Physical Therpy For Injuries and Pain in East Brunswick, NJ

My mall is dead.

Brunswick Square Mall, a fixture on Route 18 in East Brunswick for more than 50 years — and a gleaming, bizarrely significant cornerstone of my suburban Jersey existence — closed for good this weekend.

Construction has already begun on its replacement: an open-air retail, recreation, and medical complex. Some of the stores are moving over, but the mall as generations of Central Jerseyans knew it officially shuttered Saturday.

The closure has left me bereft and reeling, humming Taylor Swift’s ”How Did it End?“ I stand upon the banks of the Raritan River, a black veil shrouding my tears as I forlornly toss rose petals into the churn, one for Waldenbooks, another for Bun ‘n’ Burger.

OK, fine, maybe I’m being dramatic. But a native East Brunswicker, I really am sad.

I now understand all the nostalgic social media posts from past years, when other New Jerseyans’ beloved malls were lost to the big redevelopment zone in the sky.

It’s no secret malls are dying a slow death. Shopping habits have changed. Everything’s online now. Malls in Livingston, Eatontown, Moorestown, and Voorhees are all being revamped or on their last legs, too.

Brunswick Square, one of the state’s oldest malls, has been sputtering for years, with familiar stores gradually disappearing, temporary replacements taking over, and empty units by the score. I watched a Radio Shack turn into a gym, Spencer’s Gifts become a pop-up bakery.

It’s a strange grief, almost silly. I know nostalgia is a dangerous drug. I know people can idealize the past. I know the new place could be cool, and add new jobs. I know there are many more important things in 2026 than the horror of a fallen shopping center. I’ve experienced real loss in life and will again.

But New Jersey is a state where, for better or worse, we cling to what we care about, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to the rest of the country. And malls are part of our distinct DNA, something we take much too seriously. Everyone has their mall.

I’m 42, a product of the ‘80s and ‘90s. And to those of us who grew up in East Brunswick and nearby, Brunswick Square was our cultural command post, our community center — even if it was objectively not the grandest mall around.

After all, it was only one story tall. It didn’t have a food court. Menlo Park and Woodbridge Center were larger and earned all the glory with their fancy playgrounds and carousels.

But at its height, our little mall was a memory-maker. My parents threw birthday parties for my brother Brian and me at York Steak House and Farrell’s ice cream parlor. We nabbed a slew of Starting Lineup sports figurines from KB Toys.

I bought my first CD at Camelot Music in August 1993: Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams.” Brian and I bought hundreds and hundreds more at that wonderful shop, where they displayed the Billboard charts just above the cassette singles. I felt like an extra in “High Fidelity,” ready to be screamed at by Jack Black.

If Camelot didn’t have a copy of the new Oasis record or “Good Will Hunting” on DVD, we’d simply stroll to other side of the mall to see if Sam Goody or Suncoast Video had them instead. We were middle-class royals, spoiled by the abundance.

I ate hundreds of times at the way-too-big Roy Rogers, which loomed beside McCrory’s five and dime — yes, a five and dime. I scarfed countless pretzels at Hot Sam’s, a place so good its demise a few decades ago still haunts and maddens me.

I worked my first few jobs at American Eagle, Aeropostale, Barnes & Noble, and Mega Movies.

It was a place to go on Friday nights. To bring dates, to hang with friends, to waste time, back when there was time to be wasted.

My wife, Lindsay, said for its small size, Brunswick Square had everything you needed in one place. Even if you knew the stores by heart, you could still be surprised by what you’d find. There was a thrill to in-person browsing that can’t be replicated by internet shopping, no matter the convenience. One of my first dates with Lindsay involved her helping me find a new pair of dress shoes at Macy’s. Can’t do that on Amazon.

As I still live in the area, Brunswick Square remained the center of the universe to the bitter end. I took each of my kids — Everly and Carter — just weeks after they were born and snapped photos of them in their strollers to commemorate their first trip to our mall.

Yes, I’m a little weird. Yes, I’m old. But I’ve lived long enough to know you shouldn’t forget the past while looking toward the future.

That’s how I felt this week as I walked around Brunswick Square in its final days. I was mournful as I saw the boarded-up windows and handwritten goodbye signs. I remembered where Bun N Burger restaurant used to be. I recalled childhood trips down the slide that used to sit inside The Children’s Place clothing store.

Lindsay and I took the kids one last time to say goodbye. I posted two videos on TikTok about it. They got hundreds of comments that fell into two categories: “Good riddance” (relax, cynics) and “what a shame.” Perhaps I’m not alone.

