Hoboken

There is a Crabtree & Evelyn shop now on Washington Street - and fancy cafes, too. If anybody had said that was going to happen when I was in college here - and when they were filming On the Waterfront down on the docks - he would have been laughed out of this rough and grubby old town. But now Hoboken has become chic. Yuppies are buying the "luxury condos" on Washington Street, the main drag. The rent on my old three-room fifth-floor walk-up at Ninth and Washington has gone from $60 to $850 a month.

A Frank Sinatra fan is planning to open a museum dedicated to the late singer in a space next door to his Hoboken, N.J., birthplace. "It's going to be really extra special," Ed Shirak Jr. said last week. The museum will open Dec. 12, Sinatra's birthday. It will house letters Sinatra wrote to Hoboken residents, photographs and personal possessions such as handkerchiefs and a suit he wore in the film Come Blow Your Horn. The inside of the 600-square-foot museum - now an old knickknack shop - will be laid out to resemble Marty O'Brien's, a bar Sinatra's father owned in Hoboken, and will feature a stage for live performances.

New Jersey Devils owner John McMullen is considering moving his hockey team to a not-yet-built arena at the Hoboken, N.J., train station, according to officials familiar with the plan. Ray Bateman, chairman of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, said McMullen has spoken to officials in Hoboken about the possibility. "I know from his discussion with me that he's serious," Bateman told the Star-Ledger of Newark for yesterday's editions. "He's looking at the Hoboken train station, which seems an unusual place.

Senior Louis Roe scored 35 points and grabbed 18 rebounds last night to lead Atlantic City, the No. 1 team in The Inquirer's Top 10, to an 84-72 victory over previously undefeated Hoboken. Roe's efforts helped the Vikings (20-1) control the inside game. Atlantic City, ranked No. 5 in the state by the Newark Star-Ledger, outrebounded No. 8 Hoboken, 51-29. "Our board strength did it," said Atlantic City coach Joe Fussner. "We had scouted Hoboken and we knew they couldn't match up with us inside.

Evelyn Arroyo has added a new twist to the old political dirty trick of publishing pictures of an opponent in a compromising position. She's published one of herself. Arroyo, 21, who is running for a seat on the Hoboken school board, placed an advertisement in a weekly newspaper with a photo of herself wearing a clinging, off-the-shoulder silk negligee. "The politicians aren't supporting me, so I figured the only way I could win was to use my assets," said Arroyo, who appears in the picture in a coy pose with her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees.

In the beginning, there was Hoboken and in the end, there was Beverly Hills. Between the North Jersey rivertown where Frank Sinatra was born and the affluent home to the stars where he spent his twilight years, there was a show-business career without peer, of course. But it was the shadow worlds of Hoboken and Beverly Hills we never knew - and Sinatra never wanted us to know - that were the bookends of his extraordinary life. Both helped define this man of enormous extremes and contradictions.

The music drifted through narrow streets and over the rowhouses. Through bullhorns, young men choked back tears as they spread the grim news. "Frankie is dead. No More Frankie," they yelled, driving block to block. It had only been a few hours since Ol' Blue Eyes left this world, and the town where he was born, raised, and loved was in mourning. Residents called in sick to work, then scrambled to buy flowers to lay at his birthplace. On nearly every sun-drenched corner, seniors gathered, some teary-eyed, others dancing and humming tunes from another era. By early morning, a stream of mourners was arriving at Sinatra's boyhood home on Monroe Street, hoping to find comfort, stunned by the news.

They were, by their own measure, part of New York City's upper crust. They were merchants and clerks, brokers and insurance agents - proper gentlemen all. They boarded a ferry in Manhattan, crossed the Hudson River, and landed at Hoboken, where they retired to McCarty's Hotel. There, on a September day in 1845, they adopted 20 rules to abide by as they played their unique gentleman's game. The game was a hybrid of several sports then popular in America - barn ball, town ball, rounders - spiced with an infusion of English cricket.

Deptford High might forfeit its football season opener Saturday - the first game under new coach Al Orio - because it is unwilling to play on Hoboken's artificial-turf field. Two weeks ago, the Spartans, coming off a 9-3 season in which they won the South Jersey Group 2 title, signed a contract to play the game. On Thursday, however, athletic director Irv McFarland found out about Hoboken's artificial surface and asked that the game be moved to Deptford or a neutral grass field.

Deptford High, citing concerns for its players' safety, will forfeit its season-opening football game scheduled for tomorrow on Hoboken's artificial-turf field, Deptford superintendent David Moyer said yesterday. A little more than two weeks ago, Deptford signed a contract to play the game. About a week later, however, athletic director Irv McFarland learned about Hoboken's artificial surface and asked that the game be moved to Deptford or to a neutral grass field. Hoboken refused.

