How many states, besides maybe Florida and California, could really do this book and make it interesting? New JerseyÆs lush and occasionally bizarre landscape is perfect, and the long history of resort and recreation in the state provides a rich heap of images.
~Star-Ledger
What do Wild West City and WashingtonÆs Headquarters have in common? Both are New Jersey icons. And now, thanks to a New Jerseyana journalist, postcards depicting NetcongÆs American West theme park and the Morristown mansion that Theodosia Ford donated to the Revolution, as well as hundreds of other images, are bound within the 250 pages of Greetings from New Jersey: A Postcard Tour of the Garden State. . . . PikeÆs brief text and extended captions accompany an exquisite collection of postcards chronicling the stateÆs 19th and 20th centuries, many of them . . . reproduced in the dreamy pastels of hand-painted photographs.
~New York Times
Helen Chantal PikeÆs book is neither fruit nor vegetable, but pure eye candy.
~New York Times
In the book, the reader will find a heartbreaking number of scenes and places that have vanished over the years.
~Star Ledger
Amusement parks, shipwrecks, diners, an idyllic 1952 view of the Garden State Parkway, and women decked out as lobsters for a 1940s-era Miss America parade in Atlantic Cityùthese are the sights proudly captured in vintage New Jersey postcards. Helen-Chantal Pike . . . has a special obsession for these slices of Jerseyana and now counts some 2,000 New Jersey cards in her collection, 381 of which appear in [her book].
~Rutgers Magazine
This 256-page soft-cover book is saturated with full-cover reproductions of postcards ranging from a 1900 hand-colored print of field flowers to a 1999 photo of Tillie on the facade of the Palace Amusements building in Asbury Park.
~Atlanticville; Tri-Town News; Hub
The book is great! There are 381 cards in full color, clear and sharp, pictured on 250 pages with a very thorough index. . . . You will want several copies for yourself and friends. The book belongs in all libraries.
~Washington Crossing Card Collectors Club Newsletter
To flip through the pages is to take a trip back in time, a bone-rattling ride down country lanes rutted by horse and wagons, through the doors of opulent Victorian mansions or up the brick steps of a gritty three-story walk-up. . . . This is more than just a fun look at how New Jersey was pictured over the years. Teachers might want to have a look at this book as an enjoyable way to help educate their students about the history of New Jersey.
~Home News Tribune
Surprises are revealed around every turn on a vintage postcard ætourÆ through the Garden State. Perhaps one of the most astonishing is finding sultry, sexy 1950s pin-up Bettie Page gracing a postcard for Ocean City. Good heavens, how did that one get by the town fathers of this alcohol-free, family-friendly town, once like Ocean Grove, a Methodist seashore retreat?
~Princeton Packet
