HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD

I saw so many movies while growing up that they left me with a blurred image. Read on, and see for yourself.
02/23/2016

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood is to blame. Moguls such as Cecil B. De Mille stopped me from experiencing real life as a child. Movies, with their dream world of adventure and comedy, captivated me while growing up. Only by watching TV documentaries have I managed to catch up with events that passed me by during those pre-teen years.

I joined legions of Hoboken’s waifs every Saturday afternoon to see endless numbers of films at the nearby U. S. Theater, a grand name for a somewhat shopworn venue. On one occasion a few ruffians raced through a balcony fire escape door one of their accomplices opened for them. They scattered like mice, some of whom were captured and ejected by an usher. The excitement generated by this storming of the gates exceeded that of the adventure film which followed.

I never tried to sneak in this way. I had some pride, after all. I preferred to pay for a seat. Of course, there were times when I had to steal a few deposit milk bottles to earn my ten-cent admission fee.

Boys sat in the balcony, girls in the orchestra, an unmarked hard-hat area. The boys showered the girls with wads of gum and candy wrappers. This barrage only ended when the first serial began showing. Then, everyone focused their attention on the screen for the next three to four hours.

Few ‘B’ movie made in Hollywood from 1935 to 1940 escaped my viewing. Their plots taught me values that became etched in my psyche. Good guys always won. Bad guys always got their comeuppance. A few Native Americans were okay, like Tonto, but most of them were low-down Injuns. Mexican cowpokes, especially the Cisco Kid, always spoke broken English in a hilarious way. The Chinese were definitely inscrutable, especially Charlie Chan, although his son was a nerd. Black people had rhythm. Did you ever see that old butler dancing down a flight of steps with Shirley Temple?

One afternoon in the summer of 1938 while walking home after spending four hours watching movies, I observed many apartment house and store front canvas awning window shades ripped and torn, flapping in the breeze. I did not mention the matter to anyone in my family. Years later I learned that a great hurricane had smashed the eastern seaboard that afternoon, destroying lives and property across a wide region of the northeast including metropolitan New York, Long Island and much of New England.

All the movies I viewed that day were memorable, legendary even. In one, Tom Mix and his horse became lost in New York City. The Marx Brothers stole his nag and took it to the races. Meanwhile, Mickey Mouse chased a big ape up to the top of the Empire State building. The brute clutched a rag doll in his hand. I know. I saw it.

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SOMEWHERE A VOICE IS CALLING

Here's an account of Frank Sinatra that includes some anecdotes about him not widely known. 02/23/2016

SOMEWHERE A VOICE IS CALLING

Hoboken's most famous personality, Frank Sinatra, died peacefully in May 1998 at age 82. In 2000, the city placed a bronze plaque on the sidewalk in front of his birthplace, 415 Monroe Street. Fittingly, or ironically, the building itself no longer exists. It burned down many years ago, symbolizing the many bridges Frank torched throughout his career.

While I never met the famous singer, my brother, sister, and a cousin, Matthew Finnerty, did. My brother could not provide me with any anecdotes, but my sister gave me two of them. In her first one, she recalled seeing Frank at high school dances: "He was skinny, pimply, and not my idea of a dream boat."  Her second comment flattered him:  “I dated a pal of Frank's who went on to become a member of the Secret Service. Years later, he told me that while on duty at the White House, Frank visited Kennedy. As he entered, Frank spotted him, stopped and said hello.”

On the flip side, Matty, who starred for Demarest High School’s basketball team, said:  “Frank was my classmate and sometimes would carry my gym bag into the locker room to avoid paying admission to watch the game.”

I first saw Sinatra in person during his heyday at the New York Paramount Theater in 1943, in the company of my pal, Jimmy Kennedy, and our dates, Joan Ryan and Dottie Murray. When Frank appeared on stage, Joan and Dottie erupted into a state of frenzied ecstasy, while digging their nails into the palms of my hands. The pain they inflicted caused me to cry out too. Mind you, this new idol had yet to sing a note.

Not long thereafter, Frank made a personal appearance at my high school. The girls gave him a screaming ovation, but the boys sat on their hands. After talking to the students for a few minutes, someone pleaded for him to sing. He said, with some reluctance, "I can't because I didn't bring my accompanist."  The girls groaned in disappointment. The boys clapped approvingly. One lad then shouted out, "You can't sing even with one." This seemed to dampen Frank's enthusiasm. I have the impression he left the stage without singing, but another classmate of mine had a different recollection. He reminded me that he had introduced Sinatra to the crowd, and said Frank not only sang that day, but signed autographs backstage for a bevy of girls. His is probably the more accurate memory, but I like mine better.

He appeared that morning to have fan magazine pictures taken of him at his high school. Of course, no one told the public that Frank attended but failed to graduate. Just think how far he might have gone in life had he managed to do so.

In 1947, he appeared in Hoboken’s Columbus Day parade, riding atop a fire truck. (His father was a city fireman). Some residents, probably Irish, threw fruit at him. He did not book a return engagement.

In the early '50's, before we wed, Angie and I saw him at Bill Miller’s Riviera, a fancy supper club on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. His voice did not impress me at the time, but his fans were legion by then.

During the years he spent with Ava Gardner, she visited Frank’s parents occasionally. They lived around the corner from my parents. As soon as someone spotted her, the neighborhood would buzz for days afterwards.

