I just should also say, Hudson Hound's cocktails are beautiful. Well-executed pieces of art. The Lady Lavender in particular is delicious, but also exquisitely photo-worthy. If that factors into your first date logic, let it be known.

On the other hand, the best thing on their menu is the adobo wings, and nobody has ever suggested that I look attractive while eating wings. "What is wrong with you?" is a more common comment than "you look cute."

Uhh. . . I don't usually chime in to be negative, unless it's about Paul Fireman or Amy DeGise, but I don't like their food. Maybe we've always gone at off times, but it's always been bland, over-cooked, and unimaginative to start with.

I would say Hamilton Pork. Or closer to that area, Hudson Hound, which has excellent cocktails. Their food menu is limited but well-executed, so look at it beforehand and see if there's anything that interests you.

Get an in-store gift card to WORD! and encourage them to ask the staff for recommendations for kids, the folks there really know their stuff.

I've lived in JC for the past 4+ years and have a lot of friends in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and honestly the real answer on how easy it is to commute is "it depends." Mostly, it depends specifically where you want to go. The further you get from the PATH, the more transfers you have to make, the more miserable the whole exercise becomes.

We have a decent number of friends who live off the 33rd Street PATH line, or are only one transfer at WTC, and these are both very easy trips (the train to WTC is so much faster and so much more predictable than the 33rd Street train, which detours to Hoboken late-night, that a single transfer at WTC is often easier than no transfers using 33rd-via-Hoboken). For these trips, we routinely return via public transit late at night without undue problems.

If you're looking at transferring off the 33rd street line, or multiple transfers from WTC, it's a slog. For that, we usually hire a car. It's not $100 though, more like $60 + tip.

JC cops were brave and effective enough to put down the violent terrorist attempt to kill as many Jews as possible in 2019 with minimal loss of life, and they don't routinely murder or assault innocent JC citizens.

They're better than average.

Low bar? Sure. I wish every police department checked the boxes of "protect the citizenry from a mass murder attack" and "don't actually mass murder the citizenry yourself," but the question was about the average, not the ideal.

Second Cellar 335 for a group of 12. Their menu is oriented around shared plates, so ordering is simple, and their tiki-themed cocktails are great.

>He ran a red light so he hit her.

Uhh. . . what? His running a red light changed the physical trajectories of the relevant moving bodies? So because he broke the law, the fundamental laws of physics changes to suit?

That mean cyclist hit the front of her car with the side of his own body!

The double fare sucks, for sure. I really wish the relevant authorities could coordinate on that. At least you don't need a whole new card anymore, that's an improvement.

But like I said in my original post, there are a lot of problems that a five figure savings in taxes will solve. There are worse places my money could be going than funding transit agencies, so I ain't real mad about it.

A one-seat ride is awfully nice and convenient, but just being on the MTA doesn't guarantee that. When I lived in Brooklyn, most of my trips were not one-seat rides, and the same is true when I visit friends now. The convenience factor tends to be (for us, these days) that we'll use transit on the way there, with books in our bags if need be, and if we stay out pretty late we'll take a car back. There again you've the cost of the tunnel compared to Lyfting between two spots within the city, but again, we'd have to be a lot more social than we are to make a noticeable dent in our overall savings living in JC.

So money aside, for us it's a time question, and Jersey City via the PATH is as close in minutes to anywhere we'd want to go as southern Brooklyn would be.

I don't disagree at all on lengthy platform waits being an absolute drag, and an important consideration to over-all travel times. I've just also lived in Brooklyn, where latenight trains have the exact same problem. Maybe if you're in midtown Manhattan you can expect a train every few minutes at any time of day, but OP is considering like Sunset Park. I have friends in Park Slope, Gowanus, Boerum Hill, and Bay Ridge and we don't assume late-night trains will be convenient.

The Grove - WTC Path is as reliable as any outer-borough subway line that I personally have ever had to rely on.

