The Story of Sinatra and Hoboken and What Went Wrong By Anthony De Palma, Jr. Some Attempts to Grant Recognition The City Council didn't get around to naming a street after "The Voice" until 1979, although earlier attempts to rename Monroe Street, where Sinatra had been born, had proceeded until one councilman asked if it really was an honor for anyone to have such a rundown thoroughfare named after him. Dolly Sinatra, Frank's mother, had been a star in her own right, a political powerhouse with pandemic connections and a vocabulary that became local legend because it really did make longshoremen blush. But the city didn't see fit to honor her until after she died in a tragic plane crash on January 6, 1977, and even then the affair became as much a publicity stunt for Hoboken as an homage to Mrs. Sinatra. Thanks to the efforts of an industrious press agent, Hoboken received worldwide attention for dedicating an oil painting of Frank and Dolly, and officially establishing a Sinatra collection in the public library six months after the accident. But in all the newspaper accounts, no one mentioned that the painting had actually been done by a commercial artist in Pennsylvania, copying from a family photograph that Sinatra liked but hadn't wanted released outside the family. The $750 painting had been commissioned by the promoters of the Ladies Professional Golf Association to entice Sinatra into presenting awards at the tournament. Sinatra refused both the invitation and the painting, so, with no one wanting it, the promoters donated the rejected portrait to Hoboken. Sinatra was filming in Paramus the day the painting was dedicated, but he turned a cold shoulder to Hoboken. Event organizers had sent an invitation only three days before. 
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