LocationLook at a map of New Jersey, and it would be easy to conclude that Freehold is the state'sgeographic center. The town is about halfway between the Atlantic Ocean, which defines theeastern boundary, and the Delaware River in the west. It's also roughly equidistant from thenorthern tip, bordering New York state, and Cape May at the southern end. New Jersey’s actual center is about five miles southeast of Trenton, the state's capitalcity.

Yet the location of Bruce’s home town worked to his advantage, at least in some respects,during his initial rise to stardom and beyond. Just consider some of the places that were withinreasonable driving distance.Asbury Park, where he made a name for himself in clubs such as the Student Prince andformed the E Street Band, is only 24 minutes from Freehold by car.

Bruce moved there after hisfamily left town and went to California.New York is about an hour away.

Bruce first played there in November 1966, when theCastiles appeared at the Café Wha nightclub. The band performed about 30 shows there throughFebruary 1968, six months before its breakup.

Philadelphia, one of the first cities where Bruce established a fan base outside NewJersey, takes about 75 minutes to reach.

The first arena concert that he and the E Street Bandever played took place there in 1976, when they performed at the Spectrum.

Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore town that inspired the song of the same name, is about 90minutes away.

In 1982, “Atlantic City” appeared on the “Nebraska” album. Twenty-one yearslater, he performed there for the first time at Boardwalk Hall.

Three state highways run through Freehold, linking the town to these cities and manyothers. Route 9, cited in “Born to Run” and other Bruce songs, carries travelers north and south.Route 79 starts in town and heads northeast to Matawan, where the Castiles played in November 1966 at the Matawan-Keyport Roller Drome, a roller-skating rink.

Route 33 crisscrosses NewJersey from Trenton to Neptune, near the entrance to Asbury Park, and ran straight throughFreehold before a bypass was built to the south.Freehold also was tied to New York through the reach of the city's television and radiostations. When Bruce saw Elvis Presley’s January 1957 appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show"and the Beatles’ performances seven years later, he surely was watching WCBS-TV Channel 2in New York. The Rolling Stones’ debut on the “Hollywood Palace” program, which he saw inJune 1964, would have aired on WABC-TV Channel 7.

He and his friends were New York Yankees fans and would listen to radio broadcasts of the team’s games.

Having this kind of access suggests Freehold was everywhere. But it was also nowhere atthe same time. “It’s real ‘away,’ you know? It’s like an hour from New York, but it might as wellhave been 10 million miles,” Bruce once said. “It was all very, very local. That’s the way thosetowns and stuff are, you just never get out.”

Freehold’s isolation worsened as Bruce grew up. The town got caught in between twonewly built state highways. The first was the New Jersey Turnpike, which opened in 1951.

TheGarden State Parkway, constructed between 1952 and 1957, followed.

Once they were up andrunning, travelers passing through New Jersey had no reason to go through town any more.At the same time, public transportation became harder to come by for the town’sresidents. The Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Freehold Branch, which offered connectingservice to New York via Matawan, stopped carrying passengers in 1953.

The Pennsylvania

Railroad followed nine years later with the Freehold & Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad, whichhad a New York connection through the Jersey Shore town of Sea Girt.

The shutdowns ended passenger-rail service in Freehold after more than a century. Only freight trains still ran.

Bus service became the only alternative to driving for people like Bruce, who took busesto New York when he ran away from home as a teenager. He would try to spend the night at thePort Authority bus station, where the terminal’s police would find him and call his parents. Hismother always went to pick him up.

Music provided Bruce with a sense of escape even before he was old enough to travel.Being in Freehold, miles from the major cities and the big-name performers of his era, gave himthe latitude he needed to develop his own style. He soaked up what he heard on records and theradio, and also what he saw on television. Presley, Roy Orbison, the Beatles, the Stones, BritishInvasion bands, surf rock, rhythm and blues -- Bruce’s songs and performances reflected theseearly influences and went beyond them.

Freehold's location also helps explain some basic facts about him, including:-- Why he wasn't born there. The town didn't have its own hospital until 1971, whenFreehold Area Hospital opened.

Before then, the closest facility was the Raleigh Fitkin-PaulMorgan Memorial Hospital in Neptune, about 20 minutes away.

Riverview Hospital in RedBank was about half an hour’s drive.

So was Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch,where the birth took place.

-- Why his Catholic education ended after the eighth grade. St. Rose of Lima was anelementary school, and still is. Freehold didn't have a Catholic high school, and still doesn’t. Theclosest one that operated at the time, Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft, was more than 20minutes away from town.