This Could’ve Been One of New Jersey’s Most Instagrammable Locations — Then It Was Destroyed Without Warning

It still stings 13 years later.

In November of 2011, artist Matt Halm was putting the final touches on the Freehold mural, a community-wide project orchestrated by the Freehold Borough Arts Council (FBAC) and one Halm had spent six months bringing to life.

“It’s always cool to be involved with a mural that is the first of its kind in the town," Halm told me for a Freehold Patch article back then.

The mural had been the work of multiple stakeholders. The FBAC spearheaded the project but Freehold High School students prepared the walls of the vacant former gas station for the mural and residents came together one Saturday for a community paint day.

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The mural looked like a postcard and included historical images inside the letters spelling our Freehold. Located at the five-point intersection leading into Freehold's downtown, the expansive Freehold mural was a fitting gateway to the county seat, Bruce Springsteen's hometown and a proud community where many residents had lived for generations.

And then one day the building's owner — who the FBAC had worked with to allow the mural to be crafted on removable panels — painted the artwork over. The owner had been seeking approval to build a 7-Eleven at the property. It was increasingly apparent the approval wouldn't come and whatever community goodwill earned by allowing the mural there wasn't persuasive enough to bring the desired business plan to fruition. The mural paid the price.

Freehold Mural Painted Over Without Warning

"We had no warning of this and we don't understand it," FBAC President Neal Girandola told me at the time. "I am devastated and frustrated, it is absolutely maddening. There was no reason to do this."

The mural was painted and destroyed at a time before selfies and Instagram-worthy walls became a ubiquitous part of our lives.

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One can only wonder what this mural would have meant for tourism and to neighboring small businesses — a sea of Freehold mural photos sharing a piece of the community across the country and the world. Something to go alongside all the Bruce Springsteen-related news buzzing in the air with the tour documentary and the Nebraska-era feature film. (And side note: the video where Bruce filmed his presidential endorsement was in the current Roberto's Freehold Grill and former Tony's Freehold Grill — the restaurant that shared a wall with the mural.)

But that's a version of the past and the present that never got to happen.

When longtime community activist Jeff Friedman shared a memory of the mural's completion on Facebook the other day, I remembered what we had and what we lost.