Some of Brunswick Square’s anchor stores will stay open during construction and eventually transfer to the overhauled site — Macy’s, JCPenney, B&N, the movie theater. That’s comforting, even though the outdoor setup won’t do much for people who used the mall for their winter walking exercise. They’ll have to schlep down to Bell Works.

I was similarly disheartened when my favorite record store, Vintage Vinyl in Fords, closed five years ago. I understood its demise, but I felt its loss in my core — a building I never lived in but sort of lived in me.

I guess this is middle age, huh? Memories burst and decay. We experience the inevitable if not necessary cycle of change.

But change is hard. And right now, I just miss my mall.

Community members can bring in items in need of repair to be fixed on the spot thanks to the help of handy volunteers.

The East Brunswick Public Library and the East Brunswick Sustainability Task Force want to help you keep still usable items out of landfills. They are holding their third Repair Café at the library (2 Jean Walling Civic Center Drive) on Sunday, January 25 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The Repair Café will be held in the library meeting rooms.

A Repair Café is a community-based initiative to promote repairing household items instead of throwing them out. Community members can bring in items in need of repair to be fixed on the spot thanks to the help of handy volunteers.

For this session of Repair Café, you can bring clothing/textiles, jewelry, knit & crocheted items, soft toys, lamps, and smartphone & laptop software (no hardware) issues. Examples of repairs can be pants with a tear in the knee, broken links on necklaces, bracelets that are coming undone, a lamp socket replacement, or issues updating an app.

No appointment is required. For faster service, if you know what part you need for the repair, please bring it. There is a limit of two repairs per person.

There is no fee for repairs made. If you are able, please donate a future-dated non-perishable food item in original packaging. These donations will be donated to the Aldersgate Community Outreach Food Pantry.

Additional information about the Repair Café online at www.friendsebec.com. Repair Cafes are being held internationally; to learn more go to www.repaircafe.org/en.

This event is co-hosted by the East Brunswick Sustainability Task Force and the Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission.

Raising children may help your brain stay young.

A study of almost 38,000 adults finds that the more kids they had, the more synchronized the activity between certain brain regions became. The strongest association between the number of children and functional connectivity turned up in a brain network believed to aid in inferring others’ thoughts, researchers report in the March 4 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Coordinated activity within this network typically decreases with age, suggesting that child-rearing — which involves learning new skills — may provide long-lasting protection against brain aging.

“It’s very similar for males and females, so it’s not that pregnancy effect; it’s really a parenting effect,” says cognitive neuroscientist Edwina Orchard of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Past brain-imaging research on parents often focused on how pregnancy changes the brain. But limiting child-rearing research to biological phenomena can overlook the environmental influences experienced by parents of all sexes.

While at Yale University, Orchard and her colleagues examined functional MRI scans of nearly 20,000 female and 18,000 male individuals who were middle-aged and older, using data from the U.K. Biobank database. As the number of kids parented went up, people of both sexes showed greater functional connectivity in the somatomotor network compared to those with fewer or no children. This network helps individuals interpret other people’s behaviors and figure out their wants and needs — an important part of caregiving, Orchard says.

Parenthood may shift brain region coordination in the opposite direction of age-related decline by providing a complex and novel environment that lasts for decades, Orchard says. But raising kids is just one way to introduce complexity and novelty, she notes. Complicated jobs, higher education and learning a foreign language can also enrich the brain.

The new study, however, cannot establish that raising kids caused the observed differences in brain activity. Other factors that influence the number of children, such as virility and societal norms surrounding parenthood, may also play a role.

Still, the results help flip the narrative about parenthood’s effect on the brain. “There’s a social rhetoric about parenthood being bad for the brain — this idea of ‘baby brain’ or ‘mommy brain,’” Orchard says. But “the cognitive challenges related to early parenthood, sustained across the life span, might actually be resulting in a brain that is more resilient.”

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Citations

E.R. Orchard et al. Protective role of parenthood on age-related brain function in mid- to late-life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 122, March 4, 2025, e2411245122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2411245122.

A single-family home that sold for $1.63 million tops the list of the most expensive residential real estate sales in East Brunswick in the past week.

Over the past week, a total of nine residential real estate sales were registered in the area, with an average price of $790,333. The average price per square foot was $393.

The prices in the list below include real estate sales where the title was recorded during the week of Dec. 22 even if the property sold earlier.

9. $525K, single-family home at 20 Morton Court

A 1,609-square-foot single-family home at 20 Morton Court in East Brunswick has been sold. The total purchase price was $525,000, $326 per square foot. The home was built in 1984. The deal was closed on Dec. 2, 2025.