Many years later, Hoboken’s Stevens Institute of Technology (my alma mater), decided to award Frank an Honorary Degree, in the hope he would endow the school. The conservative alumni were incensed at this decision because his Mafia ties were much in the news, and Frank had not exactly distinguished himself as a great humanitarian. In grand Hollywood style, Frank arrived by helicopter, and left immediately after the ceremony ended. The Faculty should have arranged for some front-end funding because he never endowed penny one to Stevens. Boo. Hiss.

I last saw him in person at the Desert Sky Theater in Phoenix in 1991. He sang non-stop for over an hour, a remarkable feat considering his age, about 75 at the time. His voice still had that incomparable quality, his phrasing impeccable as ever, and his repertoire top quality, one of the hallmarks of his career. Nothing about him amazed me more than his lifelong ability to sing without a trace of a Hoboken accent.

Da noive ov da guy.

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IT HAD TO BE YOU

It is possible you have heard of Hoboken born Frank Sinatra. He made a living singing and acting in Hollywood movies. It is less likely you have heard of another Hoboken lad who is featured in this yarn. Frank became the stepping stone to his success as a dramatist. 02/23/2016

IT HAD TO BE YOU

After reading a Hoboken Historical Museum chapbook devoted to the life of Louis LaRusso II, it inspired me to write this vignette.

Okay, I missed the boat. Not any old one such as the Cunard-White Star Lines steamship, Leviathan, but one that could have carried me to the same fame and fortune he attained. Hoboken born and raised, Louis wrote a play based on Frank Sinatra’s early life called, Lamppost Reunion. Clive Barnes, the New York Times theater critic, happened to see its first performance on October 17, 1975, in a church bingo hall located at 352 W. 53^rd Street, near Broadway’s major theaters. He wrote a review that praised it to the sky. The rest is history.

Louis followed up this success by writing numerous other plays, including, Marlon Brando Sat Right Here, based on his recollection of seeing this great actor in Hoboken during the filming of the classic movie, On the Waterfront.

Louis came from a humble beginning. As a young man, he worked on the docks alongside his father as had my brother and our dad for a brief period of time. It is not an ideal way to bond.

After serving in the army for a few years, Louis decided to become a playwright. He began by bumming around in the mid ‘60s with a friend who provided him Greenwich Village loft digs to help him get in touch with his Muse. The line must have been busy, because Louis didn’t do much but live the life of a hippie for many years, in New York and Boston. He had little time to hone his craft as free love kept him busy day and night.  Life could not have been too tough as he and makes no reference to ever being a hungry struggling artist. How does that work, I wonder?

He followed up his success as a playwright with a career as a screen writer, which forced him to live a glamorous and decadent life in Hollywood for many years. Finally, he came to his senses and returned to Hoboken in the mid ‘90s where he spent the rest of his days, sometimes sober, praise the Lord.

One does not have to see any of his plays or movies to hear how his characters talk. In the main, they have a distinctive “Joisey” accent. The men are all rough and tumble guys, dockhands, factory laborers, sweatshop workers, but nice, maybe even sweet. These characters tend to hang around with Ernest Borgnine-types as seen in Marty. Danny Aiello gets to play most of his leading man roles. (In fact, he did.)

So, the question is: Why did Louis pursue a writing career and not me? My family knew Sinatra, sorta. I observed Brando during the filming of On the Waterfront. My credentials exceeded those of Louis: College graduate, reader of Shakespeare and O’Neill, a fan of Broadway productions. The answer is simple. I had another job at the time, feeding some hungry relatives called children that restrained me from unleashing my writing talent.

His success defies me. What intangible forces did he muster to write successfully? What skills did he have that Hoboken sharpened? How did he manage to portray Sinatra’s life in a stage play while avoiding his wrath? Frank must have been somewhat angry. His bodyguard reputedly cut up the face of Gabe Dell, the actor who played a leading role in the show.

Strange as it seems, Frank’s agent signed Louis to a contract.

I can only remark: Gimme a break. Dat bum can’t write. Ain’t that right, Frankie? Frankie? You listenin’ to me? Ah, go croon yourself. Wadda you know ‘boud writin’?

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I COVER THE WATERFRONT

During the heyday of passenger liners, some of the largest ships afloat docked at Hoboken. In this story, I recall some interesting facts about some of them. All ashore who's going ashore. Cast off, matey. 02/23/2016

I COVER THE WATERFRONT.

Hoboken had long been the port of call for three major shipping lines, the North German Lloyd, Holland American and the Hamburg American. When the USA entered WW I, it confiscated the great German liner, the Bremen, which happened to be docked in Hoboken, and converted it to a troop transport.       

The 1930’s depression brought about a significant reduction in trans-Atlantic ship travel. Owners tied up a number of older luxury liners, including the Cunard-White Star’s Leviathan, at Hoboken piers waiting for the world’s economic condition to improve. These majestic ships served as a backdrop to my grade school ball games played in a park that fronted the river.

In New York’s heyday as a major port of call, I witnessed many arrivals and departures of famous ships, including the Normandie, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, whose captain made headlines on one trip when he guided the giant QM out from the pier into the river without benefit of tugboats whose crews were on strike.

