Frank Sinatra Post Office Building

For Some, a Stamp; for Sinatra, a Post Office
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, June 27 — Letters sent from Frank Sinatra Park on Frank Sinatra Drive in Hoboken, N.J., to the Frank Sinatra Memorial at Frank Sinatra's birthplace will now pass through the Frank Sinatra Post Office Building.

The House of Representatives passed legislation today sponsored by Representative Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat whose district includes Hoboken, to rename the Hoboken Main Post Office in honor of its most famous son. The Senate passed it in March, and President Bush is expected to sign it.

Postal service officials said there was no other post office in the region named for an entertainer. There are no specific requirements, however, about the type of individual who can be honored in this way. (For a stamp, the person must have been dead at least 10 years, although there are exceptions. Mr. Sinatra died in 1998.)

There are other post offices named after famous people, including Jackie Robinson and William Shakespeare, although officials conceded that this would probably be the first named for a Rat Packer.

Mr. Menendez said the renamed Hoboken post office would be "a fitting and appropriate recognition of his birthplace" and could help raise the city's national profile because "a lot of people don't know about Frank Sinatra's Hoboken roots."

A trip to Hoboken, where visitors pass under a large sign proclaiming the city "home of baseball and Frank Sinatra," might clear up any confusion. In addition to the park, drive and birthplace memorial, there are unofficial Frank Sinatra museums, shrines and impersonators. There is even Skanatra, a band that performs his standards to a ska beat.

Geraldine Fallo, the cultural affairs coordinator for Hoboken, said residents would welcome the new post office name because, when it comes to Mr. Sinatra, "it never feels like too much."

At the Caliente Tropics weekend, I made a point of paying a visit to Frank's final resting place in Cathederal City about seven miles away. I was shocked (shocked!) to find no one else there. I hope some other folks on this list went out. He has a very modest headstone, with "The Best Is Yet To Come" across the top. James Van Heusen is also nearby.

And so is Sonny Bono. I made my apologies to him for dressing as him at a "dead celebrities" party, in ski clothes with a massive fake head wound. I hope he forgives me.