People always say it's in a bad area, but I suspect that's because it's Detroit. Kind of like how Newark is a bad city, so Prudential Center automatically gets negative and unwarranted heat because of that. When it's pretty safe by the arena.
From people that I know who have went to the Joe, it's not unsafe to go to. I have a friend that has walked from the arena to the hotel/casino a few times and at night in the dark and never felt uncomfortable at all. Detroit is a bad city, and there's some people that automatically wanna believe and have you believe that any place that has the city's name in its address, is automatically this dangerous place. The same could be said about Newark and a lot of bad cities. There's constant misnomers that any place that's in a bad city is automatically like being in the Wild Wild West.
Oh yeah people let their imaginations run wild, especially suburbans who lack city experience. The two most dangerous cities in America, are St. Louis ranked 1st and Detroit ranked 2nd. But you know they don't play game a with safety of fans when there's a Red Wings, same for Blues games. I would be shocked if it's in a safer or better area than where "the Rock" is. Still I'd gladly go to a game in Detroit with no concern at all. I'm sure the cop presence is immense during a Red Wings" home game.
As for Newark, I've worked there for the last ten years between my last two jobs. When I hear a Devils fan say something about the arena being in such a dangerous area, it makes me laugh. It's just middle class suburbans, mainly white people, letting their imaginations run wild and scaring themselves. That area is very safe during the day, no one will ever mess with you, and that goes a for a pretty wide radius around the arena. My job before the one I have now, I was a beer salesman, yes for a period of time I sold beer for a living. I'd park my car and walk blocks every few weeks, whenever I had to make sales in the Ironblund section, never once was I messed with. When there's a Devils game at night there are so many cops, you have nothing to worry about, similar to Yankee Stadium, which is in a much more dangerous area than "The Rock"is. My only problem is they could do a better job of removing the homeless people out of Penn station temporarily, when a Devils game is going on, some of them smell so bad you can smell them from 15 to 20 feet away, literally. I think that would go a long was in improving people's first impression of the area the arena is in. Especially when the weather is nice.
As for Newark as a whole, like I said before my last job was as a beer salesman, made good money doing it too. Even thought it was gonna be a career, because I was good at sales and was making over $70,000 a year doing it.'The distribution company I worked for unfortunately went bankrupt in last 2012, but while things were good they owned the rights to all Miller products, among many other alcoholic brands for Union and Essex county. No one else could sell those products to a bar or liquor store, within those two counties except us. So I have literally been in every single bar, dive bar, strip club and liquor store in Newark. I don't think too many people or anyone on this board can say that, so I've seen it all, and if you want to see a real dangerous areas of Newark, I can show you them easily. It will make you appreciate the location of the Prudential Center, immensely.