When the Holland American’s ship, the Nieuw Amsterdam, arrived in port, longshoremen would “shape up” hoping to be picked for work that day. Its cargo ultimately made its way to the freight rail line that fronted the pier’s warehouses. Empty boxcars became adventurous playground equipment for me and my friends. We would climb up their ladders, scamper along the tops, and jump from one to another. In this time of innocence I did not catch the drift of those boys who laughed at the imperative sign, “Do not hump,” chalked on some boxcars.

In 1937, the Maxwell House Company opened the world’s largest coffee processing plant in Hoboken. Ships carrying the beans sailed right up to its front door where stevedores, like my father, unloaded the cargo.  In 1940, he broke his leg when some coffee bags fell on him. His leg never healed properly, forcing him to seek other employment.

When WW II began, both the Queen Mary and the Normandie were docked in NYC. Our country confiscated the Normandie and renamed it the U.S.S. Lafayette.  With its sleek hull design, it was considered to be more modern and luxurious than either of the two Queens whose shapes were similar to ships from a much earlier era. Later in the war, the Queen Elizabeth made a mad dash across the ocean and joined the other two ships tied up in New York. From the campus of Stevens Tech, I could see all three vessels.

While being converted for use as a troop ship, a welder's torch set the great French passenger liner ablaze. When fireboats flooded the vessel in an attempt to douse the flames, it capsized. Many people were certain saboteurs caused this disaster. The truth will never be known. Eventually, workers managed to float the ship but never completed the conversion. After the war, the owners scrapped it, the fate of many such ships. .

In 1943, an Irish cousin and member of the British Navy contacted my family while on leave at a rest camp in New Jersey. He had seen battle action since the start of the war, in Norway and the Mediterranean. Now he served aboard the Queen Mary, ferrying troops to England. On a previous trip, in 1942, he claimed the ship had rammed and sunk an escort cruiser off the coast of Ireland. The great ship just plowed ahead, intent on delivering its cargo of 20,000 troops of a U.S. infantry division, not willing to risk being torpedoed if it stopped to give aid to the drowning sailors. He also said that the ship damn near capsized later that year when hit by a giant wave. Since he appeared drunk to me at the time, I did not believe him. After the war, I learned both incidents were factual. 

Hoboken's Bethlehem Shipyards Division’s located in a cove at the northern boundary of the city near the Lincoln Tunnel, hummed with activity during WW II. Ships of every nation came there to be repaired or revamped. Merchant seamen from every corner of the globe could be seen strolling down Hoboken’s main drag, some walking in single file for reasons I could never fathom. When a Russian freighter arrived one day, news spread that its crew included some females reputed to be unattractive brutes displaying hairy bosoms. A number of my fellow teens confirmed the report. You can learn a lot when your time is not taken up with homework.

The Lipton Tea Company’s ten-story building located on this cove dominated the city’s landscape. Kids would linger around the unloading area, hoping to steal whatever might come their way. My friends “scored” some coconuts one day, filching them from a load intended for delivery to the adjoining Bakers’ Coconut plant. We soon learned how difficult it is to break them open. Not worth robbing, we concluded. 

Hoboken is no longer a major seaport.  Air travel doomed the Atlantic passenger liners that once sailed into town. Many of these great ships, including the Leviathan, were scrapped.  The change to containerized freight ended Hoboken’s role as a cargo port as it lacked the space needed to handle this new way to transport goods. Maxwell House closed its coffee plant and sold the land to developers who built high-rise condo towers on the property.  Developers transformed the Lipton Tea Building to condominiums as well.

The city removed the piers, tore up the rail line and constructed a six-block long frontage road named Frank Sinatra Drive, in honor of the city's most famous son. From this vantage point, one can see the New York skyline and harbor, from Battery Park to the George Washington Bridge.           

In 1946, while stationed at Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska, my thoughts kept drifting back to the Hudson River. Visions of all the great ships kept me awake: the Leviathan, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, Normandie, and Nieuw Amsterdam. Tugboats and ferryboats sailed through my brain. Their mournful and ominous foghorn blasts resounded within my psyche. My blue funk lasted for days.

Prior to being discharged in 1947, I had minor surgery performed at a military hospital located on Governor’s Island in New York’s harbor.  During the ten minute ferryboat ride from Battery Park, I hooted and tooted at all the other ships, glad to speak with all my old maritime friends, glad to be home.

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A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND

During the years I lived in Hoboken, Democrats ran the place. You may not have heard of its long-time mayor. This vignette puts the spotlight on him and a couple of his successors. 2/23/2016

A GOOD MAN NOWADAYS IS HARD TO FINDS HARD TO FIND

The Democratic Party controlled many big cities during the years in which I grew up. Among the more notable mayors were: Boston’s James Curley; Chicago’s Richard Daley; Kansas City’s Tom “Boss” Pendergast; and Jersey City’s Frank Hague. Not to be outdone, Hoboken’s mayor Bernard J. McFeely held office for seventeen years, from 1930 to 1947, during which time he made those other professional politicians look like amateurs. His name should be more reviled.

   During his years as mayor, he never earned more than $5,000 per annum. When he died, he left an estate said to be valued at $5 million dollars. He never married, but had a large family. At one time, the city employed sixty five of his relatives including one brother, the Superintendent of Schools and another, the Chief of Police. Once I saw the Chief enter a candy store, walk behind the counter, ring up the register, scoop out some bills, and saunter out. Schoolboys called out, Cop's Grab, while swiping some younger kid's marbles. We all understood its meaning.

