1) My mother told me that when she was a little girl (1920's) there was a huge blue whale in the ocean in "Mount Fuji" like waves on the bricks of the orange brick apt. building next to the old Harris Glass on the side of the street that now has Hudson City Bank. On looking closely at the brickwork you can vaguely ,very vaguely see one of the waves from that ancient brick wall ad.,

2) Migdoll's (the brick ad. is s till there on the side street) lamp store on Monticello Ave.. He had these rolling lamps with trains and "blob lights", gobs of goo that went up and down an illuminated tube, in his window. A shop full of lamps.

3) The Bonanza Charcoal Pit, across from the State Theater, Hoss Cartwright(the late Dan Blocker) came for the opening in his ten gallon hat. A great burger and fries place. WOW!

4) the great Hot Open Turkey Sandwich With Fries from The Alps.

5) The rag man with his wagon (he had a chin beard) who shouted: "Ray!" as he clip-clopped down the street...and why did one travelling truck fruit vendor sound like he was yelling:"Peaches! Apples! Peaches! ACEVEDO!" I know it wasn't "Acevedo"..I thought as a kid maybe it was his name, but he was Italian, not Spanish.

He seemed to be Hindu, I think they were Indians who ran that news stand. But his voice was higher than the usual high-pitched accent of that region.

As 9/11 anniversary approaches I always wondered about something probably trivial that anyone who walked through the Trade Center to and fro PATH remembered:

There was a news stand in the center of the huge area where the PATH turnsiles stood in the World Trade Center. There was a guy who worked there who had a very high pitched accented voice that sounded quite unique. YOu had to force yourself not to giggle when you first heard him say:"That will be Fifty Cents!" buying your newspaper.

I wonder whatever became of him.

Anyone who ever bought a newspaper at that stand knows who I'm talking about.

The Pix. use to show Horror Movie Matinees on Saturdays around 1960-62. Movies that later were on CHILLER THEATER on t.v.. They had between double features a drawing of a winning thater ticket for a Silver Dollar. The manager who did the drawing lookedl ike Kate Smith.

It was a roller rink later on.
Paris Pastry on Bergen Avenue and remember Meatless Fridays and AMATO'S. Old man Amato had a very loud voice. He sounded like he was shouting even when he gretted you.
A delivery boy who worked for him, Phillip Polk, was accepted into Annapolis and became a career officer in the U.S. Navy. I don't know what became of him but the crew at Amato's was very proud of him. The businesses I know of left from those days are Roguts, Johnson's Stationary(are they still there?), the Bank on the corner of Fairmount Ave. and the Emerald Cleaners.

I remember the A & P on Bergen Ave. near Emrald, Miss Dotty always helped the little kids who couldn't read the labels in the store. She was very nice.

Soft Shell Crab and french fries dinner - $5.50.

Is Shelley's still around?

The checker-shirted Archie Bunker use to also have a huge grass front lawn and devoted all spring and summer to guarding his front lawn from kids walking on it, baseballs landing in it or dogs going near it. He hated kids and always yelled at them or reported them to their parents if they came within inches of his silly grass.
We got back at him when he want to a Novena. lol. Then for that interval his lawn became Yankee Stadium and boy did he yell , "Hey, you kids!" when he got back from Church.
Like the customers at Joe's Elbow Room at Palisade Park, "we didn't know anything about it!"

I always wondered why these crabby people didn't just put barbed wire and booby traps around their silly front lawn grass.

Every neighborhood had a Grass Man just like the Medical Center had a screaming old lady patient on all the floors constantly screaming for the nurse(she got get well cards from all the floor staff, lol) and whining out loud. It frightened kids who had to visit someone in "The Bastille".

When I was a very little kid riding on "the Tubes" I remember in the dusty old 9th Street Station in Manhattan, from within the bend of the in-coming tunnel on the 33rd St.-Jnl Sq. side of the station, there was a hideous hiss--clomp, hiss-clomp noise in the tunnel that sounded like The Monster Of Piedras Blancas movie monster walking in the tunnel.

Anyone know what that noise actually was? It gave me the creeps, I'd hide in dad's or mom's coat when we entered the station and I heard it.

Live Poultry Market-There was one near Montgomery Street. The tiny building still stands.

The Movie Theater across from the Central Ave. Police Station. I vaguely recall being glad to leave, going down its carpeted staircase..the second feature: PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DASIES, was absolutely awful and boring. It still is !!!

The Fairmount Hospital-was "kid friendly" as was Saint Francis. The Medical Center was Frankenstein's Lab to little kids-the scariest hospital in the city.

Several memories. One maybe someone can remember:
I vaguely remember between Oakland Avenue and Cook Street where now is a huge parking lot...there was a gully, a bid deep crater. In it were several rows of army-style buildings in which Black Families lived. It was bulldozed and now a parking lot for over ....55 years? Was I hallucinating or was it really there?
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Other Memories, THE GOOD: Fisher Beer was the 5 & 10 next to the State Theater.
The huge vacant lot between Summit Ave and JFK (formerly HUDSON) Blvd. Only the library and one St. John's Apts. building was there, between them...it looked like Hiroshima after the blast for a few years in the early 1960's around the time Kennedy was shot.
ACME Super Market on Hoboken and Summit Aves. where the Hudson Bank drive-in now stands.

The Rosewood Malt Shop on Bergen Ave. near Vroom ST. had swastika tyles on the floor (obviously put there long before Hitler)

Bickford's on the Square and the McGinley Square Bus Station(where the tramps hung out inside who looked like out've the Great Depression).
Coward Shoes
Thorne's Women's where owned by a former Czech movie star prior to WW 2.

The Pix Theater Saturday Matinees which showed movies later put on CHILLER THEATER on t.v.
Other Memories: THE BAD:

The Jersey Journal use to print "A Negro" if someone arrested was Black. They'd put his name, the above , his age and address. They didn't do it for any other race. They continued to do it until I think Dr. King was killed(old Microfilms at the Jersey Ave. library will prove what I say).

Kids with "funny names" that weren't Irish or Italian were open-targets for bullies. Even in the Catholic Schools. When the first Black kid came to our Catholic school (I won't say the name to avoid embarassment-you'll know which one!) the other kids jumped on him like paranas. I don't recall what happened to him. His first name was Joseph and the last name started with a T.. That's all I'll share.

Other Meories: THE UGLY:

If you were suspected to be gay in Jersey City of the Old Days you had as much of a chance as a Hassidic Jew in 1940 Berlin. Now Jersey City was ranked #3 in the state for Gay Friendly.


The Jersey Journal use to print Sodomy arrests and "suspected homosexuals" arrested on suspicion, their names and addresses in the paper. Again, check the microfilms.
Neighborhoods had "color lines" usually enforced by some checker-shirted Archie Bunker who lived on the street who hoisted the Star Spangled Banner every morning on his porch). I was told once that a little kid I invited to the wading pool in my yard had to go away because "a neighbor complained I violated the color line" to my parents.
He was a dark-complexioned Hispanic*(*that made it even worse). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jersey City, like any place in the country or the world, has its good memories and bad. These are part of our history. What is important is what we've become and we're a vibrant multi-cultured and welcoming city now. We are not a "little red neck town frozen in the 1950's" as some New Yorkers said about us back then.
I love Jersey City and am also a historian.
Final note, a foundation of one of the towering beams for the old trolley tressle to Hoboken is still under the State Highway ramp to the Holland Tunnel, know where it is?