Perhaps the most fascinating display in the Hoboken Historical Museum’s new exhibition devoted to “Frank Sinatra: The Man, the Voice, and the Fans,” which opened Aug. 2, is a cabinet filled with correspondence from the hundreds of Sinatra fan clubs that sprouted up in the 1940s – “Frankie’s United Swooners,” “The Slaves of Sinatra,” even “The Society for Souls Suffering from Sinatritis.”
In mimeographed ink and tight, breathless cursive, the clubs’ female members confess their undying devotion to America’s first teen idol. Mounted above, on a copy of “Famous New Hit Tunes” magazine bearing Sinatra’s face, a lipstick kiss is faintly visible.
Though much of the Hoboken Historical Museum exhibit focuses on what Sinatra did in his diverse and distinguished career, it cannot help but also ruminate on what he did to people, the near cultish reverence he engendered in so many.
To a certain extent, that’s a function of the permanent collection from which the show is built. Though lacking in personal effects, the museum has a wealth of miscellanea and memorabilia donated over the years by Hoboken’s legions of Frankie fans.
The deeper meaning of this empire of objects only becomes clear after taking in the full exhibition, including a stop at one of the museum’s vinyl players to hear a favorite Sinatra song. The best way to tell the story of the biggest American performer of the 20th century, it seems, is to relive that century in one’s mind.
“I’ll see people come in and we’re just playing Sinatra music and they’ll start crying,” said Hoboken Historical Museum Director Bob Foster. “It’s very nostalgic, and as you get older those type of memories become more important, because it’s a connection to your past.”
The Sinatra exhibit runs until July 3, 2016 in the main gallery of the museum, located at 1301 Hudson St.
Dolly’s darling
The Sinatra show builds chronologically from Frank’s birth in a cold-water flat at 415 Monroe St. on Dec. 12, 1915, through his youth as an only child in Hoboken’s rough ‘Downtown’ to fame and fortune in Hollywood.
In many ways, said Foster, Sinatra’s is the perfect immigrant story. His mother Dolly Garaventa orchestrated a better life for Sinatra and for her neighbors as a fixer for Hoboken’s Italian community and a ward boss under Mayor McFeely. His father Anthony boxed under the pseudonym Marty O’Brien because “people would not pay to go see an Italian fighter,” according to Foster.
“I’ll see people come in and we’re just playing Sinatra music and they’ll start crying.” – Bob Foster
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Despite his good looks and dulcet voice, Sinatra’s rise to stardom was not predestined. His first break came only after he joined up with local singing group the Three Flashes in 1935 and, as the Hoboken Four, won the American Idol of the day, the Major Bowes Radio Hour (visitors to the museum can hear their winning song, “Shine”). Legend has it Sinatra was only picked to join the trio because he had the car to get to gigs, another example of Dolly’s doting care.
Sinatra soon tired of touring with the quartet and took a job as a singing waiter at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs. “The Cabin had a radio feed, and that was like the YouTube of the day,” Foster explained. “That’s how people would hear you.”
Bandleader Harry James was one of those listening, and he took Sinatra under his wing, setting off his legendary career as a crooner.
Sinatra’s long acting career is commemorated by an impressive collection of around twenty-five posters from movies he appeared in, some of them in Hebrew, Spanish, and French. “People forget how many films he made,” said Foster.
Hoboken’s prodigal son
Naturally, Sinatra’s complex relationship with his hometown is a common theme throughout the exhibit. One image shows Frank on a return visit in October 1947, one tiny head in a human press of well-wishers barely held at bay by the police.
After hitting it big in Hollywood, Sinatra spent decades away from Hoboken, returning only for special occasions like a campaign appearance with Ronald Reagan in 1984. Among some, the feeling toward him soured. “If you were in Hoboken in the 1990s, most people would just say ‘he never did anything for us,’” said Foster. “If someone makes it from a town in a big way, many [local] people feel he owes them something.”
With Sinatra’s death in 1998 came his full restoration and deification, with local streets and parks named for the crooner.
Happy birthday, Blue Eyes
So sure are Foster and his compatriots that the Sinatra exhibit will be a crowd pleaser that they have decided to keep the exhibit up for a year instead of their typical five-month term.
“Probably 30 percent of the people who come into the museum are from outside of Hoboken,” he said, “and over half of those people are expecting a Frank Sinatra experience.”
In the past, the museum has assiduously avoided becoming a Sinatra shrine, instead seeking to highlight the full spectrum of Hoboken’s rich history. The last time the museum had an exhibit on Sinatra, on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1995, it was still housed in City Hall. Now Sinatra is hitting 100, and Foster says that’s more than enough reason to make an exception.
Sticking to Sinatra for a year will give the museum time to develop and expand its collections, which already number over 100,000 items. The collection project, along with the Sinatra exhibit itself, are tributes to David Webster, the former collections manager of the museum, who died suddenly on July 4 at the age of 64.
“It’s something he would have wanted,” said Foster. “What [David] really enjoyed was making the collections richer.” The museum’s excellent online collections database, which is fully searchable and contains over 60,000 digitized images, was Webster’s particular passion.
“A lot of times,” Foster added, “people will donate things to us knowing that their family doesn’t take care of them…and they at least know where they can find it with us.”
Full slate of events
Regularly scheduled programming will stretch throughout the next year. On the first Sunday of each month, a past competitor from Hoboken’s annual Sinatra Idol singing contest will perform in the museum at 4 p.m. Marcqiese Rainey, the runner-up at the most recent edition in June, will perform on Sept. 6, and 2015 winner Tony Corrao will perform on Dec. 6.
Renowned Sinatra biographer James Kaplan will give a lecture at the Museum on Nov. 29. The second and final volume of his landmark biography of the Chairman of the Board is scheduled to be published in October.
In addition, author Richard Muti will discuss his latest book, “Cent’Anni: The Sinatra Legend at 100,” at the museum on Sunday, Nov. 22 at 4 p.m.
The real fanfare will come in December, the month Sinatra would have turned 100. The museum will host a bus tour tracing Ol’ Blue Eyes’ early years in Hoboken on Dec. 6, followed by a “swingin’ Rat Pack party” held in conjunction with the city of Hoboken at Stevens Institute of Technology on his actual birthday, Dec. 12.
The Hoboken Historical Museum is open six days a week, 2 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday, 1 to 5 p.m. on Fridays, and noon to 5 p.m. on weekends. Admission is $3 and includes a map showing Sinatra-related sights around Hoboken.
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.