BY ERIC MODEL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

JOURNEYS INTO NEW JERSEY

Today’s there’s an Exxon station along Route 9W that occasionally draws the curious on a pilgrimage of sorts.

It’s not for anything related to its present day function as a gas station. There is not much to be seen there at this spot along the “Gold Coast” of the Hudson among corporate headquarters and upscale eateries.

The only clue to one is in the name of the gasoline station – the Rustic Cabin.

These days the spot is not very rustic. Granted it is across the road from the Palisades Interstate Park, which stretches the along Hudson for miles in Bergen and Rockland counties. But one would never know that the site of this Exxon station is where American popular culture history was made.

Once upon a time the Rustic Cabin was not the name of a gas station, but rather that of a roadhouse.

To those unfamiliar, the "roadhouse" or "road house" was once a fixture along American roads, a local inn or restaurant commonly that served meals, especially in the evenings. It was highlighted by a bar serving beer or hard liquor, and featured music and dancing for entertainment, and often gambling. Most roadhouses were located along highways or roads in rural areas or on the outskirts of towns.

The Rustic Cabin was one such roadhouse. It billed itself as “a typical mountain lodge” – though Englewood Cliffs was only 250 feet above sea level.

Perhaps they were appealing to the notion that the roadhouse was perched atop the Palisades – which could look imposing, especially from the banks of the river below. In any event, in its time this “mountain lodge” was a hub. It was made physically accessible to nearby New York City by the opening of the George Washington Bridge in 1931. Similarly, it was made accessible to millions of others as a remote broadcast site for network radio.

Over its peak years, the Rustic Cabin hosted such recognizable music personalities as the King Sisters and the orchestras of Alvino Rey, and Stan Kenton.

It was another bandleader, Harry James, who played as much as role as anyone in the history of the Rustic Cabin, though he made history as a patron. You see, it was James who “discovered” a young Frank Sinatra upon a visit to the establishment.

At the time (1936) this Francis Albert Sinatra, born down the road in Hoboken, was working as a journalist by day, while doubling by night as vocalist-MC and waiter at the Rustic Cabin. He was already a featured unknown on radio, after having, in late 1935, won a Radio City talent competition and signed for a $50-per-week nationwide tour.

From the Rustic Cabin, Sinatra got his first radio play in 1939 on station WNEW. He then signed with his first bandleader, Harry James, for $75 per week, and the rest, as they say is history.

That same year, Sinatra married his longtime sweetheart, Nancy Barbato. They would eventually have three children, and Francis Albert would go on to the Dorsey Orchestra and then stardom.

But according to those who chronicle Sinatra and his life, the Rustic Cabin still ranks as an important place in the development of the “Chairman of the Board” as he later became known.

The Rustic Cabin itself did not last long, destroyed by fire. The roadhouse era soon became a thing of the past – replaced by entertainment first in the Catskills and then in places more distant such as Miami Beach and Las Vegas.

These days the legacy of the Rustic Cabin can be found on the Internet – mostly thanks to enterprising folks seeking to make a few dollars off of memorabilia.

For example, not too long ago we came across a 2005 entry of someone having found some Rustic Cabin artifacts at a flea market. One was a Rustic Cabin menu from 1937-39 – items on the menu when Sinatra would have been present and waiting on tables.

Those menu items range from appetizers (35 cents for imported sardines; pickles and olives, 25 cents) to vegetables (green peas:15 cents; candied sweet potatoes: 30 cents) to “Special Combinations” Hot Chicken Sandwich, Candied Sweet Potatoes, Jelly, Coffee and Desert, 85 cents) and desert (10 cents for a choice of raisin, apple sauce or pound cake).

Today the food is all but forgotten. But the Rustic Cabin endures and still brings folks out – even if it is to just see a gas station.