Check out Happy Cow for the area. The Jersey side of the river has a decent amount of vegan options. Manhattan and Brooklyn will blow your mind with how many vegan options there are.

Living in Jersey lets you access everything in NYC but also lets you easily get in your car and leave the region to try other places. Philly has a great vegan food scene, and there's a lot of cool stuff happening North in the Hudson Valley (Beacon, Kingston, New Paltz, Albany, and Schenectady all have good vegan spots).