Although Demi Moore has not been spotted since a health crisis in January sent her to the hospital, People has confirmed she is in treatment. According to a source close to the situation, the actress is in a facility and not at home in Los Angeles, as some have speculated. "She's on total lockdown and only talking to a small group of people," a source tells E!, adding that the actress is being treated for addiction and an eating disorder. On Friday, Moore's youngest daughter, Tallulah , celebrated her 18th birthday at dad Bruce Willis ' Beverly Hills home along with her sister, Rumer .   Look out, South Jersey Snooki and Jwoww haven't lost faith in the Garden State just because Hoboken rejected them - they're still determined to find a New Jersey location for their new spin-off show.

In a move of transcendent wisdom, the city of Hoboken, N.J., hometown of super-celeb showbiz legend Frank Sinatra , has rejected a request by the producers of MTV's Jersey Shore to film a spin-off of the reality series in the mile-square enclave on the Hudson. Mayor Dawn Zimmer said the town's Film Commission worried that the project might compromise the safety and quality of life of city residents. 495 Productions wanted a 24-hour filming permit to record the adventures of two "well-known reality television celebrities" who would relocate to the city and would probably go to bed about the time the rest of the city woke up. No word on who those celebs would be, but the Jersey Journal reported last month that MTV was scouting digs for Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Jenni "JWoww" Farley - formidable talents, perhaps, but not likely to impress a town that knew Ol' Blue Eyes back when.

Former Villanova basketball star Corey Stokes was in the Hudson County Jail in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon, charged with assault after an incident at a bar in Hoboken left a man with a broken jaw. Stokes appeared in the Central Judicial Processing court in Jersey City on Saturday afternoon. Also charged with assault were Keith M. McGrath, 22, and Derrel L. Williams, 23. All three defendants are from Bayonne, N.J. According to court documents, the incident occurred early Saturday morning at One Hudson Place in Hoboken, where the defendants "did punch and kick [one victim]

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Kenny Britt was arrested again in New Jersey, a day after appearing in court for a previous arrest on traffic charges. Police said the former Rutgers star was charged with resisting arrest after two plainclothes officers suspected he was carrying a marijuana cigar and attempted to handcuff him at a Hoboken carwash Wednesday evening. Hoboken Detective Sgt. Sam Williams said two detectives from the city's vice squad were in line to pay at the carwash when they detected an odor of marijuana, and one noticed Britt allegedly holding a brown, rolled cigar they believed to be a blunt.

TRENTON - Legislation that would promote car-sharing initiatives in New Jersey has cleared a hurdle in the state Assembly. The proposal recently approved by the Commerce and Economic Development Committee would exempt car-sharing programs from a $5 state surcharge on vehicle rentals that was put in place in 2002. Proponents say that doing this would help boost the popularity of car-sharing programs, which in turn would reduce pollution, cut congestion on roadways, and ease chronic parking problems in crowded communities.

Phillippe Sinatra Ryan Phillippe also has a fascination - formerly an obsession - with Frank Sinatra. "I didn't date much in high school," he said, "and when I was 16 I used to drive around in my dad's pickup on Friday night and listen to Sid Mark. " A particular fan of Ol' Blue Eyes' 1950s period, "when his voice and swagger peaked," Phillippe named his daughter Ava (after Sinatra love Ava Gardner) and his bulldog, who passed away last year, Frank. He became this macho icon, Phillippe said of his idol, and he started as "a little runt of a guy from Hoboken.

INSIDE a grange hall in a rural stretch of South Jersey, hundreds of men and women who've embraced tea-party politics cast skeptical glances and tough questions when their local Republican congressman took the stage. "Why don't you ever come to our meetings? How do you expect our grandchildren to be able to live in this world?" they asked U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo. One man questioned LoBiondo about death camps of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a popular conspiracy theory on the far right, and his suspicions seemed confirmed when the the congressman didn't know what he was talking about.

MONTCLAIR, N.J. - The Chairman of the Board has won another tribute in his home state. In a ceremony Thursday, Montclair State University will dedicate the Francis A. Sinatra Residence Hall, a six-story building housing more than 300 students. Sinatra, a Hoboken native who died in 1998, won the honor through a campus referendum. The university's dorms traditionally are named for famous New Jerseyans. - AP

AS THE Phillies fight Rocky-like odds in tonight's do-or-die World Series Game 6 at Yankee Stadium, here's a jolt of hope from a phanatic South Philly family: NO BUTTS ABOUT IT: "I was 5 months old for my first game, Opening Day 1985," said Alexis Student, 24, who's from three generations of Packer Park Phillies fans. "I tell people this to prove that I'm not just one of those girls who watch the game to stare at the players' butts. I'm a girl who understands the game.

Sean Iaquinto likes to say that it's the loudest gathering of Phils fans outside Citizens Bank Park. Iaquinto is the organizer of the Hoboken Phillies Club, which consists of Philadelphia and South Jersey natives who live in the North Jersey town and mostly work in New York City. During the regular season, they gather every Friday at Mulligan's, a local watering hole on First Street, to watch their Fightin's. For the World Series, they've been drawing about 200. It's a comfort in a town full of Giants, Yankees, and Mets fans, said Iaquinto, 37. "We're this little oasis - kind of like an embassy.