Arrival in Newark, New Jersey
The view from our hotel room window
The Ultimate Sports Road Trip is in the building!
That building being the Prudential Center, affectionately known as “The Rock” here in Newark.
We had a terrific 220 mile drive from Horseheads down to Newark, with sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s… a springlike day for the middle of January! We’re staying at the Sheraton Newark Airport, around 3 miles away from downtown, and as you can see from the photo, the Prudential Center is readily visible in the center of their downtown core.
Driving in is another story however… while the streets of downtown at 4:30PM are all hustle and bustle, the downtown retail here looks downright scary… plenty of wig stores, dollar shops, electronics outlets, all decaying. Plenty of vacant eyesores and fenced parking lots. It really is not a pretty sight down here, although in the midst of all this are buildings looking like they are ready to undergo residential rehab into upscale units. The arena is an architectural jewel, especially the front side facade facing Mulberry Street, with a massive high tech video board that we could actually see from our hotel room.
We nixed the $20 and $25 lots surrounding the arena and caught a space on the street three blocks down Mulberry. On the walk up here, we saw a nice little tavern called “Arena Bar” that looks decent enough for some postgame libations.
As for the Sabres, they are now the walking wounded, and Patrick Kaleta has been called up from Rochester as reinforcement. Right about now we don’t like the Sabres’ chances to break this brutal losing streak but we shall see.
We plan to actually sit in the seats for a couple periods and get a feel for this building as a spectator. We will try to do a postgame recap if possible, but otherwise we will wait until we return to Buffalo tomorrow to post more pics and work on the venue profile. Enjoy the game. Out from The Rock!
-Andrew