   The mayor owned a sanitation company. Hoboken awarded its municipal waste hauling services contract to his firm every year he served in office. Even after WW II, his company continued to use horses to pull its open-top garbage trucks. McFeely did not believe in replacing anything still in working order.

   Anyone who ran a political race for election against the mayor had to endure rough treatment. One year, the Hoboken police arrested the Republican candidate on the eve of the election based on some trumped-up charge. He spent the day in jail while awaiting the outcome of the election. He lost. Few Republicans wished to challenge his utter control of the city.

   The New York Post ran a special edition one time, exposing the city’s political corruption. When their delivery trucks arrived in Hoboken by ferry, police commandeered them and accidentally destroyed the papers. McFeely did not like bad press.

   Of course, McFeely doled out city jobs to people and provided financial aid to others during the Depression era. These citizens rewarded his regime by continuing to reelect him. McFeely finally tasted defeat in 1947 when the returning veterans demanded a change in city government.

   I recall the fervor that swept over me when voters installed a new form of municipal governance that year. Five officials were elected to a city council, and they voted one of their number as mayor. In that first year, three Italians and two Irishmen were elected to serve. John Grogan garnered the most general election votes. When the five council members met, the three Italians voted Fred De Sapio to serve as mayor, setting the tone for what turned out to be years of controversy. Now, instead of just one person controlling the city and stealing it blind, we had five people trying to run the place, and steal too.

Example: The newly elected board members ordered nameplates for themselves from a friend of the new mayor at a cost of $200 each. The number of players had changed, but the game remained the same: Business as usual at City Hall.

   Grogan persisted in running for office and eventually became mayor. When my mother died in 1961, he came to her wake, and shook hands with my father. Hoboken’s mayors made it a practice to attend wakes, an easy way to endear themselves with the family of the deceased and secure votes. His appearance pleased my father, not me. I doubt he knew either of my parents.

The year 1948 marked my initial presidential voting opportunity. A registered Republican, my vote went to Truman, the Democrat. Harry had sent me a nice form letter upon my discharge from the Army Air Force a year earlier, thanking me for my contribution to the nation. I felt duty bound to vote for a candidate who expressed such sentiments. In addition, the looks of Dewey’s mustache turned me off. You have to have a sound basis upon which to cast your ballot.

After moving to San Mateo, California in 1955, my desire to immerse myself in political issues waned. The elected officials there were all honest people. Who could be bothered taking an interest in a lily-white government? Hell, the city even used motor-driven trucks to pick up garbage. It would have pained McFeely to witness such unnecessary expense in the name of progress.

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STREET OF DREAMS

This vignette describes some of the apartment buildings I lived in while a resident of Hoboken. . 02/23/2016

STREET OF DREAMS

I lived with my parents in Hoboken for the first twenty seven years of my life in six different apartment buildings. I have no recollection of the first two dwellings. When I turned four, we moved to a beautiful ground floor apartment located at 805 Washington. Shortly afterwards, we moved up to the top floor, to take advantage of the lower rent.

The Goldberg’s lived on the third floor. Mr. Goldberg liked to tease me. “Hello. Josephine,” he would say when we met in the hallway. It made me mad. “My name is Joseph,” I would tell him emphatically. “Okay. Josephine. Thanks for telling me,” he would respond. He called me Josephine well into my teens, always amused at my angry reaction.

. My dad had opened a tavern in 1933 after prohibition had ended, but he lost it and all his savings a few years later. This may account for our moving to a cold-water flat at 729 Washington, just a few doors away from the Academy of Sacred Heart, where I attended second and third grades.

This tenement housed eight families, two per floor, including the Mullins, Byrnes, Roys and O’Gradys. Each left an indelible mark on my memory.

Mr. and Mullins lived on the first floor, opposite us. Childless, I guessed them to be about sixty years old. I don’t think he had a job. She had three: A high school typing teacher; a Democratic Party ward heeler; and the proprietor of a bookie joint she operated from their apartment living room. Every afternoon a small number of people including my mother gathered there to bet on horse races. She placed the bets over her phone. I did not like her one bit, far too loud and arrogant.

One night her husband arrived home drunk. While trying to push open his door, he lost his balance, lurched and crashed through our front door, landing flat on his back. The sight of him falling at my feet scared the blazes out of me. My mother helped Mrs. Mullins drag her besotted spouse into her apartment and into the bathroom. They managed to lift him into the tub, fully dressed, whereupon Mrs. Mullins opened the cold water tap. The poor guy cried piteously, begging her to let him out. She kept screaming at him to shut up. Did this shock treatment sober him forever? We moved shortly afterwards, and I never found out.

Whenever I hear an Irish jig, I think of another resident, old man Byrnes. In the summer he wore a sleeveless undershirt and tied a bandanna around his mostly bald head. He had a record collection of Irish jigs and reels and played them constantly. I hated that music. I liked his oldest son, Junior, a great street athlete, the best stickball player in town. He joined the Marines at the outset of the war and fought in numerous battles in the South Pacific. He returned a changed and troubled young man, disinterested in life. He spent most of his time at the Eighth Street Tavern. Drunk or sober, no one could beat him at shuffleboard or darts.

