Jersey City Times: Jersey City in the 1920s: “The Mecca of Fistiana”

https://jcitytimes.com/jersey-city-in-the-1920s-the-mecca-of-fistiana/

Jersey City in the 1920s: “The Mecca of Fistiana”

This is the third in a weekly series of essays on Jersey City’s illustrious sports history. It complements the Museum of Jersey City History’s current exhibit Legendary Arenas and the Legends Who Performed There at the Apple Tree House (298 Academy Street). The exhibit is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. until October 15.

 by Peter Begans

July 25, 2025

A longtime Jersey City indoor arena was the Grandview on Ogden Avenue, later re-named the Grotto and then, even later, the Jersey City Garden.

 Jersey City has always loved a good fight, and not just in the political arena. The New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame has a record of more than 1,000 boxing cards staged in Jersey City, dating back to the 19th century. Most of the venues are gone and long forgotten: places like Wood’s Hall, Metropolitan Hall, and Scottish–American Hall. But some remain: Victory Hall on Grand Street, White Eagle Hall on Newark Avenue, and the Jersey City National Guard Armory on Montgomery Street. 

Unquestionably, the sport of boxing peaked in the 1920s. During that celebrated era, you could attend a fight card in Hudson County almost every night. There were smoky little joints and larger outdoor arenas. Jersey City’s top local promoter was Jack Jennings. Jennings arranged matches at the 4th Regiment Armory during the colder months. Then, come May, he would fill outstanding cards at the Oakland Open Air Arena near the site of the old Oakland Park Baseball Field at Oakland and Hoboken avenues in the Heights. 

Postcard depicting the Grandview. During the 1920s, fight fans had a nearly limitless choice of boxing cards across Jersey City and Hudson County. There were smoky community halls and large outdoor amphitheatres.

His Monday night matches attracted some of the sport’s greatest talent to the 7,200-seat amphitheater. “The Oakland A.A. was New Jersey’s oldest boxing club. It held the first license granted under the Hurley Law of 1918,” wrote the Jersey Journal on December 31, 1926. “A list of champions who fought there includes Tunney, Lovinsky, O’Dowd, Lynch, Buff, Dundee, Leonard, Villa, Genaro, Goldstein, Britton, and Lewis. In the Oakland A.A., Jersey City most certainly can claim an arena whose place will ever be secure as one of the most noteworthy of all time.” 

James J. Braddock fought at the Oakland A.A. five times, both on his way up, and on his amazing comeback from injury and poverty prior to defeating Max Baer in 1935 for the heavyweight crown. Three of Braddock’s first eight fights were at the Oakland Arena, all knockouts. Over the course of his career, Braddock was undefeated in Jersey City,10–0–1. 

Johnny Buff, who was born in Perth Amboy, came to reside in Jersey City, and he fought numerous times here, eventually becoming World Bantamweight Champion.

Gene Tunney, who would win the heavyweight title from Jack Dempsey in 1927, fought eight bouts in Jersey City early in his career.  He won all of them, seven by knockout.  

After the 4th Regiment Armory burned down in 1927, Jennings would find an indoor venue on lower Newark Avenue for his winter cards. His successors in the fight game, Bill Johnston and Jackie Farrell, would take over the place and christen it the Braddock Arena. They re-named Oakland Outdoor Arena “The Braddock Bowl” and continued to offer fights cards there in the 1930s.

The dean of New Jersey boxing promoters in the 1920s was Jack Jennings who promoted outstanding matches at the 4th Regiment Armory and the Oakland Outdoor Arena.  A long list of future title holders, from Gene Tunney to James J. Braddock, fought on Jennings’ cards.  

Another longtime indoor arena was the Grandview on Ogden Avenue, later re-named the Grotto and then, even later, the Jersey City Garden. Joe Jeanette, the two-time Colored World Heavyweight Champion, defeated Tom Cowler at the Grandview on February 10, 1919. Braddock TKO’d Tom McKiernan at the Grotto in 1927 and KO’d Jack Darnell there in 1928. Featherweight Champ Willie Pep won a decision over Chuck Burton at the Jersey City Garden on October 12, 1948.

Like many of these smaller community centers, the Jersey City Garden might hold boxing matches one night, and wrestling matches the next. Basketball games on Saturday were usually followed by music and dancing. In 1945, Frank Sinatra used the club to raise money for a Hoboken pal who was wounded and disabled in World War II. 

On a night when there was no boxing at your favorite fight club, there was sure to be someplace else in Hudson County that would sell you a ticket. Victory Hall was formerly part of the original People’s Palace and then home to the Jersey City Elks Lodge 211. Local promoters staged bouts there after the Elks left for new quarters on Journal Square. On November 3, 1922, “Irish” Johnny Curtain, a local favorite who had boxed on the Dempsey–Carpentier undercard at Boyle’s 30 Acres in 1921, defeated Frankie Fay. Today Victory Hall survives as part of Our Lady of Czestochowa’s educational complex.  

Victory Hall on Grand Street offered local fighters a place to make their name. It also attracted top pros like “Irish” Johnny Curtain.  

Looking back on all the boxing activity of the 1920s ― at Boyle’s Thirty Acres, the 4th Regiment Armory, West Side Ballpark, the Oakland Outdoor Arena, Victory A.A. and the Grandview/Grotto ― the Jersey Journal proclaimed Jersey City to be “The Mecca of Fistiana.”

But after World War II, America was changing. There was television to keep people home in the evenings. “The affliction that infested the ancient art of fisticuffs five years ago has wrapped its tentacles around every established fight club in the country, including Madison Square Garden, and has succeeded in strangling most of them to a horrible death,” wrote, Ed Brennan in The Jersey Journal on December 9, 1952. Gone were many of the local places where tough kids could cut their boxing teeth, earn a few bucks, and climb the rankings to contend for a title. There would be occasional bouts at the Jersey City Armory and Roosevelt Stadium, but the infrastructure of the 1920s and 1930s was gone. 

And then, like the 4th Regiment Armory before it, the abandoned Grandview/Grotto/Jersey City Garden would meet a fiery end on January 31, 1970. It was said that drunken teenagers had set it ablaze. 

Victory Hall originated as part of the recreation facility built by the First Congregational Church and known as the People’s Palace.  It currently serves the educational mission of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

by Peter Begans

Peter Begans is the curator of MJCH’s Legendary Arenas… and the Legends Who Performed There. He was born and raised in Jersey City and has had a long career as a teacher, journalist, speechwriter and public affairs representative.