by Maureen Wlodarczyk
Â
My mother Arlene was a “Jersey Girl” decades before anyone thought of calling us Garden State girls by the moniker that now evokes images of big hair and dark suntans. Arlene wasn’t that kind of “Jersey Girl.” She was a Jersey City girl, born and raised. Born just weeks after the stock market crash of 1929, a child of the Depression and an adolescent of World War II, my mother remembers a very happy, if modest, childhood in the city she loved, surrounded by caring family, friends and neighbors in the Greenville section. I enjoy hearing her talk about those “old days” and I am usually the one to prompt her to tell me those stories.
You know you are from Jersey City if you remember…
I received  this in an email today. My Jersey City friends may remember many of the places and things. Have fun, I did.Â
Source:Â Truth Speaks- Icypeals Blogspot -Â Thanks Mimi
*Seeing the Three Stooges Live at the Stanley Theater
*Live Acappella Shows at the State Theater
* Hudson Boulevard had islands.
*Ferris High School
*Singing Doo-Wop under the tresstle on Monmouth Street
*Hanging out at Coletta’s Bar
* You knew how O’Hara’s got it’s name.
* You knew all the troublemakers before they became cops.
– Martin Luther King Drive was Jackson Avenue
– Christopher Columbus Drive was Railroad Avenue
– Luiz Munoz Marin Boulevard was Henderson Street
-Manila Avenue was Grove Street
– Roosevelt Lanes & Putney’s Pub
– Annual Holy Name Parade
– What Harvard on the Blvd. and St. Richards on the Hill are
– The color scheme of the bus lines:Â
… Brown: Central Avenue; Red: Montgomery/West Side, Green: Bergen/Lafayette, Orange: Bergen Avenue
– Getting Sunday suits at Robert HallÂ
– Bettingers on the Square
– Uncle Milties/Bergen Point
– The Skyline Cabana Club
– You shopped in Woolworth on JournalÂ
Square and went to the Griddle or Driftwood after a movie.
– The Hudson Mall was a strip mallÂ
– Instead of the Hudson Mall there
was: Two Guys from Harrison; Great Eastern, and Valley Fair
– Instead of the dollar stores there was Johns Bargain Stores
– You could actually swim in the Reservoir (on the sneak)
– The giant roach in the exterminators window on Westside Avenue
– Floor shows at the Canton Tea Garden Chinese Restaurant
– You’ve said “Youse” about 100 times in one day
A lifestyle and entertainment publication serving the Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne, Weehawken, West New York, North Bergen, Cliffside Park, Edgewater, Secaucus and Guttenberg Waterfront Communities
