I Walked From New York City to the World Cup Stadium

With these questions in mind, I set out little before noon from the New Jersey Transit waiting room at Penn Station in early June. (My oldest son, home from college, accompanied me.) The area was nearly empty, but still sweltering. If any air-conditioning was on, it wasn’t doing much. Picturing a few thousand more enthusiastic soccer nuts in this space, crowded together in the heat, was enough to quicken my stride to the Hudson. 

There, at 39th Street, a $10.75 ferry takes you across the river to Weehawken, N.J. The views above the Hudson—of the water, the New York City skyline, the George Washington Bridge—surely beat those in the train tunnel below it. 

Upon arrival in New Jersey, directions took us north along the river. New York New Jersey Stadium is actually just six miles, in a straight shot northwest, from Penn Station. But the swampy landscape around the stadium, the Meadowlands, acts as a pedestrian barrier. So we essentially had to circumnavigate the marsh, not to mention the roadways and railways and refineries and electric power plants, to reach our destination. Still, while that infrastructure, never easy on the eyes, is familiar to anyone who has flown into Newark airport, or driven on the New Jersey Turnpike, or watched the opening credits of The Sopranos, it’s not the North Jersey we met at the start of this soccer pilgrimage. Rather, for about two and half miles, we were walking through river towns, which are green and scenic.