My partner and I are in our fifth year here in JC, after living in the Upper West Side and various areas of Brooklyn, and I think it compares highly favorably.

For us it was a no-brainer, we save five figures annually on taxes living on this side of the river. You should talk to your accountant or tax attorney about this, and if you don't have one, it seems like it's past time to get one. If that sounds too daunting, your bank can probably make somebody available. This is too big a consideration to rely on your best guesses or something you read online, there are a lot of potential concerns about moving across the river that a bunch of extra money in your pocket can fix.

That aside, on to quality of life concerns.

First, I'm honestly surprised to see people who are supposedly used to the MTA complaining about the PATH. The PATH isn't perfect, but it's better than the MTA. And you're two stops from Grove to the WTC. That essentially makes downtown Manhattan part of your neighborhood. People travel further than two stops in NYC and still consider themselves on their home turf, but somehow the state line predisposes people to think they're further than they actually are. I blame the MTA map.

Second, along the same lines, it genuinely might be difficult to get people from NYC to visit you. . . at least the first time. In our experience, convincing somebody to cross the Hudson is like pulling teeth, but almost universally, the reaction is "it's actually really nice here! And I can't believe how easy it was to get here!" We threw a few big parties when we first moved in and really haven't had a problem since in getting Manhattan and Brooklyn folks in to spend time. (I will say, our Queens friends have a standing invitation to stay in our guest bed overnight, as Queens is genuinely fucking far.) But like, from World Trade Center, we are a five minute train and a ten minute walk along safe, well-lighted pedestrian boulevards. We're closer to downtown than most of Brooklyn and even most of Manhattan itself.

It's easier to get away from the city for the weekend from JC than it is from Brooklyn. We love to camp in Upstate New York, and our dear friends in Park Slope usually join us. They're less than an hour from us by transit, but somehow it usually takes them two hours or more just to get out of the city (leaving on Fridays during the summer leaves them susceptible to lots of traffic). We can leave at the same time and be at the campground hours before them. A two hour drive vs. a 4 - 5 hour drive is a big deal when you're just making a weekend trip.

As for the urban fabric, it's so similar to Brooklyn that I would worry less about you having the urban experience you want, and I would worry more about your girlfriend not being happy because the move wasn't dramatic enough. If she wants a bigger place and more space, and you want to still be able to get into the city easily, I'd look in downtown just past the high-rise district, roughly around Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park. For context, we live roughly halfway between the two, we have a ten minute walk to the Grove Street Path, and we have a 1200 square foot 2-bed/2-bath with a roughly 900 square foot private garden that we spend a lot of time in. After a rent hike we now pay $2,800/month. Old construction, which we prefer.

Finally, you know what nobody realizes until they live here? We've got the best views of the NYC skyline. ;-)

Downtown JC sometimes gets called the "sixth borough," but honestly that's not accurate. It's the third borough. Jersey City feels more like Manhattan and Brooklyn than the Bronx, Queens, or Staten Island do, and it's certainly closer to the heart of the city than those boroughs.

I love it here, so I might as well start with the downsides:

