Submitted by poete_idris t3_yvh10a in Newark
It’s like the only thing we’re missing. We got food, art, history, diversity, and then zero night life / downtown culture. Do you think that’ll ever change or will it forever be an open wound on the city ?
Bloomfield ave be seeming more lit than downtown 😭 I gotta check some these spots out though
Bloomfield Ave sucks to both drive and walk down though
Ferry st is a solid place for a bit of everything. Granted the bars and clubs are more geared towards latin/portuguese/brazilian community.
Shoutout to QXT's, solid club.
McGoverns 🤍my all time fav
Or hang out at American whisky and get invited by the owner to see Blank Pink in a box for no money basically 😂
Rising rents in Manhattan ripple out to Jersey City and Hoboken which will push people out to Newark. There are a number of large residential developments happening downtown, in 10 years it's going to be a totally different look.
I hope it doesn’t mirror JC
The developers want exactly that
What is that? The rise in prices? They simply are not building fast enough.
I mean, yes... their dream is to also make the urban parts of the metro area seem like natural extensions of each other where it is easy to get people to easily move from Queens or Brooklyn to JC or Newark and vice versa. It opens up their potential pool of tenants by making the areas with subway lines much more attractive, and thus allows for more people from the region (suburbs or the cities) and outside the region attracted to those neighborhoods.
That's... Exactly what I want. I moved north to Woodbridge, but kinda want to move more urban. Except $$$$$ and I'm a snowflake suburbanite so don't know which areas are dangerous in Newark, JC, and NYC.
For the most part, in Jersey, the urban neighborhoods with a Path train in it or close to them are generally the safest parts. The more you have to rely on the buses to get around, the more likely it is the neighborhood is a bit more rundown and dangerous. So for Newark, Downtown (which includes the arena district; university heights; the government buildings; and the Commercial District); the Ironbound are generally the safest. You can also play around with the light rail a bit as those neighborhoods tend to be a bit more stable, but are spotty. JC, any place along the path is usually safe. For NYC, thats usually a toss up as good neighborhoods border sketchy ones all the time, but for the most part its all pretty safe, outside of extreme pockets in Queens; Brooklyn; and the Bronx.
Im all for urban living, you should try it out, I think you would love it.
Do you recommend continuing my strategy of moving closer and closer over time or should I just... Do it. (Like moving to rahway or Elizabeth first, then JC)
I already don't own a car, only a bike, e-bike and motorcycle. I am getting a promotion to go into effect Dec and will be making fix figures and technically I can qualify for over $3k/month but I absolutely do not want to pay that. I have a small 1-bed now, but frankly I can make a small studio work if it has a separate kitchen.
My lease ends Feb, Is that even possible? Like would I even be able to get something? JC is my dream but it's just soooo expensive.
So... asking me isnt going to give you an objective answer as I will always go up to bat for Urban NY and NJ, I just think the neighborhoods in that collection of cities and boroughs (especially the ones with 24/7 train access) is just hands down offer the best value in the region.
With that said, I would caution against Elizabeth, not because its a bad city (its pretty fun) its just difficult to get in and out of if you are relying on public transit and want to access the rest of the urban core since the city is only connected to Newark and NYC by NJ Transit.
I would advise picking Harrison, along the path, as its super quiet to give you a more suburban lifestyle, while having 24/7 Path access to Newark/JC/Hoboken/ and 4 of the 5 boroughs. It would make it much more doable to get into Manhattan for a night out/make it easier for you if you decide you want to venture out into Queens or Brooklyn for a night out as you wont be stranded past midnight (just need to either plan ahead of time to make sure you connect easily without a huge wait or prepare for a 20 plus minute wait once you get to a path station). JC is definitely expensive, but as long as you live along the path, you can access JC and beyond without much of a hassle for about half the price.
To make a long story short, I do think moving closer will be best. Even if you arent in the center center of the action (living in manhattan south of 96th Street) so long as you have 24/7 train access you are literally living in the center of the action and can access some great neighborhoods for fun as well if you want to explore outside of your neighborhood
Here is a counterpoint to the idea that Newark will naturally flow into a bustling downtown—We skipped the renegade small landlord stage and went right to the corporate landlords stage. Corporate landlords don’t want some loud music near their $4000 apartment. And so Downtown perhaps could never have the nightlife everyone thinks is naturally going to happen. Just more and more apartments near salad spots for lunch
Now hold on, Newark needs more salad spots. We need Chopt
I mean swahili village be blasting music everyday until 2am and it’s literally on the first floor of one theater square and the hotel. And trust you can feel the vibration from the music
on top of the fact that other bars on the ground floor of residential buildings in Newark are extremely loud as well.
Um who do you think owns the nightlife in Manhattan, Washington Ave in Hoboken, or Grove Street... the rent in those places are extremely high for a mom and pop place to open up and the people running those places tend to be corporations.
Corporations have realized they can raise the rent alot more when there are things to attract the high earners, and part of the attraction is night life. Small landlords are the ones that care more about loud noise not the big corporations.
