New Jersey / New York Birthday Soccer Trip

For Paul's belated birthday we took a trip to New York City over the Independence Day holiday weekend. The goal was to watch two Atlanta United away games - against the New York Red Bulls on Thursday night, and New York City FC on Sunday night. Since we were flying in to Newark, going to a soccer game in New Jersey, and also planning on riding some roller coasters in NJ, we decided to base ourselves in Jersey City rather than Manhattan.

Our AirBnB was the top floor apartment in a cute brick rowhouse, with a view of downtown Jersey City skyscrapers and little bit of Manhattan. Central Jersey City is actually pretty impressive. It has big city issues like litter on the streets, but from an urbanist standpoint it's fantastic. Good public transportation, lots of bike lanes, shaded sidewalks, and a walkable street grid. After a quick stop at the grocery store to stock up for the weekend, we walked through a little farmers market and took the train to the Red Bulls game. The stadium is in a weird area mostly surrounded by a huge parking lot and truck loading areas, but they're starting to build some apartments in the area. The game was fun - Atlanta was expected to lose, and we did, but at least we scored a goal. After the game we caught the PATH train back to our AirBnB.

The view from our AirBnB.

Our cute little apartment!

Downtown Jersey City is surprisingly nice!

View of Red Bull Arena from our flight.

It's a very nice stadium - too bad it's surrounded by parking lots and marshalling yards.

Paul in the stadium. We got there a little early. :)

Pride night rainbow smoke.

Friday morning we started off with a visit to Nickelodeon Universe. It's in the "American Dream" mall in the Meadowlands, north of Jersey City. The area is a bit of an urbanism dumpster fire - huge parking lots, sprawling highway interchanges, and no sidewalks. It's entirely set up for cars to drive in for the stadium, race track, and mall. The mall, which opened right before the pandemic, has already filed for bankruptcy. So it was high on Paul's list to visit to ride the roller coasters in case they end up closing forever. Unfortunately, the park is having staffing and supply chain issues (so they say), and three of the five roller coasters were closed. Paul rode the two open ones, including his 800th coaster. The mall itself was nice, but it's just not what people want anymore. We prefer real city streets, not bland chain stores.

Paul's 800th roller coaster!

Squidward (l) and David (r) waiting on the bus.

Just chillin with the Rugrats grandpa.

The coaster was closed but here are some fiberglass turtles.

The park is nice overall - if only more rides were open!

The mall is still mostly empty.

Leaving the mall, we caught a Lyft to Hoboken, and walked along the waterfront. There's a really nice tree-lined path, a few little parks, and fantastic views of Manhattan. We decided to walk all the way back to the AirBnB in Jersey City. It was hot and sunny, but a mostly pleasant riverside walk. The New Jersey side of the river is definitely under-rated.

The waterfront paths in Hoboken.

Awesome views of Manhattan across the Hudson.

Nice place to sit for a spell.

The historic Lackawanna train station.

Lots of tree-lined pathways along the river.

That evening we had an early dinner at Razza in Jersey City. It's known as one of the best pizza places in the New York area. It was really good Neapolitan style pizza, and we had some meatballs as well. This was technically Paul's belated birthday dinner! It was a really early dinner because that's the only time we could get reservations, so after eating we took the train into Manhattan and met our friend Alexis for some happy hour drinks at Dante. Many of the streets in Manhattan have been improved by replacing street parking with outdoor restaurant patios. It really makes walking around (as well as dining outdoors) much more pleasant. After drinks we visited Little Island for sunset. It's a cool little new park built on piers over the Hudson river. We had a nightcap at Entwine before heading back to New Jersey.

Meatballs at Razza!

New York is lovely - this is the sidewalk setup at Dante.

Looking back toward New Jersey.

Little Island is really cool.

Saturday morning we set off for Coney Island, which is about 14 miles from Jersey City and took a bit more than an hour on the PATH train and then MTA train. Paul picked up a couple of roller coaster credits and then we took the train back to downtown Brooklyn and the Dekalb Market food hall. It's a trendy little food hall in the basement of a skyscraper - we grabbed a bubble tea and walked around a bit before our reserved time at the nearby New York Transit Museum. This is a great museum in a former subway station. We spent a few hours there looking at the exhibits, boarding the vintage subway cars, and checking out the amazingly nerdy gift shop. Highly recommended! We then walked around Brooklyn a bit, taking in views of the river. For dinner, we ate at Al Badawi, a Palestinian restaurant. It's hard to find good Levantine food in Atlanta, so when traveling we're always on the lookout.

The classic Coney Island Cyclone.

The beachfront boardwalk in Coney Island.

Wheeee!

We got an empty subway car for a few stops.

Downtown Brooklyn.

Dekalb Market.

Photo display in the transit museum.

Trains in the museum.

A bar on a boat in Brooklyn.

Views back to Manhattan.

Brooklyn Heights has adorable streets.

We had a feast at Al Badawi!

After dinner we took the train back to Manhattan, stopping at the World Trade Center station and walking around for a bit to check out the architecture, before continuing on PATH back to Jersey City. Since the weather was nice, we decided to wander around Jersey city for a bit. We got some ice cream at Milk, Sugar, Love on Hamilton Park, then ambled back through the different neighborhoods and parks towards our AirBnB.

The new transit station designed by Santiago Calatrava.

A pedestrian/bike street in downtown Jersey City.

Jersey City has a few squares scattered around. They are nice little green spaces.

Sunday, our last full day of the trip, we caught a train up to the northern tip of Manhattan. We had Thai food for lunch, then walked up to the Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's an amazing museum with medieval art. But the main attraction is the architecture itself - French monasteries and abbeys, centered around four cloisters that were brought over from France. It's also a beautiful setting, high atop a hill in forested Fort Tryon park, with great views.

Lunch at Unique. David is more excited on the inside for Thai food than the outside...

A whole chapel (actually parts of several European churches).

David in one of the cloisters.

The main tower of the cloisters.

Another breathtaking room.

Some demons in stained glass.

Probably the most famous piece at the Cloisters - a unicorn tapestry.

Do you KNEED anything?

Walking through Fort Tryon Park.

After leaving the cloisters, it was time to head to the next Atlanta United game, this time at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx... yes you read that right, NYCFC plays in the baseball stadium. The stadium itself is really nice, but the sight lines are awful for soccer, and it's the smallest field in MLS because it's crammed into the outfield. Do better, MLS! The game was exciting, and Atlanta walked away with a tie, which is a good result for this team on the road in a rough season.

After the game ended, we crammed ourselves into a packed subway car, like it was not still a pandemic, to head back towards Manhattan to stroll around Central Park. The park was busy with people out for a stroll or sightseeing in New York. The weather was great and it was near sunset so it was a very nice time to wander around. We went back to Jersey City and had some take out pizza by the slice for dinner.

Inside Yankee Stadium.

Paul in Yankee Stadium. Great for baseball, horrible for soccer.

There are a lot of new super tall skyscrapers near Central Park. Very impressive!

To wrap up our trip, we met up for breakfast with Alexis in Jersey City at Short Grain. It was a nice ending to our trip on a wonderfully sunny morning. We hope to get back to NYC/NJ soon - there's so much to see in this bustling metropolis.

Yummy breakfast.

It was great to see Alexis for the first time since before the pandemic!