You should of seen it in the 7's when everyone had giant cars that looked like "boats" nobody had no room to park anywhere, people today with their compact cars, you guys are lucky, one time they towed my Camaro to a lot in Maryland. The cops were tougher than they are now, could learn a couple lessons.

Sorry, the number is 877-WARNDEP, or 877-927-6337.

It smells like chlorine over here on st. paul's this morning, definitely not the garbage train smell. Please call 877-WARNDEP to report the odor. I'm hoping an air quality team will come out. It's obviously very concerning because of the chlorine facility in South Kearny. So far none of the construction workers out here have keeled over yet though.

Hey everyone I'm glad I found this forum to talk to everyone about Jersey City. I grew up here and my family is from here and I love this town so it's nice to see others who are too.

I thought this would be a good place to share some of the writings I did that talk about the old days in Jersey City and what it was like back in the day. I would like some feedback thanks. vinnie

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Hudson High A Love Story

It was a late night at Duckys, the kind of night where only a few people were around drinkin gbeers and hanging out quietly and I was drinking beers too when she walked in. Tall and gorgous with looks that could kill, or at least break your heart into two

That was back in the day, when Jersey City was real, not like today, but everyone knew it. Hi" she said, saddling up next to me at the worn bar, varnish worn through from years of old drunks leaning over their beers, their elbows wearing away at the once shiny surface. Pablo, the bartender at the time (he's dead now) came over with that old rag of his, eyeing his mysterious lady and then shot me expecting look. "Whatever she's having" I said, because that's what men do, they buy a pretty lady a drink. She sort of squinted her eyes and shot me a knowing half smile, then looked at Pablo and asked for a whiskey on the rocks, my eyebrows rose in surprise and I said "you sure you can handle that"? but I smiled to let her know I was sort of joking. "Dont worry about me honey" she said as she rubbed my arm with her left hand (she was on my right side).

Three years earlier I was in a car with Danny and Luis, we were riding on what they call JFK Boulevard now but at the time it was Hudson Boulevard, before they renamed it to what its called now, smoking cigarettes, seeing the sights. We were going to the square. Louis said "hey Vinny (that's me)", lets go to the candy store and get a malted". I knew he was right and so we went down to the candy store and ordered 3 malted, one for eachof us. As we sat there shooting the stuff, so to speak Danny's brother comes in. "I have a job for you" Danny's brother Vince says, "its a good pay out but its dangerous. Finish your malted." And that was how I wound up doing small work for a local crime ring, but everyone did something like that or knew someone who did especially in Jersey City. The pay was pretty good and sometimes things got hairy, and the characters we ran into sometimes were something else but that's another story. One time an associate of vince paid us $100 dollars each to take a duffel bag out to the meadows and bury it. We didn't ask what was in it or nothing and probably didnt want to know it could have been a human head or guns or who knows what, they just wanted it gone! And we were happy to help them out if it meant more easy work like that. So we took the bag out on what we called the pike and made a turn onto one of the dirt roads that used to go through the meadows ( I can't say where for obvious reasons) and there's a guy fishing right where we wanted to dig!!!! Who fishes in the meadows. So we couldn't just turn around because it would of been suspicious so we talked to the guy and then he left so we could dig. There were other close calls but we never got in any trouble or anything.

Everyone who was everyone's grandfather or uncle worked on a railroad or another, there were a lot of them in jersey city, they used to call it Rail Town because thats how many trains there were. Or if there wasn't trains there was a lot of tracks in town. They used to call one street Railroad Avenue and there was an elavated on it. The railroad cops were called bulls 9i don't know why) and damn if they didn't shoot rock salt at your ass if they caught you walking around the elevated or "the yards" and if you got caught your grandpop or vince's uncle would find out and your own mom would give you a beating for being so stupid. Yes there were a lot of good times. There was one bull named Ron with a big bald head big baggy pants like they didn't fit, not like the kids wear pants today with their butts hanging out! Anyway Ron was a pretty mean old guyand if you were up to no good he knew it almost like he had a sick sense for that sort of thing and one day he was chasing us down the tracks because we were trying to steal a few pieces of coal to heat the house and he tripped over one of pieces of wood and went down on that big butt of his and man, we laughed a lot. It was a great day and we all had a lot of fun.

A guy I knew got blew off one of the drawbridges, they call it the hack, a few years back. Didn't make it. Even today my hardhat flew right off my head a couple times but that's what jersey city is like its windy and you don't know WHAT is going to go flying at your head or face I'd wear a hardhat all the time but that would look crazy.

Not to put you down but back in the day the only smells around here were your mom's spicy tomato sauce or maybe the neighbor would make some rice con carne, and nobody complained because that was your dinner. We didn't have no curry back then and I'm not sure where you would have gone of you wanted any. It was hard enough just finding fennel fir moms spicy sausage! Id sometimes come home empty handed, and she'd be standing there with a single tear in her eye (her left), her disappointment palpibble. And boy, if she didn't hit you with a truncheon after something like that! I'm telling you.

YOu didn't have none of this crap before, what's the big deal? What's wrong with a good old peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch? I don't get this tofu oriental chai whatever, where did this crap come from? If you ask me you can get anything you could ever possibly want to eat at pathmark or shop rite (anyone remember grand union?) or any of those places.

Not for nothing but back in the day that was a pencil factory and the neighborhood wasn't too good. At the time hardly anybody owned anything unless they didn't live around here so you didn't have owners talking down on renters because everyone was poor there was no class divisions, all the new rich people brought that in because they don't care about community, they care about their money. When I was a kid you would have gotten socked in the mouth if you told my pop he was less than you because we rented our place. Remember that.