DZ1977 wrote:

Living in Kinnelon now and can not find the YMCA site. Spent 6 summers there and would love to know where it was. I remember Ray the bus driver.....

heights wrote:
Hey I remember Ray the bus driver he used to drive us there and on the way he would stop at the bakery on 23 north. We would board the old gray fish bowl bus ID #B-30 I remember seeing him about 6 or 7 years later driving route #10 Bayonne Hudson Boulevard bus line. Cool times at Brook Valley Day Camp. I often think about that place. Do you remember councilors Cathy, Luke, and the Casey brothers, and also that mean camp leader Chong ?

DZ1977 wrote:
Living in Kinnelon now and can not find the YMCA site. Spent 6 summers there and would love to know where it was. I remember Ray the bus driver.....

JerseyGirlatheart wrote:
Yeah, that's a bit young. I was at 105 Ocean Ave. Neptune at one end, and Winfield at the other. Lived over a bar called "The Rainbow Tavern"

JerseyGirlatheart wrote:
I agree! I don't have many, but love to see some pictures from my childhood home.

JerseyGirlatheart wrote:
Oh my God! I remember so many of these places, and things! Moved away from Jersey in 1976. Was born in Bayonne. Moved to Jersey City at 4 or so. Started school at Ezra L Nolan/PS 40. I lived on Ocean Ave, so I know the A&P, Sodano's Chicken Market, Greenville Bakery, Schuetz Bakery, Sandler's! Both sides of street! Got OUR sneakers and BLUE Gymsuits there too! Bayonne Pool every summer, Finest Grocery Store. The Freezer Fresh and Mister Softee Ice Cream Trucks, the guy who sold fresh hot bread loaves out of his car/station wagon! Shall I continue?!!! Oh my, the stories I have about growing up in Jersey City!

Bossacucanova wrote:
This is some of what I remember...
Brook Valley Day Camp

Darkvark wrote:
Brummers was located in the Junction area where Communipaw Avenue meets Grand Street...

wintergreen88 wrote:
Quote:

bryceman70 wrote:
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?
--------------------------------------------------------------------

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?

What you wrote is interesting. There were several people on FB's "We Grew Up in Jersey City" web page trying to convince me that ethnic relations in the '40s & '50s were great. I didn't believe them especially after reading Helen Stapinski's book "Five Finger Discount" in which she wrote about the ethnic division in JC in the early '60s & prior to this time.

I had been trying to recall the name of the 5&10 store which was next to the State Theater. Fisher Beer was still at that location in the mid-'70s, wasn't it? I lived in JC from July of '74 to June of '75.

wintergreen88 wrote:
Quote:

shadrack wrote:
Quote:

wintergreen88 wrote:
Where was the Woolworth store in Journal Square located? Was it near the State Theater? I remember going to a department store which was near the State Theater in the mid '70s. The store was probably Woolworth, Lynns or Moriel's.

Woolworth was near the old Hudson Tubes (PATH) transportation Hub before the new complex was completed in 1976. Woolworth was across from the Tube Bar and pizzeria.

Across the street from the State Theater was Liss Pharmacy which was as large as a department store complete with a lunch counter. Next to the Lowes Theater was J.M. Fields which is now the C.H. Martin.

Thanks, Shadrack! I'm not sure why but someone mistakenly told me that there was a Woolworth store near the State Theater. There was probably another department store near the State Theater which I may have visited. I remember Liss Pharmacy & J.M. Fields. I used to go to Liss Pharmacy for cold remedies. I went to J.M. Fields to shop for school clothes before the school year began when I was living in JC. I left the city in late June of '75.

It could be that a Wolworth store existed near the State Theater during an earlier time period than the '70s

This 1972 photo shows Kennedy Boulevard near Journal Square.
(State Theater, Rags to Riches, Joyce Leslie, Moriel?s, Lynns, Kitty Kelly & Danny Mack shoe stores) http://bus.nycsubway.org/perl/show?656