• If you're moving from Florida and haven't lived for protracted periods in the Northeast or Midwest, the climate is going to be an adjustment for sure. I know that "goes without saying," but my partner from Memphis still struggles to adjust 15+ years since moving up North.
• It seems like politics is part of the reason you're considering a move, so it's worth saying that politics in New Jersey generally and Jersey City in particular can be head-thumpingly frustrating if you're a motiated progressive who cares about multiple issues. Democrats rule unopposed here, and use their full-throated support of LGBTQIA+ rights, women's rights, and Black Lives Matter (on paper at least) to deflect from deeply corrupt commitments to machine-style politics you might have thought had died out some time after the Gilded Age. Shit like our county executive promising to end ICE detention centers in our county, and then going back on his word essentially in the dead of night for no better reason than wanting ICE cash. Our Mayor and his hand-picked slate of City Council people making land use decisions on behalf of developers that don't seem to benefit the community, and then magically getting millions of dollars of in-kind contributions like mansions on the coast from those same developers. Don't even get me started on the long-running scheme to raze a sensitive bird habitat in Jersey City's largest park so that a billionaire buddy of the governor can turn it into golf holes for the ultra-wealthy (see: Caven Point, Paul Fireman, for more information). Point being, if you want to live somewhere to experience the idea that liberal Democrats can run communities that are not only inclusive, but also equitable and well-governed, this is not the place for that, our leaders are too addicted to developer money. Maybe coming from Florida this sounds like a relatively good problem to have, you'd know better.
• There is a very real social stigma against New Jersey, and not just coming from New Yorkers. Being relatively local, it's actually been pretty easy to get my NYC friends to realize "holy shit, Jersey City is closer and more convenient and more fun than most of what's 'real' New York." But I've been on the other side of the fucking country and had folks say something along the lines of "where ya from?" "New Jersey!" "I'm sorry." Again, being from Florida you may already be used to worse.
• Flooding is a serious concern. If you're not buying property I wouldn't worry too much, but if you're looking at renting a garden level place, make sure it's flood-proofed. And don't necessarily take a landlord's word for it.
• Crime is mostly non-violent, but hoo boy the porch pirates and drunk drivers can make life difficult. We get roughly half the packages we order, due to either package theft or delivery service incompetence. We have to street park our vehicle like most Jersey Citiots, and at this point we don't bother getting dings and dents repaired because there are just going to be more later.
• Speaking of cars, parking sucks. I'm torn on whether or not to recommend having a car, because you've mentioned wanting access to nature, and a car is the best way to ensure that (ironically enough). But since this is the "negatives," having to move your car for street-cleaning in the middle of the workday multiple times per week is just not fun.
• You're not going to love paying taxes in Jersey City coming from Florida.

Alright, positives:

• In terms of being a "true city," yes, downtown JC is about as "true city" as they come. I have lived in Boston, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Seattle, and now downtown JC, and JC compares highly favorably. MOST of my friends who live in New York City proper do not enjoy the density or proximity to services or attractions that I enjoy in downtown JC. And I'm not even considering my friends who live in Queens, I mean like brownstone Brooklyn or northern Manhattan.
• The best views of the NYC skyline are over here, where you can see the whole thing because you're not part of it.
• You do not need a car. You might want one, and unlike in Manhattan it is possible to have one, but you do not need one. We have a car, but I do not drive within the metro area, the car is only for longer, regional trips.
• There is plenty to do here. The restaurant scene is excellent, and I honestly can't think of a restaurant that doesn't have compelling vegan options. JC is small enough that it can really feel like a community, and there are events all the time. There are some performance spaces here, most notably White Eagle Hall that frequently hosts excellent acts, if not acts that would sell out stadiums. We basically only cross the Hudson to see friends or theater, maybe the occasional museum. For nightlife, the quality is higher and the prices are lower on this bank of the Hudson.
• And when you do want to get into Lower or Midtown Manhattan or even northwest Brooklyn, JC's a more convenient starting place than most of NYC.
• Your only problem being gay here will be people falling all over themselves to affirm your identity. One of my gay friends from rural Texas finds it mildly creepy how aggressively supportive everybody is regarding his sexuality.
• There is indeed decent nature not too awfully far away! We usually drive a couple hours' north to the Catskills for camping, hiking, etc., but you can actually take a train to a lot of these locations. . . though you'd almost certainly need a car on the other end unless you're extreme hikers. Also nice, a lot of these little rural towns just upstate along the Hudson are themselves highly progressive. Expect New York prices, unfortunately, but the nature is, in my opinion, top-notch. I could have more recommendations here, I camp a lot.
• Not quite "nature" as I envision it, but the parks here are beautiful and well-maintained. Lots of trees, flowers, frequent farmers' markets. And then Liberty State Park is a goddamned treasure, if we're willing to fight to keep it. If you're craving a closer-to-home nature experience, you could totally bring a book or a picnic to a JC park and get your hit of trees, grass, flowers, etc. Depending on the park, like Liberty or Lincoln, you could even enjoy some silence (not likely in Hamilton or Van Vorst).

