Bruce Springsteen gives teary dedication at new Monmouth U center

A ribbon was cut and a few tears were shed, too.

Bruce Springsteen shared a heartfelt remembrance of his parents, and professed his love for wife Patti Scialfa, at the Saturday, June 6 dedication of the new Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music on the campus of Monmouth University in Long Branch.

The center opens to the public on June 13.

“First thing, I have to thank my mother and my father,” said Springsteen in a tent in the center’s parking lot. “Excuse the sunglasses but it’s getting a little misty in here. Because my music is the music of struggle and that came directly from their lives, Freehold in the ’50s and how hard it was for them to make it day to day. I remember my mother on a monthly basis down at the finance department borrowing money to get to the next month. Pay it back and borrow money for the next month. When I went to work I put on my father’s clothes and I just did what could. I did what I could.”

Bruce’s parents were the late Douglas and Adele Springsteen of Freehold.

“On a personal note I got to thank my beautiful wife of 35 years, without her so much of this simply would not exist,” said Springsteen of Scialfa, a member of the E Street Band. “Her love, her talent, her patience, her support are central to everything I do … she is my heart, my soul. She has struggled and she is my hero and my favorite E Street Band member.”

Scialfa, who attended the dedication with Springsteen, was diagnosed multiple myeloma in 2018.

“I wanted to thank Monmouth University,” Springsteen said. “It really wasn’t something I ever expected. A lot of the stuff was originally in my mother’s garage, now it’s here. I want to thank the Asbury Park library who kind of started the whole thing and a little shack on the property here for many years, they held a lot of my junk. I took a short tour through the center the other day and when I came out I was thrilled that I wasn’t dead.”

The audience in the tent, a few hundred family, friends, university members, politicians, E Street Band members, rock stars including Jon Bon Jovi, and more, laughed.

The center’s leadership includes Robert Santelli, the executive director; Melissa Ziobro, director of curatorial affairs; and Eileen Chapman, director.

“This simply wouldn’t have happened (without Chapman),” Springsteen said. “She’s always been there for me. She’s the center’s director and she’s simply incredible.”

The $50 million wood-accented building was designed by Rick Cook of CookFox Architects based in New York.

“It reminds me of the rug mills where I started my first band a half block up the street,” said Springsteen of the former A. & M. Karagheusian rug mill in Freehold. “The looms clanking and banging and there was no air conditioning. All the windows were open all through the summer and it was through the sound of that rug mill that I created my first music.”

The center includes exhibition galleries, research archives, immersive interactive experiences and a performance theater.

Graciela St. Onge, a center archivist who attended the dedication, said she began working on the Springsteen archives as a student worker at Monmouth University while receiving her Master’s, leading to her current role. She said, growing up in Rumson, she came into the role with a “base-level knowledge” of Springsteen due to proximity.

She said she believes the center will encourage the public to explore the history of music through education, gaining broader contextual knowledge of the styles they are drawn to.

“A lot of people love music, and have their favorite genres, but most people don’t know the stories or the significance behind their favorite artists,” St. Onge said. “So I think this will prompt people to discover more.”

Bon Jovi, who attended with wife Dorothea Bongiovi, had performed the previous evening with Springsteen at the Music America concert at the OceanFirst Bank Center on the Monmouth University campus, part of the center’s opening celebration.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” said Bon Jovi to the Asbury Park Press. “It’s of course well deserved and I was really looking forward to not only performing with everyone last night but being here this morning with my dear friend, my hero, my mentor. He is New Jersey.”

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill spoke of the Boss’ unflinching patriotism in her remarks.

“To me, what makes Bruce’s music so powerful is a deep love for our country and also a refusal to look away from our faults,” Sherrill said. “His most iconic song, ‘Born in the USA,’ is blared on speakers on Fourth of July parades and in stadiums across the country. A song telling the story of this nation failing a man who fought for our ideals and was scarred by that failing but giving way to a booming anthem that makes us all feel pride. This one song somehow manages to chart out American failures but reminds us of our love for her.”

Springsteen manager Jon Landau also delivered remarks. Former E Street Band keyboardist David Sancious played “New York City Serenade” from Springsteen’s 1974 album “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” and Monmouth University president Patrick F. Leahy noted the importance of the center’s location.

“Can’t we all agree that the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music needs to be in the state of New Jersey,” said Leahy rhetorically. “Not just in the state of New Jersey, but at the Jersey Shore.”

The bungalow where Springsteen, born in Long Branch, wrote his classic “Born to Run” is located a few blocks from the new Springsteen Center.

“Well this is the beginning of something that I hope will bring life, hope, creativity, education, dreams, inspiration to this campus, this community and this country,” Springsteen said. “’I’m deeply honored to be a part of it.”

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