A Garden State Parkway service area will be named after Frank Sinatra.
Nine service areas on the Garden State Parkway are being renamed in honor of famous New Jerseyans, including Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston and James Gandolfini. The selections were made by the New Jersey Hall of Fame in conjunction with Gov. Phil Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy, and The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, and were approved today by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority Board of Commissioners.
There will be interactive exhibits devoted to the honorees (and others in the New Jersey Hall of Fame) at each service area. In a press release, Gov. Murphy described this as “the first part of an extended statewide exhibition of New Jersey heroes throughout our state.”
The following service areas will have these names:
Montvale: James Gandolfini Service Area
Brookdale North: Larry Doby Service Area
Brookdale South: Connie Chung Service Area
Vauxhall: Whitney Houston Service Area
Cheesequake: Jon Bon Jovi Service Area
Monmouth: Judy Blume Service Area
Forked River: Celia Cruz Service Area
Atlantic: Frank Sinatra Service Area
Ocean View: Toni Morrison Service Area
Gandolfini, Doby, Houston, Cruz, Morrison and Sinatra are all deceased.
You may notice that the man who has sung about New Jersey’s roads more famously than anyone else, Bruce Springsteen, is not among the honorees.
According to a spokesperson, “Bruce Springsteen respectfully declined to have a service area named after him. It should be noted though that Bruce has been very supportive of the New Jersey Hall of Fame over the years, and is very much a part of the fabric of the Hall.”
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