 The second floor residents, the Roys, were also childless. He enjoyed playing checkers with me. I never won. Later, after I became a whiz at “Chinese Checkers,” he refused to play this game with me.

Mr. O'Grady, the building superintendent, lived on the ground floor. He took care of three other adjacent apartments, a tough and thankless job. It required him to shovel coal and remove ashes from boilers during winters, and keep the apartment’s hallways, stairs and sidewalks clean year round. The job did not suit him. Always grouchy, he constantly chased kids from our play area in front of the apartments. Because no one liked him, we hardly ever played with his son.

Around 1939, we moved one block north to 825 Washington. This apartment’s rooms were connected one to the next like railcars, in the following order from front to rear: parlor, bedroom, bedroom, living room, bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen. The parlor overlooked the street while the kitchen opened to the rear yard. I vividly recall watching our piano take flight once again, as moving men hoisted it in and out of front parlor windows.

A coal-fired furnace in the basement provided an unlimited amount of hot water and steam heat to each flat. Every room had its own radiator which made loud knocking sounds and hissing noises when steam began to rise in them.  On cold winter nights, the noise they made assured us we would be warm.

I developed a superstition while living in this apartment. I tried to avoid putting either of my tootsies on the bottom step of the first flight of stairs. To avoid bad luck, I jumped over it, always landing on my right foot. It brought me extremely good fortune, quite obviously, because I am still here.

The nine other tenants who lived in this building were virtual strangers to me. Sometimes a few residents would gather on the stoop during hot summer nights, but as a rule, neighbors kept their distance. We never visited each other. Talk about détente and coexistence. If I hadn’t read their names on the community mailbox located in the vestibule, I might not have known them at all.

I did know two families. The Durkins lived on the second floor. One of their daughters, Eileen, married her high school sweetheart, Joe Doyle, in 1948. They rented an apartment on the fourth floor. Joe had been a classmate of mine in grade school. They had a baby within a year’s time, a shock to me. A college student at the time, I could not imagine myself being married, never mind a father. 

The plastered walls of the apartments made them virtually sound proof. Linoleum covered our floors. Every room had windows, making my home bright and cheerful, quiet and compact.

I never knew if anyone decorated their apartments or made changes of any sort. Did they remodel the kitchen or the bathroom? Did they paint the walls? Did they install new appliances? I imagine some did. My family made very few improvements. One year we bought and installed a washing machine. My brother painted one wall of our parlor bedroom. We replaced the linoleum in various rooms. That’s the entire list of upgrades that come to mind.

While living there, I discovered a wooden box in a bedroom closet. It contained three tools: a hammer, a screwdriver and a wrench. I never had occasion to use them. The building’s owner maintained the place.

Had my dad not lost his dough back there in 1934 or so, we might have moved to live in a private home and there, I might have learned how to use such instruments. However, it is more likely my dad would have hired lackeys to perform all the tasks needed to maintain our castle.

Life did not intend me to work with my hands, as my wife and children will attest. What’s that thing called again, a plunger?

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THE TROLLEY SONG

Ride with me on the trip down memory lane. You'll have your choice of many forms of transportation. 02/23/2016

THE TROLLEY SONG

Judy Garland sang The Trolley Song (Ding-Ding-Ding Went the Trolley) in the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. Its melody resonated with me as I had ridden many a trolley car while growing up in Hoboken. The sounds of bus horns, ferry boat toots, subway roars and train whistles added to the din of my urban life.

What an array of transportation choices existed there. Passengers arriving at the Erie-Lackawanna railroad terminal could chose to travel to lower Manhattan by either ferry or subway. This terminal included the final destination of a regional Public Service Company’s trolley car system whose rolling stock traveled along an elevated steel structure called the Trestle to Jersey City and beyond. Within the city, trolley car lines ran parallel routes along its two main thoroughfares, sixteen blocks long.

A flock of jitney busses competed with the trolley line along Washington Street. They lined the curb outside the Erie-Lackawanna terminal, easily accessible to passengers arriving by train, subway, ferry or trolley. They only went a distance of one mile, arriving near the city’s other ferry terminal where passengers could ride to locations in Upper Manhattan.

.Jersey City's Journal Square featured three movie theaters as large and luxurious as those in New York’s Time Square, quite accessible to me and my teen pals, thanks to the trolley cars which ran frequently, but not always when we wanted to travel. On one sunny afternoon, tired of waiting for the next trolley to take us home, some friends and I walked down the middle of the trestle along the narrow pathway between the two sets of rails. We encountered two trolley cars along our stroll, one rising and the other descending. I am not certain why the conductors passed us by instead of stopping to apprehend us for our own safety. What a dumb and dangerous thing we did that day.

Few amusement park rides could match the thrill of riding a trolley car down the steeply inclined trestle. The brakes squealed loud and long during the initial descent. At some point, the conductor released the brakes allowing the car to hurtle down the rest of the way at breathtaking speed, rocking and swaying.

During the summer of 1936, the Public Service Company decided to replace the local trolley car line with busses that operated using the same overhead wires. The WPA removed the trolley tracks from the city streets one block at a time at a snails pace. Work crews paved the entire street with asphalt. At the end of the work day, kids scampering over the road paving machinery, transforming the street into a playground. We played Johnny-ride-the-pony, Kick-the-can and roller skated on the best surface for doing so, newly laid unblemished asphalt in a world devoid of automotive traffic.

