A Free Skyline Sunset in Jersey City, Then an Irish Pub

Walk three minutes from the Exchange Place PATH exit and the Hudson opens up, three quarters of a mile of water between the J. Owen Grundy pier and Lower Manhattan. Late October sunsets land near 6 PM, and after the clocks fall back on November 1 they run between 4:30 and 4:55 PM for the rest of the month. Check the day's time before you leave. Arrive about fifty minutes before sunset and warm light rakes across the west faces of the towers. The sun drops behind you, those facades slide into shadow, and the blue hour takes over. The pier is free, unsheltered and windy in November, and the Katyń Memorial stands at its edge.

Grace O'Malley's sits across from Porta on Newark Avenue, nineteen minutes inland on foot from the pier, or one PATH stop to Grove Street and two minutes from that exit. It is a modern Irish pub with booths and a long whiskey list, and its own site describes fourteen flat screens, a giant projection, and live bands or DJs on some nights. Doors open at 2 PM Monday to Wednesday and 11 AM Thursday to Sunday, closing at 2 AM, or 3 AM on Friday and Saturday. Football Sundays are the busy ones, and the pub keeps serving until 2 AM. White Eagle Hall, further up the avenue, is a ticketed venue; check its calendar before planning around a show.

Here is the sequence. Check the day's sunset, reach the pier about fifty minutes before it, stay through the pink light and into the blue hour, then walk nineteen minutes to Newark Avenue or ride the single PATH stop from Exchange Place to Grove Street. Eat, stay for a drink, and let the crowd thin out. The PATH hop inland costs 3.25 dollars, and walking it saves that fare, with the ride home still to pay. PATH runs all night, with longer gaps between trains after midnight.