Journal Square, Jersey City

MGM's 'Way for a sailor' released on 1st November 1930. 

Journal Square in the 1960s. 

Journal Square with Loew's Jersey on the left background in the summer of 1972.

Railways, tunnels and tracks

Newark PATH turnstiles.

Penn Station track ramp. 

Penn Station 4 July 1969.

under the Hudson River.

Ironbound rail-bridge over Passaic River next to Penn Station.

Kawasaki brand-new PATH train...

Ferry Street, Ironbound, Newark, N.J.

Ferry Street looking south...

Ferry Street looking north...

Ferry Street looking south & beyond... see Newark Bay Bridge at North Bayone Park in the background (centre) and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge (further south on the righ-hand side).

Ferry Street corner with Polk Street.

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Ferry & McWhorter Streets. 

One of many fascinating examples of ethnic succession in the Ironbound is this 1848 Second Dutch Reformed Church, then, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, now an Evangelical Protestant congregation.

This church formerly had a tall steeple, but the steeple was removed after World War II. The building became Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in 1890, and was one of the first parishes in Newark to serve Italians. Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini herself, the first American citizen to be canonized, operated a school in the basement here.

Komorn St & Main St corner shop (in the Ironbound)

Follow Komorn Street until you fade in the horizon of this picture and you'll get to Wilson Avenue where I used to live on the 1st floor of a go-go bar just at the corner of Barbara Street. 

See this quaint 2-floor house at the corner of Komorn & Main Street? Well, it used to be a corner shop in the late 60s & early 70s. I used to work the night-shift at a record factory on the corner of Komorn & Saint Francis St. We worked from Monday through Friday and knocked off a quarter-to-eight in the morning. 

I remember Dentinho (real name: Luiz) and I used to walk the one block to Main Street enter the corner shop and get served by a nice lady who owned the business. We usually got ourselves a cup-of-coffee, a single banana (10 cents) or a slice of industrialized apple-pie. Sometimes we sat at a table next to the street window and looked outside while drinking our hot coffee. Most of the times we got a pie or banana and ate it while walking our way back home to Wilson Avenue.

#1: corner of Wilson Ave. & Barbara St., the first place I resided in the Ironbound; #2 Saint Francis St., a vynil record factory where I started working in mid-October 1971 and met Dentinho; #5 corner of Komorn St. & Main St. where Dentinho & I had coffee and cakes in the morning after knocking off shift work; # 3 house on Wilson Ave which Dentinho shared with 2 other Brazilian fellows; #4 corner of Ferry St. and Wilson Ave.  

Saint Benedict's church on BARBARA STREET

Barbara St. corner with Niagara St. 

Saint Benedict Church on Barbara St. corner with Niagara St.

Sometimes it's hard to understand the things I do or the things I don't do. You see, when I arrived in the USA on 2nd October 1971, and went to live on Barbara Street corner with Wilson Avenue, in the Ironbound, a section of Newark just south of Pennsylvania Station, I was really eager to know every crack in those dirty sidewalks of Broadway & Manhattan, just like Glen Campbell sings in 'Rhinestone cowboy', that 1976 hit of his. 

By November 1971, I started working at a vynil record factory on Francis Street, just 5 blocks away from home. I would leave home at 11:30 pm, walk Barbara St. down, cross Niagara St., I would turn left on Niagara, walk one block and turn right at Komorn St.; kept walking south, cross Magazine St. up to Francis St. where the factory was located between Komorn St. and Kossuth St. 

You see, I must have walked past Saint Benedict Church, on the corner of Barbara & Niagara streets hundreds of times and never had the least curiosity to go in and see how the church was inside. Especially when Saint Benedict was supposed to be my Patron Saint for I was baptized in a Saint Benedict church in Marília-SP in 1949, and made my First Communion there in 1958.

The fact is a misconception of the name of Saint Benedict which in Portuguese is translated in 2 different ways: as São Bento and as São Benedito, a literal translation from Latin. To make things more complicated, we have 2 different saints bearing these names: São Bento is the pioneer of Catholicism in the Middle Ages and São Benedito is a Black priest who became a saint much later. 

São Bento (480-547) & São Benedito (1526-1589). 

