Comments (0) Best Way To Not Get Stranded After A Big Arena Event - 2011
Prudential Center
With Radio City Music Hall given over to Cirque du Soleil and Madison Square Garden closed for renovations this summer, most of the season's big shows took place at slightly more far-flung venues—or at least, ones that would require either some sort of beyond-the-subway transportation to travel between. The four-year-old Prudential Center, located smack in the middle of downtown Newark, is probably the best-designed of the lot from crowd-control patterns to food offerings, though surely some of that is the result of its newness. After all, when Nassau Coliseum was built way back when, the term "gluten-free" probably showed up as consecutive answers in an acrostic once, if the two words were ever in the same space at all. The Prudential Center's real advantage, though, is that it's just blocks away from Newark Penn Station, making it easier to reach from Manhattan than, say, a venue in Gowanus. After every event, the telescreens that are normally used to cross-promote future happenings are given over to a live broadcast of that train station's in-house video feed, which details departure times for upcoming trains back to New York or points west. This way, your bathroom break—or your picture with a cardboard cutout of R. Kelly—doesn't have to result in your getting stuck away from home for too long. 165 Mulberry Street, Newark, 973-757-6000, prucenter.com (07102)