The buildings on newark ave? Not corporate landlords. For example the building that Porta is in is owned by a family that lives in Long Island and bought it 20 years ago. Not by one of the big Jersey City downtown Landlords.
That guy had some big r/confidentlyincorrect energy going on
Did I say all of those places are all run by corporations, I said they tend to be run by corporations. Pound for pound, the vast majority of the landlords in those parts of town are not mom and pop. You do have holdouts, but they are the minority.
In Hoboken, the vast majority of the small mom and pop places cashed out a long time ago. In Manhattan the definition of a small landlord is usually just an LLC that owns like 3 buildings. Im excited there are some still there, especially in along Newark Ave, but thats usually the exception now a days.
At the end of the day, landlords in redeveloping or up and coming neighborhoods want to make the neighborhood as attractive as possible to get the tenants they want. Downtown is increasingly being advertised to university students, recent graduates, and young professionals looking for easy access to Manhattan/JC/Hoboken. That crowd tends to want a more active nightlife close by to compliment the nightlife of the rest of the region. So landlords will change with the crowd and attract those places.
Another counter point, small landlords (the more mom and pop places) tend to shy away from attracting rowdy crowds because they have limited incomes to deal with the damage that a rowdy crowd causes/to deal with their tenants complaining about noise violations/etc. Corporate landlords have the funds to deal with it so they generally have no issue leasing out to businesses that cater to night life etc.
The problem with Newark now is that there’s no strip of restaurants with liquor licenses or even open later than 10 on one street
Ferry Street literally fits that definition, especially closer to the train station.
Right but it’s not in the downtown district and caters more to Latin Americans
Eh yes and no. The music that is usually played in those establishments are extremely wide and varied.
Ferry street doesn't have enough. It does have some really nice ones, but its still dead sometimes.
Its dead sometimes, but not always... also, its probably more of a product of just the distance from the more core parts of the "city" (using that term as a catch all for the towns and boroughs that have a path or subway line). I go out to Bushwick sometimes for a few drinks and it can get pretty dead as well.
Def makes sense. Good point. And sometimes Ferry, even down to Wilson is buzzing
Yeah, I do think we get caught up with the arbitrary borders between the states (anywhere else in the world and Newark/NYC would be one city) so we def come down on the night life in Newark a bit hard (which we should, NYC and the other cities in Jersey should compliment our night life, not the other way around), but once you start to realize that its one big city and many outer borough neighborhoods have very similar nightlife to Newark, especially when they are similarly situation from Manhattan as Newark, its a bit easier to swallow the Newark nightlife pill as you can easily plug in that hole by going closer to Manhattan or out to Williamsburg/Astoria.
Yes thats a problem.
They are holding back on the night life because people here have a few drinks and they don’t know how act!
I mean thats anywhere though.
Newark is a city with a shitload of music history and a good handful of artists that are buzzing right now, but there are no clubs! I would love a cool hip-hop or dance club in the city (besides QXT). Shouldn't have to go to Brooklyn or Manhattan just to break a sweat. I like the underground parties too but still. We need a real spot to go to.
For hip-hop, Check out Three Levels Lounge, Allure Lounge, and Lit 21 on the nights Funkmaster Flex is there. Clubs like Club Eclipse play more old school house.
The best overall club in Newark is a giant Latin one. Check out Marbella Lounge on a late Saturday night.
Newark's night clubs are usually just lounges or restaurants that reconfigure after dark to a more night club experience. Off the top of my head, Vivo Lounge on Ferry goes from a quiet bakery and restaurant to a Brazilian night club with women dancing on the bar after 10 pm. The same is true for Tijuana Bar and Grill and many other places in the Ironbound. Hell, even McGoverns becomes more night clubish after 10 pm, on certain nights, when they close the back area and make it a dance floor.
In the rest of Newark, its a bit more hit or miss as certain bars dont advertise the lounge aspect in order to keep the place more insulated to locals.
We can definitely use more nightlife here, I agree with that, but the spots are there if you are looking for it and know where to look. Hell, local Jersey Club DJs host large parties all over the city if you follow them on social media, and those kind of fill in the void of more traditional night clubs.
I do think if everything goes to plan, the city is looking to make the lots around Mulberry Commons a nightlife destination in the city, and I hope we can attract more night clubs or Hoboken style bars that can easily become night clubs.
I'm familiar with those. I was more so talking about soulful and deep house when I said "dance music." Should've been more specific. Vivo Lounge was the spot in the Ironbound tho for us househeads and house dancers when they had Sol Deep every Wednesday and Lou Alverez was resident dj. Great sets, live performances, and album/single releases. It was a vibe. That's a dub now unfortunately. Coffee Cave on Halsey was another dope space in the city for creatives. They would fly in some of the top dj's from all around the country (first time seeing DJ Karizma in Jersey) but that eventually closed. The CAVE on Mt. Pleasant Ave (same owner as Coffee Cave) was another good lowkey spot for underground househeads and fans of electronic music. Amazing soundsystem. Good rave vibes. Shut down again. Another space is being built on Clinton Ave called BlkboxNWK by John Murray. He has the support of the city this time around and it will be part of the Gant-Gilbert Arts Collective building that opened earlier this year so hopefully that is a success. It has just been kind of dragging along for a year and some change tho. I still have high hopes for it.
