Things to Do in Newark in November

November's indoor weather makes this the perfect month to spend half-days in the Newark Museum of Art's Tibetan collection (the largest in the Western hemisphere) and the adjacent Ballantine House - a 27-room Victorian mansion that smells like old wood and brass polish. The museum's third-floor exhibit on Newark's industrial past feels relevant when you're watching November rain streak the windows overlooking Washington Park.

November's cool evenings were made for Ironbound's Spanish-Portuguese restaurants - the kind where grilled sardines arrive still sizzling and the house wine comes in chipped ceramic cups. Start at Seabra's Marisqueira for salt cod fritters, then work east along Ferry Street where the smell of garlic and olive oil drifts from doorways. The neighborhood's Brazilian population means you'll find steaming bowls of feijoada that taste like someone's been cooking beans for three days.

November reveals the park's 5,000 cherry trees in their autumn phase - bronze and copper leaves that crunch underfoot along the 2.5 km (1.6 mile) loop past the old Essex County Rose Garden. The Japanese maples near the Clifton Avenue entrance turn such a violent red they look artificially enhanced, and you'll have the reflecting pool mostly to yourself except for the occasional Rutgers medical student studying on benches.

November's low sun streams through Penn Station's 1920s skylights in a way that makes the travertine marble glow golden - beautiful during the 4 PM rush when commuters create shadow patterns across the waiting room floor. The station's Beaux-Arts details (look for the terra cotta eagles above the track gates) are easier to photograph without summer's tourist crowds blocking shots.