A Bruce Springsteen museum is coming to Freehold, NJ

This could hardly be more perfect.

In the town where Bruce Springsteen was born and raised there is a firehouse at 49 West Main St. On Monday night the Freehold Borough Council passed a resolution to take that firehouse and turn it into a museum for the iconic rocker that will house artifacts, interactive displays, photographs, etc.

The fire station was deemed inadequate to keep serving Freehold and the building will be renovated into a museum. The opening is set to take place in about two years.

“Together, the Springsteen exhibition in Freehold and the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music on the campus of Monmouth University will ensure that the musical legacy of Springsteen and his important role in American music history remain in New Jersey for generations to come,” Eileen Chapman, Springsteen Archives director, said in a written statement.

It truly couldn’t be more perfect. Springsteen, a poet laureate of sorts of a blue-collar generation, belongs in such a setting. He wrote “The Rising” as a beautiful homage to the firefighters who perished in the 9/11 attacks. And his own son Sam Springsteen was sworn in as a Jersey City firefighter in January 2020.

A Freehold historian, Kevin Coyne, who’s also involved in the project said, “The central idea behind the Freehold project is to tell the story of Bruce Springsteen as a writer, as a storyteller, as a chronicler of America, and how his story and the story of his hometown intertwine to tell the larger story of his country.”

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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