The Story of Sinatra and Hoboken and What Went Wrong By Anthony De Palma, Jr. Ol' Blue Eyes May Have Mellowed Editor's note: Sinatra was still alive when this article was written. Sinatra's real reasons for staying away are not that simple. Whatever it was, or is, it haunts the man. Hoboken lures the man but he cannot face up to it. Old girlfriends talk about Sinatra, in his limousine, roaming the streets of the city, especially the old neighborhood, at four or five o'clock in the morning. But no one has ever seen him. He passes the place where he was born, but the tenement on Monroe Street had indeed turned into a slum ravaged by fire in 1967, abandoned and taken over by the city, and demolished in 1968. Today, 415 Monroe Street is a dirt lot used for parking, marked only by a plain arched gateway made of salvaged brick, scrap hinges, and wooden planks. He passes by the places the family lived. On Garden Street, his family's house was recently put up for auction, only to find no takers. He passed by on Hudson Street. The former girlfriends remember him driving by Gustoso's bakery, where he used to buy bread, and Fiore's, where he bought Italian cheese and cold cuts. He shows them where he went to school. But he never gets out of the car. Sinatra has dropped the Hasbrouck Heights story and once again admits he was born in Hoboken. As he has mellowed, he has become more willing to accept the real Hoboken he lived in, not the Hoboken he created and surrounded himself with. Two years ago, during a televised celebration of his fortieth anniversary in show business, Sinatra accepted an honorary degree from Hoboken High School, admitting to millions of viewers that he never finished school, and setting up a scholarship fund for the city. 
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