was achieved by spending a lot of time on Greyhound buses going into and out of New York. Since, at that time, you couldn't go north out of NYC without going through Paramus, I spent a lot of miles on 17 between the tunnel and the Thruway. I soon came to think Paramus was 5 or 6 miles long and the width of the decaying/boarded-up properties on either side of 17. Not necessarily dangerous, but definitely not a lot there. (I was, of course, wrong, but I was also young!)

I know Newark only by reputation, all of it bad.