A few years later, the Public Service Company operated state of the art internal combustion busses that carried passengers from Hoboken through the newly opened Lincoln Tunnel to Times Square. Almost no one used them to ride along Washington Street where our beloved fleet of about 20 jitney busses continued to offer a very cheap alternative to walking. These vehicles were nondescript, dilapidated, in constant need of repair, none of them remotely alike. Over the years, I came to enjoy riding in their broken down third-world chariots because they exuded an innate charm. Most rides only lasted ten minutes at most so comfort was not paramount.

As mentioned, Public Service busses could carry me from my street corner to Times Square in twenty minutes for a mere cost of two bits. Of course, public transportation requires one to dance to their time schedule. God forbid I should miss the last bus to Hoboken which departed at 1 a.m. The next one did not leave until 6 a.m. Ferry service to Hoboken ended at midnight. If I did, I could get home in a roundabout way: Take the 8^th Avenue subway to Penn Station, a Hudson Tube train to Newark, another one back to Journal Square, and a trolley car from there to Hoboken. This consumed many hours. If I made all the connections, I got home just in time to greet those arriving from Times Square on the 6 a.m. bus.

My parents never owned a car. As a very small boy I rode with my mother in the rumble seat of a vehicle driven by my sister's date, my first automobile experience. It was winter time and a cold night. My mother and I crunched down on the floor allowing her to pull the seat down in an effort to prevent us from freezing. Cars never appealed to me thereafter until the summer of 1943 when a young man arrived in town driving a red Cadillac convertible with white upholstery. He spent days escorting every teen-age girl in town up and down Washington Street. He was King of the Jungle! It began to dawn on me that private transportation had some advantages over public transportation.

When I turned sixteen, a friend gave me an opportunity to drive his family’s car down a winding road known as the Viaduct from Union City to Hoboken, a distance of a mile or so. He had unjustified confidence in my ability. Petrified, I drove accordingly,  managing to steer the vehicle down the hill to the Willow Avenue diner on 14^th Street. He jumped out, took over the wheel, and never again granted me an opportunity to kill someone while trying to learn.

My conversion to private transportation began in the summer of 1949 when I bought my first car, a used wreck, while working at a northern New Jersey lake resort area. My first new car didn’t arrive until 1951. Driving it up the Viaduct to Union City made me think back to the day my high school prom date, Joan Lester, and I had to take that old Public Service bus to get to the dance. Now, I could drive her in style. Inasmuch as she eloped in 1946, this dream died.

In retrospect, riding on a bus in one's formal outfit was not tragic. Public transportation should always be vigorously supported despite the inconveniences it sometimes presents. It may be too late. The Public Service Company dismantled the trestle. The company that operated the ferries took them out of service. Buses still carry Hoboken passengers through the traffic-clogged Lincoln Tunnel, but it costs more than a quarter and takes longer than 20 minutes to reach the Big Apple. Those good old days were the best of times.

“Dang Dang Dang” went the trolley.

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I WAS BORN IN HOBOKEN

If you have read my autobiography to this point, you realize that my love of Hoboken is deep and unending. To better understand the appeal this city has for me, please read this posting which contains an exptract of its history I copied from the Hoboken Historical Museum's site, followed by my own personal account of the city. 02/20/2016

I WAS BORN IN HOBOKEN

The following historical account of Hoboken appeared on a website devoted to the city. Hoboken's modern history began when Henry Hudson's navigator made note of the area's green-veined rock during the 1609 voyage up the river that now bears the explorer's name. The men on the ship Half Moon were the first Europeans known to have seen the island. Dutchmen, who visited the future Hoboken in those early years,called it “Hoe buck,” meaning high bluff. Today we call the elevation Castle Point.

The Lenni Lenape camped seasonally in this area. They called the spot 'Hopoghan Hackingh,' or 'Land of the Tobacco Pipe,' for they used the green-colored serpentine rock abundant in the area to carve pipes for smoking tobacco. In 1658 Peter Stuyvesant, Dutch Governor of Manhattan, bought all the land between the Hackensack and the Hudson Rivers from the Lenni Lenape for 80 fathoms of wampum, 20 fathoms of cloth, 12 kettles, 6 guns, 2 blankets, 1 double kettle and half a barrel of beer.

   Subsequently the land came into the possession of William Bayard. Because he chose to be a Loyalist Tory in 1776, the Revolutionary Government of New Jersey confiscated his land. In 1784 Colonel John Stevens, Colonial Treasurer of New Jersey and Patriot bought the island at public auction for 18,360 pounds sterling, then about $90,000. Stevens envisioned this marshy island's possibilities. He settled on the name "Hoboken" and the Stevens family began to be an inseparable part of the city's history.

   Colonel Stevens developed Hoboken as a resort, with the people of New York City his market. As early as 1820, he began transforming the wild but beautiful waterfront into a recreation area. He constructed a riverfront walk and a park space in today's downtown Hoboken. Weekends, the city-to-be accommodated as many as 20,000 New Yorkers out for their Sunday picnics.

