Jersey City's music history happened in specific rooms and on specific blocks: a record store in Journal Square that ran for five decades, a skating rink where New Jersey battled the Bronx, a park where the winner of a turntable battle took the loser's equipment, and the clubs where the mixtape DJs held residencies. This page lists every place entry in the archive, grouped by kind.
Stan's Square Records, founded by Stan Krause in 1965 first in Journal Square and later at 349 Bergen Avenue, anchored the city's music life until it closed in 2018, and spun off the labels Catamount Records and Square Records. The 2006 Jersey City DJ Documentary documents the scene's venues and institutions: Rendezvous (formerly Ruthie's), the Boys Club, Lollipop, Taste, and Ferris High School as a producer of scene legends, and preserves the oral history of turntable battles at Audubon Park in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The schools and blocks are in the record too. Lincoln High School is where Kool and the Gang formed in 1964 as students; P.S. 11 was DJ Wimpy Bee's staple room and the site of the MC battle Cool Sir Brown won with harmonies arranged by Mary Brown; Ferris, Snyder and Dickinson high schools are called out in Mista Quietman's The 201 High School Anthem, and Akon attended two of them. The Duncan Projects produced the Tranquilizing Three; Curries Woods in Greenville is home ground for Max YB, De$igner Boyz and PressureOnline; the Benmore Skating Rink on Communipaw Avenue hosted the New Jersey versus Bronx battles of 1982; and the block of Maple Street where Kool and the Gang grew up has been Kool & the Gang Way since 2016. Every place with a sourced address is pinned on the Jersey City Music Map, which other sites can embed.
A place gets an entry only when the archive already holds two or more sourced music connections to it. Places named in the record that do not yet have an entry are listed in the research notes for this page.
In the archive§
Public housing (2)
Schools (5)
Skating rinks (1)
Streets (1)
Venues and record stores (1)
Questions, answered§
What was Stan's Square Records?
A Jersey City record store founded by Stan Krause in 1965, first in Journal Square and later at 349 Bergen Avenue, that anchored the city's music life until it closed in 2018.
Where did Jersey City's DJ battles happen?
The 2006 documentary preserves accounts of turntable battles at Audubon Park in the late 1970s and early 1980s, where the winner took the loser's equipment, and the Winterblaze mixtape battle at the Boys Club in 2000.
Which clubs did the mixtape DJs play?
Rendezvous (formerly Ruthie's), Lollipop, Taste, Brenda's and Bills are named in the 2006 documentary as residencies of DJ E Double and rooms of the era.
Also in the archive§
Musicians from Jersey City: the complete archive · Jersey City DJs and the mixtape era · Jersey City music history: the timeline · Chilltown · On the Charts
Rappers from Jersey City · Famous Musicians Born in Jersey City · Famous People from Jersey City: Music and Entertainment · Jersey Club and Jersey City · Jersey City High Schools and the Music That Came Through Them · Jersey City Slang in Music: 201 and Chilltown · Jersey City Music Before 1960 · Jersey City Music in the 1960s · Jersey City Music in the 1970s · Jersey City Music in the 1980s · Jersey City Music in the 1990s · Jersey City Music in the 2000s
Sources§
Every fact above is carried by the linked entries, each with its own numbered sources.
Archive page by Robert Van Liew · Last updated 2026-10-01