Vintage Photographs Capture Streets of Jersey City, New Jersey From the 1940s and 1950s

1930s cars and 1940s cars with no seat belts or airbags zooming along the intensely industrial Pulaski Skyway with no lane markers or a divider.

New viaduct for westbound traffic from the Holland Tunnel with 1950s neon signs for Newark, Philadelphia and Hudson Boulevard.

Diagonal slices of sunlight flicker between black industrial steel beams as 1930s cars cruise one of the peaks of the Pulaski Skyway.

The original two-way traffic viaduct to the Holland Tunnel with the Seaboard Terminal building and lots of 1940s cars on their way to Manhattan.

Route 440 in 1951 with 1940s cars, a large factory (Ryerson Steel) and swampland.

Hanging out in the neighborhood, 1946 style. Johnston Avenue looking east toward the Central Railroad of New Jersey train yards in the distance.

Large industrial metallic tanks of soap and perfuming chemicals dominated the intersection of Essex and Hudson Streets. The Colgate Plant had its own rail system and a Southern box car is visible on the right.

Hoboken Avenue below Christ Hospital by the Erie railroad tracks.

Industrial street scene from Mercer St looking west from under the National Docks Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad trestle with gleaming cars and old brick factories.

1930s cars and 1940s cars zip along the Pulaski Skyway surrounded by factories, smokestacks and oil tanks. The Empire State Building can be vaguely seen in the middle left distance.

The Pennsylvania Railroad's Harsimus Stem Embankment which people are now trying to save as a linear park looked mercilessly bleak in 1951. Looking west at 6th Street.

Streetscape of Montgomery Street looking west near Brunswick Street. Saint Bridget's church on the right. Lots of 1930s and 1940 cars parked. Esso gas station at middle left. In the distance a railroad trestle crosses over Montgomery.

Baldwin Avenue where the State Highway 139 viaduct ends with cobblestones and lots of cool 1940s cars.

Industrial buildings, railroad tracks, 1940s cars and cobblestones on Provost Street by the Holland Tunnel entrance in Jersey City.

Mill Road with an entrance to the Mercer Viaduct at bottom right.

Railroad Trestles, 1940s cars. Sixth St and Brunswick Avenue looking east toward Manhattan. Shows the Harsimus Embankment still in use.

Exchange Place looking to Hudson River. Pennsylvania Railroad offices in building with rounded roof. Hudson Tube (PATH) entrance behind it in little white building on left. The ferry terminal to Manhattan is straight ahead.

Pollock Avenue near Mallory Avenue.

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Topics: old us life & culture street 1950s, 1940s New Jersey