Tuesday afternoon last week Hania and I made our way to the 39th Street ferry terminal – not far from where, one fateful day in 1975, I boarded the QE2 for Europe – and sailed across the Hudson to Hoboken. Though a native New Jerseyan, I had never been to the hometown of Frank Sinatra, which, in the last few decades, has become a hip, and pricey, alternative to Manhattan.
We strolled the wide sidewalks of the main street, passing shops and restaurants. There were few chains, and few empty storefronts. Young people walked good-looking dogs. Turning down a side street, we found a small bookstore in a neighborhood, fittingly, of Irish pubs.
Around 5 we made our way to Leo’s, an Italian restaurant whose walls dripped with framed photographs of Sinatra. Soon my two brothers (life-long Jerseyans) walked in the door with their wives and joined us at a round table in the corner.
We ate a wonderful meal – penne ala vodka, eggplant parmigiano, cheese ravioli – during which someone asked us if we’d brought our masks. Are people up here still paranoid about COVID, I wondered. Then we were told of the smoke that had descended from wildfires in Canada. Coming over on the ferry, and looking back at the Manhattan skyline, I had noticed a haze, but thought it was just the accumulated smoke from all the marijuana cigarettes.