8. $525K, single-family home at 8 Princeton Court

The sale of the single-family residence at 8 Princeton Court in East Brunswick has been finalized. The price was $525,000. The home was built in 1950 and has a living area of 1,300 square feet. The price per square foot ended up at $404. The transaction was completed on Dec. 2, 2025.

7. $529K, single-family home at 23 Serviss Ave.

A sale has been finalized for the single-family house at 23 Serviss Ave. in East Brunswick. The price was $529,000. The house was built in 1950 and the living area totals 1,328 square feet. The price per square foot ended up at $398. The deal was finalized on Dec. 1, 2025.

6. $565K, single-family home at 4 Branco Place

The single-family house at 4 Branco Place in East Brunswick has new owners. The price was $565,000. The home was built in 1952 and has a living area of 1,850 square feet. The price per square foot ended up at $305. The transaction was completed on Dec. 1, 2025.

5. $594K, single-family home at 6 Donna Street

A 1,165-square-foot single-family residence at 6 Donna Street in East Brunswick has been sold. The total purchase price was $594,000, $510 per square foot. The home was built in 1951. The deal was finalized on Dec. 3, 2025.

4. $875K, single-family home at 20 Buffalo Run

A sale has been finalized for the single-family home at 20 Buffalo Run in East Brunswick. The price was $875,000. The house was built in 1985 and the living area totals 3,388 square feet. The price per square foot ended up at $258. The deal was closed on Dec. 2, 2025.

3. $880K, single-family home at 19 Hershey Road

A 2,497-square-foot single-family home at 19 Hershey Road in East Brunswick has been sold. The total purchase price was $880,000, $352 per square foot. The home was built in 1971. The transaction was completed on Dec. 2, 2025.

2. $995K, single-family home at 33 Oakcrest Drive

A 2,634-square-foot single-family residence at 33 Oakcrest Drive in East Brunswick has been sold. The total purchase price was $995,000, $378 per square foot. The home was built in 1975. The deal was closed on Dec. 2, 2025.

1. $1.63 million, single-family home at 23 Quaker Drive

The single-family house at 23 Quaker Drive in East Brunswick has new owners. The price was $1,625,000. The home was built in 1973 and has a living area of 2,666 square feet. The price per square foot ended up at $610. The deal was finalized on Dec. 5, 2025.

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — East Brunswick joined communities across the globe on December 21 as millions of people participated in World Meditation Day, a worldwide observance marked by a large-scale guided meditation led by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of The Art of Living. The international event, livestreamed to participants in dozens of countries, focused on the role of meditation in supporting mental well-being, inner peace, and social harmony.

The synchronized meditation brought together people of all ages, backgrounds, and professions, many joining from their homes while others participated in group settings. Organizers described the gathering as a shared moment of stillness and reflection, emphasizing the idea that personal calm and emotional resilience can contribute to stronger, more connected communities.

During the livestream, Gurudev addressed participants about the increasing pressures of modern life and the growing need for practical tools to manage stress. He spoke about meditation as an accessible practice that can help improve clarity, emotional balance, and compassion, with benefits that extend beyond individuals to families, workplaces, and society as a whole.

The global observance was accompanied by significant civic recognition. More than 50 proclamations were issued by local governments and public officials across the United States and other regions, encouraging residents to observe World Meditation Day and reflect on mental health and well-being.

Among those was an official proclamation from the Township of East Brunswick, signed by Mayor Brad J. Cohen, formally declaring December 21, 2025, as World Meditation Day in the community. The proclamation highlighted the importance of mental health and inner peace as foundations for a resilient and compassionate township and invited residents of all backgrounds and beliefs to pause and take part in the global meditation.

At the national level, U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi read a proclamation recognizing December 21 as World Meditation Day. His remarks acknowledged meditation as a practice that can help reduce stress, support mental health, and strengthen social cohesion, while also recognizing Gurudev’s decades of humanitarian and peace-building efforts worldwide.

Together, the proclamations reflected a growing consensus among civic leaders that meditation is not only a personal wellness activity but also a practice with broader public value.

Images and videos shared from the event showed individuals and groups meditating from homes, community centers, and organized gatherings across continents. Social media platforms captured participants’ reflections, documenting what many described as a rare collective pause in an otherwise fast-paced and divided world.

World Meditation Day concluded with a call for participants to incorporate meditation into their daily lives, reinforcing its role as a simple and practical tool for well-being, resilience, and global connection.

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