.
Camden, NJ
The USS New Jersey, one of the most decorated battleships in U.S. history, is preserved as a floating museum on the Delaware River. Visitors can explore gun turrets, crew spaces, command areas and other sections of the enormous Iowa-class warship.
Atlantic City, NJ
Hidden inside Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall is an enormous pipe organ built with more than 30,000 pipes and designed to fill the gigantic auditorium without electronic amplification. Restoration work continues, and public access is mainly through scheduled recitals, tours and events.
Mount Holly, NJ
Designed by Robert Mills and opened in 1811, this stone jail remained in use for more than 150 years. Cells, corridors, graffiti and execution-related history remain inside, and the building has also developed a strong reputation in local ghost lore.
Wildwood, NJ
This seasonal museum preserves Wildwood's exuberant 1950s and 1960s motel culture through neon signs, furniture, architecture and pop-culture artifacts. Its outdoor Neon Sign Garden contains restored signs rescued from demolished or remodeled shore motels.
Trenton, NJ
The New Jersey State Museum displays a skeletal reconstruction of Dryptosaurus, a large predatory dinosaur first discovered in the state. The mount gives physical form to a dinosaur whose fossils helped shape early American paleontology.
Moorestown, NJ
A small display inside the Moorestown Library preserves the history of Samuel Leeds Allen's Flexible Flyer, one of America's most famous sled designs. Vintage sleds, photographs and manufacturing material document the locally invented winter icon.
Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Egg Harbor Township, NJ
A giant purple California Raisin figure towers outside a roadside property on Zion Road, preserving one of the strangest physical remnants of the once-ubiquitous advertising characters. The oversized fiberglass figure is best viewed from the public roadside.
Elizabeth, NJ
This enormous railroad lift bridge raises its center span hundreds of feet to allow ships through the Arthur Kill between New Jersey and Staten Island. It remains an active piece of rail infrastructure and should only be viewed from legitimate public vantage points rather than approached on the tracks.
Atlantic City, NJ
A bronze Bert Parks holds a Miss America crown overhead beside the convention-center complex, inviting visitors to stand beneath it for a mock crowning. The interactive sculpture commemorates the longtime pageant host and Atlantic City's deep Miss America history.
Franklin Township, NJ
A large fiberglass dairy cow stands as a roadside reminder of the farmland that once dominated this part of Somerset County. The oversized bovine has survived development around it and remains a quick public-roadside photo stop.
Camden, NJ
A huge polished ship propeller forms the centerpiece of Camden's World War II American Merchant Marine Memorial. The unidentified propeller sits on the waterfront within sight of Battleship New Jersey and honors merchant mariners and Navy Armed Guard sailors who died at sea.
Hainesport Township, NJ
Danish artist Thomas Dambo built this roughly 20-foot troll from recycled materials collected around a former industrial property. Big Rusty crouches beside the remains of an old structure and has become the anchor for Burlington County's expanded public Troll Trek.