Benedict of Nursia OSB (Italian: Benedetto da Norcia; 2nd March 480 – 21 March 547), known as Saint Benedict, was an Italian Christian monk, writer, and theologian. Benedict founded 12 communities for monks at Subiaco in present-day Lazio, Italy, before moving further south-east to Monte Cassino in the mountains of central Italy. 

Benedict the Moor OFM (Italian: Benedetto il Moro; 1526 – 4 April 1589) was a Sicilian Franciscan friar. Born of enslaved Africans in San Fratello, he was freed at birth and became known for his charity. As a young man he joined a Franciscan-affiliated hermit group, of which he became the leader. In 1564 he was sent to the Franciscan friary in Palermo, where he continued good works. He died in 1589 and was canonized as a Catholic saint by Pope Pius VII in 1807.

Barbara Street corner with Wilson Avenue sometime in 2000. 

Jay Gavilanes wrote on Facebook on 1st November 2025: OMG, my first strip club when I was 14 years old. 

Robert J. Burke wrote:  It used to be the Brazilian Lounge!

Henry Calace replied to Burke:  Nope! That was El Cuartito Azul... 

Paul Fragoso wrote: They always let the underage guys in and served us. I was 15-16. Drinking and smoking.

Henry Calace wrote:  Across the street was Casey's. He was a cool guy!

Anthony Arruda replied to Calace:  Henry Calace, my Uncle; R.I.P. 

John Alves wrote: Henry Calace, the auto parts store!!!! He had some good cocaine!!!

Tracy Pobutkiewicz- DeCristoforo wrote: This is Barbara St. at the corner of Wilson Ave.

George Helewa to Tracy Pobutkiewic: I lived on Barbara St across from St Benedict's Church circa 1968.

Tracy Pobutkiewicz to George Helewa: I grew up on Marne Street. I'm a parishioner of St. Benedict's.

George Helewa to Tracy Pobutkiewicz: I went to St. Benedict's School 1950-1958; then East Side  in 1962. I lived on Barbara across from the rectory in 1968 after serving 4yrs in the Navy. 

Ricardo Padilla wrote: I use to go to that Go-Go bar! Lol. 

Thurman Edward Bizzell Jr wrote: That was one of my favorite places in my younger years.

Joao Jordao wrote: Barbara St. & Wilson Ave. it's still Imigrante Bar, but not like old times times, sniff sniff. 

John Alves wrote: A friend of mine brother-in-law was killed in the bathroom of that place, back in the early 70's.

Danny Greg to John Alves: What was the name of the bar in the 70s?

Anthony Ardito wrote: That place was called the Brazil Louge.  

Carlus Maximus to Danny Greg:  As far as I remember it was known only as Go-Go Bar. I took this picture in 2000. I lived on the 1st floor of that place in 1971.

corner of Ferry Street and Wilson Avenue

House on the corner of Wilson Avenue & Komorn Street where I used to stop and buy me a cup-of-coffee and a slice of apple pie on my way home from working at the record factory on Francis Street. 

Wilson Avenue & Komourn Street. 

McWhorter Street

This is the very house Daniel & Elvira Rodrigues built for themselves on 87 McWhorter Street.

McWhorter Street runs parallel to the railway... 

Ferry St. with McWhorter St. in 1964. 

Green St. & McWhorter St. in 1960. 

McWhorter & Green St. 

Murphy Varnish Company on McWhorer St. with Oliver Street.

former Murphy Varnish Co. factory under renovation to be turned into a residential building. 

Murphy Varnish Company bldg built in 1865, in Newark, N.J. 

Murphy Varnish Co. corner of McWhorter & Olive lay abandoned for decades...

July 2022. 

QUEENS Midtown Tunnel & Verrazano Narrows Bridge

Queens Midtown Tunnel on 21st February 1940. 

Queens Midtown Tunnel under the East River on 13 March 1940. 

Verrazano Narrows Bridge, 1980. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge also referred to as the Narrows Bridge, the Verrazzano Bridge, and the Verrazzano) is a suspension bridge connecting the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn. 

It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed New York Harbor with Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It is the only fixed crossing of the Narrows. The double-deck bridge carries 13 lanes of Interstate 278: seven on the upper level and six on the lower level. The span is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, who in 1524 was the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River.

Newark & Manhattan

Newark (left) & Manhattan (right) with the Passaic, Hakensack & Hudson Rivers between them... 

same area seen from a different perspective; from West to East... 

Manhattan in a 1933 shot...