Long Branch, NJ, the city where BORN TO RUN was "born," celebrates the album @50
- Lisa Iannucci
- Aug 21
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 23
August 21, 2025
The City of Long Branch, NJ, where Bruce Springsteen lived during the creation of his career-defining Born to Run album, is revisiting Springsteen’s formative years with a brand new exhibit at The Long Branch Arts & Cultural Center entitled Born to Run: Springsteen in Long Branch. The exhibit, produced in collaboration with Monmouth University and The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music (BSACAM,) showcases memorabilia and artifacts from the Archives. With Born to Run officially turning fifty years old next week, the Springsteen in Long Branch exhibit is part of the Archives' and the Garden State's extensive celebration of Born to Run @50. The exhibit had its opening-reception this past Tuesday, August 19.
Those who may have seen Springsteen: His Hometown, the 2019-2020 Archives/Monmouth County Historical Association co-sponsored exhibit centered on his in his hometown of Freehold, may recognize some of the materials included in this new exhibit. Nevertheless, there are still many rarely seen items, including a drum kit from Bruce’s early band Earth, and a replica Fender Esquire that echoes the instrument made famous on the iconic Born to Run album cover.
The presentation, like many such exhibits, is chronological, and features blowups of newspaper clips and rare, historical photos of Bruce at some of the Long Branch venues where he's played, as well as some of his local hangouts, including The Inkwell, Max’s Hot Dogs, and The Windmill. Highlights of the exhibit include selected quotes painted in red or black cursive and mounted near the individual installations, as well as a particularly eye-catching blowup of the famous Eric Meola Born to Run album-cover photo of Springsteen and Clarence Clemons.
The opening was crowded with a wide assortment of folks, many of whom hung around to mingle and reminisce, including journalists, musicians Joe Bonanno, Vini Lopez, and trombonist Tommy Meares, and local pols Mayor John Pallone and Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., who took the time to post some great photos of the exhibit on his Facebook page.
The exhibit is open weekdays from 8:30-4:30, and runs through November 15. The Cultural Center will host some related events, including a presentation on Bruce’s years in Long Branch, and a storytelling event. Call 732-222-7000 x 2050 or follow one of The City of Long Branch's social-media accounts - here, here, or here - for further information. Admission is free, and parking is available on the street or in the municipal lot behind the building.
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A related but more somber note - On the same day as Springsteen in Long Branch's opening reception, we received word of the passing of an old, beloved friend of the Jersey Shore music scene: the great Michael “Tunes” Antunes, longtime saxophonist with John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band. Antunes, who appeared as band member “Wendell Newton” in Eddie and The Cruisers (1984) (the soundtrack of which featured the hit single “On the Dark Side,”) played in a number of New England-based bands before joining forces with Cafferty in the 1970s. Softspoken and generous with his time, Antunes was a strong presence onstage and became a fan favorite with showstopping solos on songs like “Tender Years,” long one of Bruce’s favorites.
Having been invited down from their native Rhode Island by Springsteen’s loyal number-one fan and occasional employee, Obie Dziedzic, Cafferty and his band soon became fixtures on the Jersey Shore music scene, and have played several local venues over the years, including The Fast Lane and The Stone Pony. In the early days, they would crash at Obie’s Asbury Park apartment, and she took them under her wing, introducing them to the local music scene and its vibrant community including Bruce, who jammed with them several times in the 1980s.
They continue to gig up and down the northeast coast, and played The Wonder Bar earlier this summer. Antunes, whose health had been a concern for a couple years, did not make the trip. Rest in peace, Tunes; you were one of a kind.
