Years ago I was given the option to fly into either EWR or JFK for the same price. I was travelling business class on AA, but if I flew into EWR I could pay the same and fly First. No brainer for me, but my colleague refused (which was good for me as I didn't want to spend the flights with him anyway!) Stacks of bonus miles were given to me for my first First flight, plus the actual standard First miles. Service was great, but the sheepskin seats weren't that nice, and there wasn't the fill recline on them either back then (2000).

As for NJ itself, what I saw from the car kind of frightened me. A huge urban sprawl. Not very pretty. I'm only basing this on the route to and from the airport to NYC itself, so I'm assuming there are nice areas too.