junior jetset - waves obviously make it tougher. Smooth water is always better
At 3000' after departing LGA your options are poor and worse. Built up area and/or heavily wooded, with few open spots other than the water.
The a/c was at about 210 kts, which would be very close to best glide speed(L/D). Standard glide ratio is about 18:1 so they were landing in the next 9 miles. So they had about 3 minutes to touchdown and had to make the command decision, after/while completing immediate actions for dual engine failure, to select their crash site.