Sunday, April 2, 2023 Entry #62
The tour I took of Bruce Springsteen sites on the Jersey Shore was a complete joy, and it was very rewarding for me. I am glad for the opportunity to share my experiences there. While on the bus we understandably saw the sites in geographical order, my review here groups them topically, in three categories: “Springsteen and Home,” “Springsteen and Music,” and “Springsteen and Ocean.”
I. “Springsteen and Home”
As mentioned in the previous post, Bruce Springsteen was born (in 1949) and raised in Freehold, NJ (Notice the clever reference to this fact on the town sign as pictured above using Bruce’s “My Hometown” song title). He resided in 3 different Freehold houses during his growing up years. The first was on 87 Randolph Street where Springsteen lived with his parents, two of his grandparents and his older sister. In 1956, it became necessary for the family to move out of their home because the church next door (the Catholic Church where Springsteen’s parents were married and where Bruce was baptized) needed the property for a new parking lot. Springsteen began his autobiography Born To Run waxing nostalgic about the big tree that was in the front of that house.
“In our front yard, only feet from our porch, stands the grandest tree in town, a towering copper beech…I hold the honor of being the first on our block to climb into its upper reaches…I wander for hours amongst its branches…Beneath its slumbering arms, on slow summer days we sit, my pals and I, the cavalry at dusk, waiting for the evening bells of the ice-cream man and bed.”
The family then moved to nearby 39 1/2 Institute Street, the left side of a duplex, when Springsteen was six years old. They lived there until just before Springsteen started high school. Here we made a nice long stop.
At the side of the house, there is another tree that Springsteen has made famous, at least among his fans. Bruce did a photo shoot at his old Institute Street home for his blockbuster Born In The USA album. A picture of him leaning on the tree was used on the lyric sheet of the album, the picture sleeve for his “My Hometown” single, and the souvenir book sold at the subsequent tour. My new friends and I lined up for our tour guide Stan to take the obvious photo-op.
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Springsteen’s lived in his final Freehold home, on 68 South Street, from 1962-1970. This was during his formative teenage years, and the unlighted kitchen in the house was the scene of the many strenuous arguments Springsteen had with his father that have been powerfully recounted in Bruce’s songs and onstage stories through the years. Before that house was sold, Springsteen lived there for about a year with a few of his post-high school bandmates after his family and youngest sister moved on to California. We didn’t stop at this house, as the current occupants are apparently averse to Springsteen tourists, but we did drive by so I took this rather sad through the window picture.
One neighborhood we spent quite a bit of time in wasn’t ever Bruce’s own at all, but one that includes the former home of David Sancious, the E Street Band’s original keyboard player. David lived in the town of Belmar on…wait for it…1105 E Street! In his own book, Clarence Clemons recounts his version (my favorite) of how Sancious’ street became the band’s namesake. In the very early days, whenever Bruce and the guys would arrive at David’s house (in classic rock fashion, his garage was the site of several rehearsals of the still unnamed group) to pick him up for a gig, David was always late. The rest of the band spent so much time waiting there for their keyboardist that Springsteen one day said, “We might as well call ourselves the (‘effing’) E Street band because we’re always sitting here!”
A very cool spot there is the street signpost on the corner of E Street and 10th Avenue (the later the name of a well-known Springsteen song). In honor of the Springsteen-laden history there, an eight-foot high replica of Springsteen’s legendary Fender guitar was installed in 2011. This was the logical place for our tour’s one group picture as well.
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I think my favorite Springsteen house we saw on the tour was the one-level home (another 1/2 address too) in Long Branch that Bruce rented in 1974 as a rising star. Bruce said that he wrote every song on the epic album Born To Run there at the piano in this West End Court residence and moved out shortly after it was released in ‘75. This must have been the screen door Springsteen was envisioning that slammed to start off “Thunder Road,” the brilliant album opener!
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Of the song “Born To Run” itself, Springsteen has said:
“My shot at the title. A 24 year old kid aiming at the greatest rock ‘n’ roll record ever. When I wrote it…I was sitting in my bedroom in Long Branch, New Jersey…the questions I ask myself in this song (how to balance freedom and community), it seems I’ve been trying to find the answers to them ever since.”
We also stopped at St. Rose of Lima Church, whose parking lot was constructed on top of the torn down first Springsteen house, and Freehold High School, whose administration didn’t allow Bruce Springsteen to participate in his graduation ceremony because he wouldn’t cut his hair.
Our group grabbed lunch and ice-cream at Freehold’s Jersey Freeze, one of Springsteen’s favorite haunts (the photo on the left is mine, the one next to it is of Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi having a treat there in 2022). Stan also pointed out Federici’s Pizza in Freehold, another Boss hangout past and present. If you pay attention to these things, the New Jersey press often reports on Bruce sightings in the area, including a few days ago (as of this writing in January, (2024) when Springsteen was spotted at his “go-to diner,” Roberto’s Freehold Grill. As usual, he graciously took photos with happy fans.
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On the fly, Stan pointed out the (long) entrance to Springsteen’s current home, a 378-acre estate called “Stone Hill Farm” in Colts Neck, New Jersey. The home has been the object of much exposure in recent years, as Bruce, like all of us, spent more time than usual in his home because of the pandemic. We have seen Springsteen’s property as the place where his equestrian daughter Jessica rode horses in preparation for the Olympics: the site of the studio where Bruce and The E Street Band recorded their most recent album, 2020’s “Letter To You”; where Springsteen recorded his lockdown era “From My Home To Yours” satellite radio broadcasts; and the home of Springsteen’s podcasted conversations with President Obama.
The fact that he now lives in Colts Neck is also the subject of Springsteen’s hilariously self-deprecating and self-aware observation in his Broadway show that:
“I was ‘born to run,’ not to stay. My home, New Jersey? It’s a ‘death trap.’ It’s a ‘suicide rap.’ Listen to the lyrics. I gotta get out, I gotta hit the highway...I got the white line fever in my veins…I’ve had enough of the shit that this place dishes out. I am gonna run, run, and I’m never coming back! However, I currently live ten minutes from my hometown! But, ‘born to come back?’ Who’d have bought that shit?”
Springsteen concludes his autobiography, and I will end the '“home” category of this description of my Jersey Shore pilgrimage (more to come), by reporting on a visit he made in 2015 to his birthplace home on Randolph Street. Springsteen of course, knew the house was long-gone, but he was looking forward to seeing his tree:
“I rolled slowly another fifty yards up my block to find my towering copper beech tree gone, cut to the street. My heart went blank, then settled. I looked again. It was gone but still there. The very air and space above it was still filled with the form, soul and lifting presence of my old friend, its leaves and branches now outlined and shot through by evening stars and sky…It still held small snakes of roots slightly submerged by dust and dirt, and there the arc of my tree, my life, lay plainly visible. My great tree’s life by country dictum or blade could not be ended or erased. It’s history, its magic, was too old and too strong…We remain in the air, the empty space, in the dusty roots and deep earth, in the echo and stories, the songs of the time and place we have inhabited.”
Clearly, the places where he grew up held great and near-mystical meaning to Springsteen, and because of my love and admiration for his voice, vision and artistry, visiting them felt important to me as well.