Curatorial Corner: Where the Music Happened – Touring the Jersey Shore with Stan Goldstein

“Never stop learning. There are always new stories to tell.”

The Springsteen Center staff is quite small—there are only eight full-time employees. While we are fortunate to receive support from across the Monmouth University community, we also rely heavily on a wonderful cadre of volunteers.

You may recall reading about our inaugural docent class. Our docents are specially trained in our exhibit content and are stationed in our galleries.

We also utilize volunteers who greet our visitors at our front door, scan their tickets, introduce our film, and just in general ensure that all guests receive a warm welcome and feel at home for the duration of their stay with us. These volunteers often come to us with a deep wealth of knowledge on Bruce Springsteen that far predates their time with the Center. One such volunteer is Stan Goldstein, who has for many years run “Rock & Roll Tours of the Jersey Shore” with his friend, journalist Jean Mikle.

Today on the blog, we’re sharing lightly edited excerpts from an interview I conducted with Stan as part of my Spring 2023 class, “Exploring History and Heritage Sites: Preservation, Interpretation, and Management.” 

How did you wind up developing your tours, Stan?

I’ve always been a tourist myself. Whenever I would travel somewhere, especially Los Angeles or something, I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I read the book Helter Skelter back in the 70s and on my first trip to LA, I wanted to see where the Manson murders happened. I know that maybe sounds creepy, but I always, like, looked. “Oh, there’s the address of this, or that, or other things that happened.” And you know, whether it was where movie studios were, or things like that, out in Los Angeles.

So, I always was a tourist myself. And then around the mid-1980s, as far as being a Bruce Springsteen fan, my sister, who’s four years older than me, was really into him in the beginning, and I was still too young. I think I was into the Osmond Brothers or The Partridge Family at the time, but she kept playing Bruce’s first and second albums over and over, and I was complaining to her, “Can you put something else on?” And to this day, she loves mentioning that to me, given the way things have turned out.

But I first saw Bruce in 1976 at what I still call the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank. I know it’s had a ton of names…and as far as tours, like I said, being a tourist myself…obviously with The Wild, the Innocent album he…in the song “Sandy,” he mentions the Casino, which is in Asbury Park. In “Born to Run,” he mentions the Palace. In “Something in the Night,” he mentions Kingsley Ave., “I’m driving down Kingsley, figuring I’ll get a drink.” So, I realized, you know, there were things here that people would want to see in reference.

And then, especially in the mid-1980s, I realized people were coming here…and I had to do some research myself. I didn’t know a lot of the places, and I’m still always doing research, I’m still doing research to find more and more locations. But that’s it. And we’ve been doing tours since 1999.

So, you’re still learning new things yourself?

Oh yeah. I try to listen to every interview Bruce does, any podcast that he does, anything, just to see if there’s anything new I can pick up. Like I saw photos on Facebook of Bruce doing a photo shoot, a photo shoot on Springwood Avenue in Asbury Park, in front of the old Turf Club with Danny Clinch. And I’m like, “oh, there’s another location for our tour.”

So yeah, I’m always looking. I’m always wanting to learn. Never stop learning. There are always new stories to tell.

Roughly how many sites do you cover on a tour, or do you alter it for the participants every time?

Sometimes people want to see specific things, but we have pretty much a set of…hmm, how many sites? I mean, in Asbury Park alone, there’s probably 20 different sites to show. Probably all told, probably 40 or so. But, you know, it’s also not just a Springsteen tour. We have a lot of times we’ll get people where the husband or wife, one of them is really into it and the other isn’t. But we find they enjoy just seeing the Jersey Shore, too. So, we take them all around the Jersey Shore and they love that. But yeah, there’s about 40 different sites and sometimes people will ask to see a specific thing and we’ll try to, if we can, we’ll try to accommodate them with that.

Roughly how many people do you think you’ve given tours to over the years?

It’s in the thousands. Having done them since 1999? It’s in the thousands. Sometimes, we take people around in our SUV, and sometimes it’s a bus tour.

You’ve had folks come from across the globe. We talked about a group coming in from Japan. What are some other countries you’ve seen people come from?

All over Europe. Definitely. England, Ireland, Italy, France, even had Qatar! A lot from Australia…South America, Israel, Lebanon.

So fascinating. So why do you think people are drawn to see the places in person themselves?

I mean, everybody knows the Stone Pony. It’s one of the most famous bars in the world, right up there with the Cavern Club in Liverpool, with the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. CBGB is no longer there, in NYC.

Our number one photo op is the corner of 10th Avenue and E Street in Belmar. I call that the Springsteen fans’ Abbey Road shot. I mean, there’s a lot of popular photo ops, but that seems to be the number one place that everyone wants their picture at, on that corner. People hear about things and they want to see. But mostly it’s the places in Asbury Park, definitely the Stone Pony, Madam Marie’s, of course, Kingsley Street, 10th Avenue and E Street in Belmar and in Freehold, where his childhood homes were, two of them are still standing. The last two.