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So, over in the Meadowlands this weekend, there’s this little comic con going on… Nothing big… a few media celebrities, a few Silver Age greats, the up-and-coming talent with a few credit…

Ah… who am I kidding?!  I recognize almost every name teased below!  Every decade from the 60s to the 10s is represented with Hall-Of-Famers, seasoned pros, and future comics rock stars!

Sweet Christmas, that’s an all-star roster!

I admit… I’m terrible with names.  Heck, I have trouble recalling Neal Adams’ name! But dang…  this is a crazy amount of talent, with names well known to comics fans! There are animators, fanzine greats, cover artists (both comics and records!), writers, illustrators, comic strip creators, historians, and even some guy who was famous for making dinosaur t-shirts! Below is just a tease…   Visit their website for more information!

Crucial Entertainment, best known for their amazing comics-focused comic cons in Asbury Park, New Jersey, premieres their inaugural East Coast Comicon in the Meadowlands this weekend!  10 AM – 6 PM Saturday and Sunday, just minutes from the New York City!

We’ll have a teaser post momentarily about the amazing guests and exhibitors, but here’s the survival guide!  We know how easy it is to get lost in the wilds of the Jersey Meadowlands (just ask Jimmy Hoffa)!  Last summer, when Marvel had a special promotion with Wal-Mart, this intrepid reporter caught a bus from Mos Eisley the Port Authority Bus Terminal and ventured into suburbia.

The Show:

Official website  (We’ll have a separate post on the show itself!)

The Venue:

Meadowlands Exposition Center

For those keeping score at home:

The Meadowlands Exposition Center features:

• 61,000 square feet of contiguous, obstruction-free, dedicated exhibition space with 20-foot high ceiling
• 3,578 square feet of carpeted meeting space
• Capacity: 365 10′ x 10′ booths; 398 8′ x 10′ booths; 3,500 seating – banquet; 5,000 seating – sports events; 5,000 seating – concert/theater style
• Large multi-functional lobby may be used for registration, exhibit space or banquet area
• Two drive-in doors and four loading docks on street level for easy access
• Unique “flown from the air” electric simplifies floor plan and eliminates the need to carpet aisles to cover floor wires

Directions:

The Meadowlands Exposition Center offers directions.

Take the bus! (Here’s the county bus map for the area!)

Bus stops near the Expo Center:

• 85 Hoboken – Secaucus/Mill Creek (The other side of the shopping complex)
• 320 New York City PABT – Secaucus/Mill Creek  (About fifteen minutes from NYC.) ($.3.95 one-way)
• One stop away (400 feet) is the #78 bus departing from Newark Penn Station to Broad Street and then Harmon Meadow, which then connects at Secaucus Junction.

If you’re driving from Manhattan, take the Lincoln Tunnel and Route 3.  North or South, use the Eastern Spur of the New Jersey Turnpike (Interstate 95).  Click on the map above to figure out travel options.  If you’re taking public transit, I suggest the buses.  The ones from Port Authority are coach buses, similar to the shuttle buses you find at amalgamated-cons.  I suspect the other NJT lines are as well.

The Neighborhood:

Harmon Meadow
The Plaza at Harmon Meadow (Click to access the map key.)

Note that this map is somewhat out of date.  There is now a Red Robin restaurant across the street from L.A. Fitness.  Also, to the north is a Sam’s Club and a Wal-Mart.

Also note the ATM east of the Expo Center (#31 on the map). It is a Chase bank. (Want to save on bank fees? Buy something at the Wal-Mart with your debit card, and ask for cash back.) Also, there is no shortcut between the 400 and 500 Plaza Drive buildings. You’ll have to walk around to get to the restaurants to the south.

On the other side of the Interstate/Eastern Spur is The Mall at Mill Creek.  It’s a bit of a hike.

Home to Kohl’s, Toys R Us, A.C. Moore, two gas stations, a liquor store, and waterfowl.

Map:

Dining:

There’s also a McDonald’s in the Wal-Mart to the north, but if you’re already there, why not buy some real food instead?  (Maybe one of the employees will let you use their SNAP card.)

Hmm… with all of those office buildings nearby, I wonder if any of these restaurants deliver to the Expo Center?

