Habitat families welcomed to new homes on E Street

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer

FREEHOLD — The influence of rock superstar Bruce Springsteen can be seen all over Freehold Borough — one just has to look for it.

Local residents are aware of the benefit concert Springsteen performed at the St. Rose of Lima School in the fall of 1996. He immortalized the old A&M Karagheusian rug mill as the “textile mill across the railroad tracks” in his song “My Hometown.”

In addition to Springsteen sightings around town at odd intervals, the borough native showed up for the dedication of Vinyard Park on Center Street in May 2002. The park honors Tex and Marion Vinyard, the local couple who supported and encouraged the efforts of Springsteen and other musicians in the 1960s. Springsteen’s musical catalog includes a song called “Freehold.”

Now, to continue the Springsteen folklore, six families who were selected to own a Habitat for Humanity home can say they will live on the only street in Freehold Borough that has been named as a direct nod to the rock star who was born and raised in the town they will now call home.

A dedication ceremony was held on Sept. 18 at the site of the six new homes on E Street. The new street intersects with Institute Street, where Springsteen lived for a time when he was growing up in the borough.

The sponsors of the Habitat homes were an anonymous donor who gave $100,000; Jersey Shore Builders Association, Lakewood; U.S. Home, Freehold Township; the Mitzvah House project, a collaboration of local synagogues and Jewish organizations; and Home Depot.

Councilman Kevin Coyne, one of the featured speakers at the dedication, told the group that Mayor Michael Wilson, who could not attend the ceremony because he was performing a wedding, asked him to explain how E Street got its name.

Coyne said that because the town is old and densely settled, officials almost never get a chance to name a new street, so when the Habitat project came along the mayor asked Borough Council members for suggestions.

“I’m also the town historian,” Coyne said, explaining that he told Wilson, “There’s a guy I’d dearly like to name something after, a Revolutionary War hero named Dr. Nathanial Scudder — a Princeton educated physician, an ardent patriot, the commander of the local militia and the only member of the Continental Congress to die in combat — killed by a Loyalist ambush just days before the war ended. [How about] Scudder Street.

“The mayor didn’t quite roll his eyes,” Coyne explained, “but he said, ‘OK, that’s interesting,’ in a way that made it clear

that it wasn’t.”

Coyne said Wilson responded by saying, “How about this. We’ve got an Avenue A already, and an Avenue C, so let’s just continue down the alphabet and stop at E.”

Coyne intimated that the mayor’s remark about street names seemed to point in Springsteen’s direction — he is, after all, the leader of the E Street Band — more so than in a perfectly ordered grid of alphabet streets.

“We named it in that understated don’t ask-don’t tell way we have of acknowledging our native superstar,” Coyne said, and “in honor of a man who grew up three houses away from here on the corner of Institute and Parker streets, and whose work had long sounded the same themes as the mission of your (Habitat) group — the road, dark and hard though it sometimes is, toward a real home. New Jersey is a hard place to find a home these days, a state where the term affordable housing has become a cruel oxymoron.”

Springsteen’s influence is woven throughout the Habitat site. In fact, a group of Springsteen fans showed up at the construction site with shovels on July 31, 2004, to help build one of the six homes on E Street and to give something back to the community that gave them their musical hero. The fans eventually took a lunch break at Federici’s and were pleasantly surprised when Springsteen stopped in and thanked them for their efforts.

Due to the efforts of the Western Monmouth Habitat for Humanity, which included hundreds of volunteers, tons of donated materials and many fund-raising efforts, the Reed family, the Rivera family, the Battle family, the DeTullio family, the DeJesus family and the Washington family will now call E-Street home.

Almost 200 people came together to dedicate the homes and to wish the new homeowners well. The dedication ceremony opened with members of the Colts Neck High School Junior ROTC presenting colors.

Joe Malecki, who serves Habitat as family selection chair, read several passages from the Bible and said Habitat is a Christian organization. He focused on the passage, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Habitat asks people to help others, to share love and to volunteer time and effort to help people achieve their piece of the American dream.

The Rev. Garfield Greene said a vital part of the American dream is to own and occupy a comfortable, affordable home.

“Thank God for Habitat for Humanity,” Greene said. “An army of volunteers have made these six families’ dreams come true.”

Habit for Humanity Board President Ken Curtis called the site of the homes a “sacred place” where hundreds of volunteers gave of their time, money, sweat and materials to “do God’s work for the love of God and for the love of their fellow man.”

“Six families will pay-it-forward with interest-free mortgages from Habitat,” Curtis said. “When paid, that money will help to create homes for more families down the road.”

Habitat Executive Director Bill Seifert said he is glad the two-year project has been completed. He said it will be a “fantastic and very satisfying feeling” to finally see the families move in.

Coyne summed up the mission of the Western Monmouth Habitat for Humanity when he said, “What you have all done here is a great gift, a blessing, a mitzvah, but we all need to keep doing more. I don’t think there’s a town in this county that has, per capita, built or rehabilitated more affordable housing or welcomed more Habitat for Humanity projects than Freehold — but it’s still not enough.”

The councilman referred once again to Springsteen and said, “Bruce has written a couple of lines that can stand as a benediction here on this joyful day.

“Everybody needs a place to rest.

Everybody wants to have a home.

“And we are grateful today that your road to home has ended here on E Street. Welcome to your hometown.”