   On June 19, 1846, Hoboken played host to the first organized game of baseball. The New York Nine defeated the Knickerbockers, 23 to 1 in four innings at Hoboken's Elysian Fields near the current site of Elysian Park and the former Maxwell House facility.

   Numerous attractions in Hoboken drew celebrities of the time. George Washington was an honorary member of the Turtle Club, which met near the Elysian Fields at Tenth Street. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were active members. Charles Dickens wrote about his visit to Hoboken in 1842. John Cox Stevens began America's first yacht club in Hoboken in 1844. Lillian Russell, John L. Sullivan, Jay Gould, and William K. Vanderbilt entertained guests in Hoboken's 'Duke's House' restaurant. Horace Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher patronized Nick's 'Bee Hive,' a lively saloon. John Jacob Astor built a summer home at Washington and Second Streets.

   Colonel Stevens attained fame as an inventor, one considerably ahead of his time. In 1791, he received one of the first patents issued in America, for a steam engine. Thirteen years later his vessel Little Juliana steamed across the Hudson between the Battery and Hoboken. It was the first steamboat driven by twin-screw propellers. In 1808, Colonel Stevens launched the Phoenix, the first steam-driven vessel to make an ocean voyage.

   Colonel Stevens then turned his attention to rail transportation. By 1825, he had designed and built the first experimental steam-driven locomotive in the U.S. and operated it on a circular track in Hoboken. Stevens earlier received the first American railroad charter and designed the T shaped rail, standard to this day on American railroads.

   With this early start and the city's waterfront location opposite New York, Hoboken established itself as a rail and water transportation center. Piers sprouted along the waterfront and Hoboken became a major port for transatlantic shipping lines, including Holland America, North German Lloyd and Hamburg-American. Hoboken's facilities and strategic location made it the choice of the Federal government as the prime port of embarkation for troops of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. More than three million soldiers passed through the port, and their hope for an early return led to the slogan, "Heaven, Hell or Hoboken...by Christmas."

   In 1838, shortly before his death, Colonel Stevens created the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company to manage the city's development, and to create standards for erecting Hoboken's buildings. This company created Hoboken's orderly street pattern, and brought a consistency and coherence to its architecture. The City's incorporation date is March 28, 1855.

   Hoboken's rapid growth from 1860 to 1910 and its role as a gateway to America brought many immigrants from Europe to the city. The Germans were the first, and German became a dominant language throughout Hoboken. After World War I, the city's ethnic character changed. Irish, Italians, Yugoslavs, Latinos and Asian Indians followed Germans. Hoboken's ethnic vitality enriches the city's contemporary life.

   Containerization of ship cargo made the city obsolete as a center for shipping. Hoboken's warehouses and lack of vast open spaces could not accommodate the large containers. This sparked a severe economic decline that reached its nadir in the 1970s. However, this preserved the old buildings and streets from the changes that prosperity could have brought in the guise of progress.

   Today, Hoboken is a colorful composite of cultures, each with its festivals, languages, music, businesses and clubs. Hoboken is also home to a large and growing population of individuals identified not by the diverse ethnic tapestry they constitute, but by their education, careers, families and life choices, among them the choice of making Hoboken an enriching part of their lives.

My Personal History of Hoboken

My personal history of Hoboken begins with a song:

   Oh, I was born in Hoboken, H-O-B-O-K-E-N.

   Where the girls are the fairest, the boys are the squarest,

   Of any old town I've been in.

   Oh, I was born in Hoboken, down where the Hudson flows.

   In all kinds of weather you'll find us together,

   In H-O-B-O-K-E-N.

While attending Stevens Institute of Technology, I used to sing this song at fraternity parties. Soon everyone would join in. It’s a pity Sinatra did not record it.

Comedians loved to poke fun at Hoboken, in an endearing sort of way. Despite having many wonderful attributes, Hoboken's blue-collar residents did not always admire or appreciate them. Only in the late '70s and early '80s did New Yorkers finally begin to value the practicality of living there. Yuppies bought up all the old brownstone houses, refurbished them, and helped rejuvenate the city. I could hardly believe my eyes when visiting Hoboken in 2003. The city had restored many buildings, returning them to their original beautiful appearance.

   I lived in a number of tenement apartment buildings while growing up, but spent most of my years at 825 Washington Street, the main thoroughfare. Apartment buildings occupied every lot on the east side of the street, save for the Masonic Club building located on the corner of Ninth Street. The west side had a number of stores located at street level below the apartments. In the middle of the block stood two empty lots which remained open and undeveloped save for two billboards. It was regrettable that the grounds behind the billboards became littered with debris. The city should have converted it to a park.

   All the essentials needed for survival in an urban setting could be found within a block’s walk. On the corner of Eighth Street was a saloon. A few doors away were a delicatessen, a bakery, and a candy/tobacco/newspaper store. At the other end of the street a shoe repair shop, another deli, a vegetable store, and a butcher. On the block between Seventh and Eighth Streets were a liquor store, a pharmacist, a hardware store, a woman’s clothing store, and a soda fountain owned by Mr. Shortmeier. He made soft vanilla ice cream and may have invented it. On Sundays, and sometimes after school, my sister would treat me to a chocolate syrup covered scoop of soft vanilla ice cream, served in a small glass cup on a paper doily. When he died, Mr. Shortmeier took the secret of how he made his soft ice cream with him. I keep searching and trying, but never found anything that compared to the taste and flavor he achieved. The quest goes on, however.

