The Story of Sinatra and Hoboken and What Went Wrong By Anthony De Palma, Jr. Leaving Hoboken for Good If Sinatra had come, it would have been the first time in thirty years that he had made a public appearance in his old hometown. Once Sinatra made it big, receiving hysterical adulation from legions of bobbysoxers, moviegoers, and everyone who spent time in front of the radio listening to "Your Hit Parade," he never came home again. For whatever reason, he shut Hoboken out of his tumultuous life, and Hoboken, in turn, seemed to have done the same to him. "I'm sorry, but I've got no use for him," is what many Hoboken residents said about Sinatra during those years. These weren't just people who happened to live in Hoboken. These people believed they had a right to feel that way about Sinatra because they had known him as a kid. As they watched the phenomenon that was Sinatra get bigger and bigger, they never lost sight of the fact that there was a man behind it, and that man had once been one of them, playing pool at the Cat's Meow Club, chasing girls, and being tough. Sinatra ran as far away from Hoboken as he could get. He moved to the desert and seemed to love it there. He built a baronial compound: houses, pools, garages, a helipad, all his own. The openness of the desert, the vast stretches of nothingness, were the antithesis of Hoboken, where every inch of land had been paved over and occupied by so many entire families per square foot. In the desert he had as much land as he wanted, more than he could use. He had more of everything than he could use. Some say when Sinatra left Hoboken for the last time, he vowed never to return. He came close once, back, in 1963, when he threw a fiftieth wedding anniversary for his parents in the Casino in the Park in Jersey City The affair was strictly invitation-only. Sinatra wasn't expected to perform -- he was just going back there -- but relatives say he was so nervous about coming back to Hudson County, that his stomach started turning flips and he had to take tranquilizers. When he finally showed up that night, he stood at the entrance to the room, staring straight ahead. He marched in, his entourage of bodyguards and hangers-on pulled along in the wake. Neither stopping nor greeting anyone, Sinatra went directly to the head table, greeted his parents, and then took a seat nearby with a few priests and a quiet aunt, all of whom were not expected to say much. Sinatra sat uneasily through the activities and left as soon as they were over, never having spoken to or acknowledged the old friends who had waited twenty years to pass along a word or two. Later that night he went to the fights in New York. 
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