THere are some of the most iconic towns that you can find in New Jersey. They all have their own unique charm. Asbury Park has the Boss and New Brunswick’s got the Big Ten. Trenton honors history, while Atlantic City’s all about sand and sin. Newark is home to the Devils, Paterson has the Great Falls, and Bedminster claims you-know-who.
But when it comes to having it all, to being a place where young professionals want to be, few places beat Hoboken—which is a real trip for me, because when I grew up there in the 1960s and early ’70s, everyone was intent on leaving.
Sinatra aside – boom times in the unique place where I grew up, where both of my parents lived all their lives, and my grandparents planted the DePalma Flag in the New World back in 1909. Hoboken is a place I no longer recognize, nor can I remember the Baltimore Catechism.
The pencil factory, where my grandfather started his career, is no longer there. My father’s piers and the Italian ice factory, where I earned my very first dime by pushing a wagon for a guy called Tex to a nearby park, are also gone.