Any other particular areas of concern?

Ed & Mary's, over near Hamilton Park. It's a dive with a big beer menu, but unlike a lot of dives (I'm thinking of Lucky 7 and the like) they also have wine, cocktails, and a full bar, so if you don't know what your date likes it's a good option. They also have great, simple food if you get peckish. I almost hesitate to call it a dive because it's very clean and comfortable, but "dive" is pretty clearly the ambience they're aiming for.

Staff is awesome, and highly likely to make up for any gaps in conversation. The vibe is something like casually intelligent dirtbag leftist. I've seen a bartender cuss out an athlete on TV for sucking shit at the sports game that was on, then pivot and air his concerns about Universal Basic Income being a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to minors, dependents, the mentally ill, and victims of domestic abuse.

If you're looking for something closer to the pedestrian boulevard and/or less casual, I'd say Hudson Hound. Not cheap, but if you're just getting drinks it's doable. Cocktails are unique and beautiful, the old wood and furnishings provide a real nice atmosphere, and again, great staff.

Even if you built such a thing, it wouldn't get much use. People just don't like to walk that far, even New Yorkers. The GW Bridge gets about 200,000 pedestrian crossings per year, compared to 100,000,000 vehicle crossings per year. Put another way, more vehicles cross the GW every day than pedestrians do in a year, almost 40% more. Even if a JC - Manhattan pedestrian crossing was somehow an order of magnitude more successful than the GWB and managed 2 million pedestrians per year, it wouldn't make much of a dent in the 14 million vehicles that go through the Holland Tunnel, 19 million vehicles that go through the Lincoln Tunnel, or the PATH's 34 million annual riders.

There are just much better transportation investments to make.

Mostly agreed. Your third sentence seems to assume that cops always deliver reasonable instructions, and that their lives are more important than other lives, and I don't agree with either of those ideas.

Nation-wide, yes, they should all be fired. You seem weirdly anti-cop but also mad that I'm anti-cop. I don't know why you're downvoting me when we seem to agree that cops don't serve the purpose we pay them for.

Ha, I don't need to wait. I live in Jersey City. My property has been stolen or destroyed on many occasions, including the totaling of my car by a drunk driver, and since I live on the ground floor, multiple attempts to force entry to my home (all failed, thankfully). The cops were helpful zero times, ever.

BUT, the Jersey City cops aren't out here shooting us up or driving vehicles into protests, which is more than I can say for the NYPD. So God Bless Jersey City's Finest.

Still prefer our cops who do nothing to New York City's cops who do A WHOLE LOT OF FUCKING STUFF.

Personally, I have a knee-jerk aversion to voting for the developer-backed slate, but I do have a hard time wrapping my head around a billion dollar budget to educate 27,000 students. $37,000 per student is a massive amount of money, more than triple the national average, 80% higher than the state average, and according to a 2021 Independent Budget Office report, about 20% more spending per student than New York City.

What makes this a reasonable amount of money? Our much higher than average educational outcomes? Are there specific challenges that Jersey City faces that make it uniquely uneconomical to school our kids? Can we address such challenges in other ways than increasing taxes? I can imagine we face a unique challenge in being both a high cost-of-living area as well as a relatively small municipality in terms of our total buying power, should we examine something like having schools funded and run at the county level rather than the city level?

Education matters. So does affordability. We won't have to worry about public schools if working families can't afford to live here.

Not really "news" in the "tonight at 11" sense, but if you're looking for informed opinions on local issues, check out Amy Wilson's newsletter. She's a local activist who always seems to have her ear to the ground on anything important. I don't agree with her 100% of the time but she always shares whatever resources she has to inform her own decisions.