I'm not saying Newark never had any nice nightlife spots or doesn't have any, but the best ones for fans of a certain type of underground dance music (not EDM) usually have a nice lil run for a few years but they eventually shut down. If I'm being real, Irvington always had better spots than Newark like Club Elevation (now closed) and the Cricket Club, as far as house. If you include those, you really did not have to travel outside of Essex County to have a good time. Now we gotta go to Brooklyn, lol. I'm clownin but I'm just saying, for a place that's considered one of the house meccas, I think Newark could do better. It's a major part of our culture and most of us grew up on it. The random one-off parties are cool but there should be more outlets for music & arts in Newark, in general. I plan on doing my part to help change all that though. You can clearly see I'm passionate about it, lol.
That's true... the spots for house in Newark has kinda been lacking lately, but I know in the summer the main branch of the library hosts weekly House Dance Parties outside. Military Park also has a community events with house playing all the time during the summer and you still have the Lincoln Park Music Festival.
I only point out the underground house parties, as that is how much of those clubs are now functioning especially once Jersey Club came on the scene. I do think the warehouses at the end of Raymond Blvd in the Ironbound could be converted to a nightlife district kinda like out in Brooklyn, etc. Im sure they will revive, but I totally get what you are saying. I just think those clubs come and go with the times, and right now Newark's house scene is very much dominated by Jersey Club and the more improvised house party scene that came out of it.
I’m from the ironbound and been into house music since I was young. The Brazilian day feasts before “EDM” became popular had a lot of deep house and tech house sets. It’s was crazy because they would shut down all of ferry street! That culture is gone now unfortunately. We definitely need venues for live music out here because it’s so dry.
Eh downtown, like in most cities in the US, is just for business. The neighborhood that really offers a manhattan style midtown experience is the Ironbound. It has the large collection of bars and restaurants, its walkable, upscale housing, etc. The only thing it doesnt have is the skyscrapers/office buildings.
Again iron ground caters to Latin America which is fine but downtown should cater to everyone
LOL at comparing the ironbound to midtown Manhattan. Although with how the restaurants price their food and drink it’s not totally without merit.
Im not comparing it one to one to Manhattan, Im just pointing out that the neighborhood in Newark that provides a traditional "center city" experience is the Ironbound. Extremely densely populated, a shit ton of restaurants and bars, a very active nightlife, the highest rents in the city, etc.
I only used Midtown Manhattan because Downtown Manhattan isnt the center of economic activity in the city, and no other city in the country (outside of maybe Boston or Philly) concentrates so much of its fine dining/nightlife/ etc into one geographic area the way that Manhattan does with Midtown.
So, I do think you are misreading what I was trying to say here.
I think the issue here is our proximity to NYC, and New Jerseys sprawling urbanity.
Go to places like Pittsburgh, Memphis, Dallas, Columbus, Cincinnati, even Boston, and those cities are the centerpiece of a ring of suburbs and then rural area ...so if you want to go to the best steakhouse, the theatre, a sleek place for drinks, etc...or want to work in TV or Radio, or the Newspaper, work in a major law firm or corperation, etc..you've got to travel to the downtown area of those cities.
But, with Newark, you've got a lot of that not only close by in NYC, but also in places like Montclair, Westfield, various Bergen County towns, the shore, etc.
Now, that isn't to say that Newark can't still be the center of all of this north jersey sprawl, and if you look at the pattern of development, downtown Newark actually is the center of a lot of it, but its going to take a lot more work to get it there. Until then, it's just one of many downtowns, with its own character, love it or hate it.
Cities like Philly are able to manage it, and Miami, Ft Lauderdale etc, despite being close to sprawl...Newark had done it in the past despite being close to NYC, but that was before a bunch of the suburban growth and the rise of Hudson County as a destination rather than a residential and industrial hub. Newark has the infrastructure but it's got take a conscious decision to want to be that, and it takes critical mass. Prudential Center, NJPAC, and Symphony Hall are a start....and just recently you finally see an upscale place like Swahili Village open up...but we need more, and they need help staying open and attracting business. Places like B&P and Dutch's are close too, but they struggle a bit to stay busy, and it's a problem.
Not sure whether it will happen or not, but Newark is trying, with all of these developments and planned businesses. But its gotta step up a great deal in terms of the commercial places if we expect to have it actually come to fruition.
LateNightNewYork t1_iwec0g3 wrote
They aren’t all next to each other, but Downtown Newark still objectively offers more than nearby towns.
Support Mcgoverns, Kilkenny, The City Lounge, 3 levels lounge, Bar Vanquish, Redd’s, Taylour Peighton, Jimenez Tobacco, Newark Local Beer, Neptunes, QXT’s, Lit 21 etc.