Here’s the YELP search for the area.

Sleeping:

The official con hotel is Embassy Suites.  [Please book here first.  It’s next door to the Expo Center, and if the hotel has a good weekend, then it makes things easier for the show next year.]

Here’s where to stay:

DISCOUNT CODE FOR RESERVATIONS: ECC
Online reservation here >>
Official hotel of East Coast Comicon is the Embassy Suites
Located right next to the Meadowlands Exposition Center

$169 per night. Includes breakfast.

Embassy Suites Secaucus – Meadowlands

455 Plaza Drive, Secaucus, New Jersey,07094, USA

TEL: +1-201-864-7300

There are other hotels in the area (due to the high concentration of corporate offices, the junction of Route 3 and the Turnpike, and the Meadowlands).

This is a great location for a show!  Easy access, affordable dining, emergency retail (or distractions for family members), lots of hotel rooms.  It rivals SPX!  Maybe not “Camp Comics”, but certainly a “Spring Break” experience!

Every year I’ve missed the Asbury Park Comicon, and every year I’ve regretted it, as it always sounded like a charming show in a quirky setting. And now, it seems, I won’t be able to go until 2016, as the show is moving to the Meadowlands and rebranding as the East Coast Comicon, According to an email from promoter Cliff Galbraith, securing a suitable venue in Asbury Park became impossible.

The Berkeley Hotel was unable to accommodate our needs and we felt it was time to move to an actual convention center. And so we’re stoked to announce that we will be moving to the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ, for April 11 & 12, 2015!!! See our new website at www.eccomicon.com.

The new venue is just 10 minutes from NYC, and close to NJ Transit train and bus lines. There’s a wide selection of hotels, restaurants, bars and shops all within walking distance. There’s also plenty of free parking.

East Coast Comicon will be run in the same spirit as Asbury Park Comicon and New York Comic Fest — that means great guests, engaging panels, a growing cosplay contest, and tons of prizes for trivia contests and other events.

The Meadowlands Exposition Center while hold twice as many exhibitors and artist; over 300 booths and tables.

Galbraith adds that they are still in negotiations to hold another Asbury Park Comicon in 2016.

New York City, five boroughs boasting nine million people occupying an ever-expanding concrete  jungle. The industrial hand has touched almost every inch of the city, leaving even the parks over manicured and uncomfortably structured. There is, however, a lesser known corner  that has been uncharacteristically left to regress to its natural state. North Brother Island, a small sliver of land situated off the southern coast of the Bronx, once housed Riverside Hospital, veteran housing, and ultimately a drug rehabilitation center for recovering heroin addicts. In the 1960s the island, once full with New Yorkers, became deserted and nature has been slowly swallowing the remaining structures ever since. Christopher Payne, the photographer behind North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City, was able to access the otherwise prohibited to the public island, and document the incredible phenomenon of the gradual destruction of man’s artificial structures.

• Tuberculosis Pavilion, Spring

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Tuberculosis-Pavilion.jpg

• St. John by-the-sea Church

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Church.jpg

• Classroom, Service Building

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Classroom.jpg

• Old Coal House

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Coal-House.jpg

• Library Books in a Male Dormitory

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Books.jpg

• View of Manhattan Dusk, High Tide

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Beach-at-Dusk.jpg

North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City: Photographs by Christopher Payne, A History by Randall Mason, and Essay by Robert Sullivan (A Fordham University Press Publication). Christopher Payne, a photographer based in New York City, specializes in the documentation of America’s vanishing architecture and industrial landscape. Trained as an architect, he has a natural interest in how things are purposefully designed and constructed, and how they work. Randall Mason is Associate Professor and Chair of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design. He worked previously at the Getty Conservation Institute, University of Maryland, and Rhode Island School of Design. Robert Sullivan is the author of numerous books, including The Meadowlands: WildernessAdventures at the Edge of a City; Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants; The Thoreau You Don’t Know: The Father of Nature Writers on the Importance of Cities, Finance, and Fooling Around; A Whale Hunt, and, most recently, My American Revolution. His stories and essays have been published in magazines such asNew York, The New Yorker, and A Public Space. He is a contributing editor to Vogue.

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