Hoboken, NJ

Gasp!  But Megan!  Isn't this supposed to be a blog about New York?  How dare you have an entry titled "Hoboken, NJ."

Yes, yes, I know, and it IS mighty early to be venturing off the island.  This is why I'm DARING TO DO IT!  I occasionally am stuck in traffic on the West Side Highway or am working on a boat - and we can see this far off land on the other side of the Hudson - and people ask - what is that?  And I can say - "it is a mysterious land known as New Jersey," but it is always followed up but the tourist asking, "What part of New Jersey."  When this happens, I stand there like a blubbering idiot.  So - here we go - exploring Hoboken, NJ.

Hoboken is famous for three things - in no particular order:

1 - The birthday place of Frank Sinatra.

2 - The Cake Boss

3- Where the very first baseball game was played.  (The New York Nine played the Knickerbockers.  The Knickerbockers lost 23:1.

Hoboken is part of the "New York Metropolitan Area"  which I suppose also justifies it being in this blog. Like New York, Hoboken was first settled by the Dutch as part of "New Netherland."  It was peacefully surrendered to the British in 1664.  It was then developed by American Colonel Stevens after the Revolutionary War.  It became a township in 1849 and a city in 1855.

Side Note: John Stevens was kind of a cool guy - who actually created the first steam-powered ferry service between Manhattan and New Jersey and received the first railroad charter in the US to build the New Jersey Railroad.  He also helped developed U.S. patent law.  The Stevens Institute of Technology now bears his name - and is also located in Hoboken, New Jersey.