Hoboken is Sinatra’s kinda town
FRANK SINATRA may have had a thick ‘Noo Yawk’ accent and sung the city’s most famous song, New York, New York. But, in fact, he was a New Jersey boy, born in the pretty little town of hoboken a century ago. it’s just across the hudson River from Manhattan’s skyscrapers. Take a $7 ferry from Wall Street to hoboken and you are transported back to Frank’s italian-American childhood.
With its red-brick terraces, Victorian facades and quiet streets, it still looks just as it did on December 12, 1915, when Francis Albert Sinatra was born.
his mother was a back-street abortionist. his father a lightweight boxer and captain in the hoboken Fire Department.
hoboken is built on a grid system. Start at the hoboken Ferry Terminal and walk straight up Newark Street, past the old offices of the Jersey Observer newspaper where the teenage Sinatra earned $12 a week as a copy boy.
A little further north is Leo’s grande-vous: a fantastic italian restaurant straight out of goodfellas. The walls are covered with Sinatra memorabilia and the chair he sat in is reserved in his memory.
Sinatra was born at 415 Monroe Street and next-door is a tiny museum called From here To Eternity, in honour of the 1953 film that relaunched Sinatra’s career and won him an Oscar.
At nearby Jefferson Street is the best pilgrimage site of all: the charming, gothic St Francis church, where Sinatra was christened — and misnamed for life. his godfather, Frank garrick, gave his own name to the priest, rather than Sinatra’s intended name, Albert.
On Sundays, the nave is crammed with elderly italian-American couples — immaculately dressed, hair perfectly coiffed. heading back to the ferry you’ll find Joseph F. Brandt School, Frank’s alma mater. Not that he knew it too well: he was thrown out after 47 days for rowdy behaviour.
hoboken was the perfect breeding ground for Sinatra’s talent: a place to be a big fish in a small pond, before making it in the greatest showbiz town on earth.