   The Abel brothers acquired his business. They changed the decor, installed new booths with jukebox song selectors at each table, and made it into the quintessential teen-age hangout of my high school crowd. We always went there after attending a dance. My high school had no cafeteria, so Abel’s fed me my lunch for three years. I said goodbye to the brothers prior to moving to California. They hated to see me go. “We’re losing one of our best customers “         ‘

   All the schools I attended in Hoboken were only a few blocks from my residence. Years before I attended Stevens Institute of Technology, its campus provided an oasis of greenery in the midst of an industrialized community to me and my boyhood friends. We spent years romping around the campus, using its fields to play football, marbles, and climbing its trees. We raced around its quarter-mile cinder track, and hid in the rocky hills overlooking the railroad line that ran along the docks below the school’s eastern boundary. We watched the collegians play lacrosse, soccer, tennis, and baseball. A guard named Mike constantly chased my pals and me. We feared he would shoot us in the behind with a “pepper gun” he reportedly carried.

   One summer, my teen friends and I invented a new game called “Swing Around the Flag Pole.” In the late summer evenings, when the campus was deserted, we would untie the lanyard from the flagpole located near a tennis court on the main athletic field. Holding onto the rope, we’d climb to the top of the tennis court fence and leap off as though we were skydiving. With luck, our momentum would carry us out and around the pole in an oval path back to the top of the fence.

   In grade school, a stone bench near the tennis courts once served as a hiding place to stash our supply of tobacco, paper, and a roller we used to make our own cigarettes. We could have taught the hippies a thing or two a generation later. We thought we were “so cool”.

   On Memorial Day weekends, all the Hoboken grade school kids would gather to compete in foot races on the Stevens quarter-mile cinder track. In my eighth grade, I finished second to Gigi Taylor in the fifty yard dash. He was the fastest human being alive, I concluded.

One Sunday, my six feet tall eighth grade classmate, William August Patrick Campbell, and I went to the main athletic field and began dropkicking a football over the soccer goal post. His German shepherd, King, grew angry at not being able to retrieve it. Frustrated, King jumped on my back, knocked me down, and bit through my corduroy jacket. His teeth did not puncture my skin, but his attack terrified me. Thus began my fear of dogs which did not end until I had to provide my children with puppies many years later.

   Stevens Institute of Technology was founded in 1870 by Edwin Stevens, a grandson of Colonel John Stevens. Its campus stretches from Fourth to Tenth Streets and from Hudson Street to the Hudson River. Edwin built a large home at its highest elevation called Castle Point. The residence was called Castle Stevens. The family abandoned the building in the 1920’s because of high taxes.

During WW II, the college converted the structure into a dormitory for the students enrolled in the naval military V-12 program. It was in terrible condition when finally torn down to make way for the construction of a modern skyscraper that now serves the college's administrative needs. The choice of saving or demolishing Castle Stevens divided the alumni into two passionate groups. It saddened me when the decision was made to make better use of the land. Part of my childhood went away with its removal.

   Hoboken boasted many factories, including Keuffel and Esser, manufacturers of slide rules and drafting equipment, the American Pencil Company and Maxwell House Coffee, the largest coffee processing plant in the world when it opened in 1938. The aroma of freshly roasted coffee emanating from that plant during the middle of the night was overpowering. It more than offset the stench that used to drift in from Secaucus, located out in the Jersey meadows, the site of numerous slaughterhouses that served metropolitan New York.

   The ten-story Lipton Tea building at the waters edge on 14^th Street was the tallest building in town by far. It housed many manufacturing facilities. Ships would tie up nearby and unload all sorts of exotic spices and foods, which became fair game for longshoremen and adventurous kids. Once some members of my “gang” managed to acquire some coconuts from an incoming shipment, and ran off to the park to eat them. We pounded the coconuts on the pavement until they broke open. It made me glad I did not live in Hawaii.

In 2004, developers turned the Lipton Tea building into upscale condominiums, whose residents include the Governor when not in Trenton, and some of New York’s professional ballplayers.

   Tootsie Rolls, Hostess Cup Cake and Wonder Bread factories were located up the street from Lipton’s. My home town made scents.

   Hoboken, known as the Mile Square City, had a population of some 60,000 people when I grew up there. It was said to be the most densely populated city in the country. You would get no argument from me on that score. Most residents lived in tenements four or five stories high. There were only a few single-family homes in town, the best ones located near the Stevens campus.

   Stevens family members built all of the city’s parks including the Elysian Park at Tenth Street, the Hudson Square Park at Fourth Street, across from my grade school, as well as the Church Square Park near the public library, which itself had been built with funds from another Stevens ancestor. The Stevens family had developed the piers and warehouses, and had designed and built the original ferries that connected the city with New York.

   Stevens and Hoboken were synonymous terms, except the general population, including myself, knew little or nothing about the origins of the city. It was a superb place in which to grow up. After moving to California in 1954, the city declined dramatically. It had no appeal to me.  Now that it has sprung back to life, I was tempted to return. After comparing real estate taxes with Scottsdale, Arizona, that thought of mine vanished.

However, fond memories of my hometown remain. Join me in singing one more chorus of H-O-B-O-K-E-N.

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