STONE HARBOR — Once a small-town girl who spent her summers in Stone Harbor, Taylor Swift has grown to the level of celebrity superstardom.
But this small borough and its 800 year-round inhabitants isn’t likely to stop bragging about its most famous summer visitor.
Especially now that the Stone Harbor Museum has put together an exhibit of her work, with help from Swift’s family.
Teri Fischer was looking for unique ways to attract locals and visitors to the museum. When the Swift family offered their help, Fischer, president of the museum’s Board of Trustees, was all for it.
“The Swifts sent us an autographed guitar, and they sent a Peter Max-inspired poster of Taylor Swift,” Fischer said. “They sent four photos of her growing up here on the beach in Stone Harbor. We also got a clock that’s made of four vinyls from her ‘Midnights’ album, and then a Disney Eras Tour (film) poster.”
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The exhibit provides a unique experience for visitors to learn about the borough’s history. It helped Fischer having Swift-related items tied in with the museum.
“We take the items that we get, and we try to make a beautiful display out of everything,” Fischer said. “It was easy with Taylor Swift things.”
The exhibit opened to the public June 13, done intentionally to pay homage to Swift’s lucky number. The number 13 resonates with Swift for many reasons: She was born on Dec. 13, turned 13 on a Friday the 13th, her debut album “Taylor Swift” went gold in 13 weeks, and her first song to go number one, “Our Song,” has a 13-second intro.
Swift’s local journey
Swift started performing here in 2002 at the age of 12, first at Henny’s, a restaurant that stapled live music in its more than 70 years of operation.
She spent that and other summers through 2004 playing at Henny’s and Coffee Talk, across the street from Henny’s.
Henny’s closed in 2008, but Coffee Talk remains and is marking its 30th anniversary, thanks in some ways to Swift.
Live music was a big part of the cafe’s early years, and a young Swift is a part of its story. Swift was 12, 13 and 14 in her years playing at the cafe.
“She was very young,” Coffee Talk owner and founder Madlynn Zurawski said. “We had music here every night back in the day,”
Before her rise to stardom, Swift was just like anyone else looking to perform at the cafe. Artists looking to book a performance would call the shop to come in and play their music. In Swift’s case, Zurawski spoke with her mother, Andrea.
“She was here a lot,” Zurawski said. “She would pop in and out. She was absolutely adorable. She was so sweet. I talked to her mom on the phone when she would call to say, ‘What are you guys doing? Can she come in tonight?’ They were such a nice family.”
Swift played acoustic sets at Coffee Talk for about two years up until her last summer in Stone Harbor in 2004. Her last appearance at the cafe was around when she signed with Sony/ATV Music Publishing (now Sony Music Publishing (US) LLC).
“Her mom called and said, ‘Hey, can Taylor come in? This is her last time. She just signed to Sony,’” Zurawski recalled.
Growing up in West Reading, Pennsylvania, before moving to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift had early aspirations to pursue a career as a country music singer and songwriter. At 14, her track “The Outsider” landed on Maybelline’s “Chicks With Attitude” CD, she was a part of the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch’s rising stars campaign and landed a developmental deal with RCA Nashville.
“I don’t want to be an adult country singer,” Swift told the Press of Atlantic City in 2004. “I want to get out there as soon as possible. A young pop singer is 14 years old. A young country singer is 29 years old.”
Although live music is no longer a staple of the cafe, its importance in its early years remains on display to honor the memories. Photos of Swift performing on stage hang on the cafe’s walls.
The exhibit
Fischer started coming to the borough in 1988 and has retired here.
She knows the history of the Swifts in the borough but doesn’t have a personal connection with them. But she said some families here are still in touch with the Swifts. Swift’s father, Scott, was an EMT with Stone Harbor Volunteer Fire Company #1.
Those connections led to donations from the family to the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 30.
Part of the exhibit experience is a scavenger hunt. Visitors can search the exhibit and learn about Swift, as well as other aspects of the museum.
Children who have success with the scavenger hunt receive a gift from that week’s local business sponsor. Mack’s Pizza was the sponsor of the exhibit’s first full week open, June 17 to 22, with children receiving a free slice of pizza upon completing the hunt.
Today, Swift has played just over 100 shows of her “Eras Tour” across the world, the highest-grossing tour in history, surpassing $1 billion in revenue.
Saying Swift has accomplished a lot since her time in Stone Harbor would be an understatement. She is the youngest artist in Country Music Association Awards history to win Entertainer of the Year, the only artist to be a four-time Grammy Award Album of the Year winner, currently the highest paid female artist in the world, has sold more than 13 million albums, and is in the midst of the highest-grossing tour in history.
That same small-town girl whose music journey passed through Stone Harbor all those years ago, Swift now stands in the spotlight every day on and off the stage. From the small stage and crowds of the borough’s coffee shops, Swift has progressed to selling out arenas across the world on the “Eras Tour,” performing in front of thousands of people each night.
Fischer says the Swift exhibit has already been a rousing success, not only for Swifties but for the rest of the museum.
“I’m very appreciative because what’s happened is we’re finding out that Stone Harbor and Avalon residents who had been coming here for decades and never come to our museum are coming in,” Fischer said. “What we’re finding is when you look (around), it’s not just the Taylor Swift things. We’ve got a lot of cool things here, a lot of interesting things. That’s why we have the scavenger hunt, so the children can walk around the museum and be looking for different things and they discover different things.
“They’ve discovered that we had a Boardwalk, that we had a train here in Stone Harbor, things that they didn’t know about and find very interesting. The value of our 2024 Taylor Swift collection of the Stone Harbor Museum is that it is bringing people in, and they’re learning more about Stone Harbor.”
