HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
New Jersey's first paranormal museum, operating since 2008 above a bookshop in Asbury Park, houses documented haunted objects including a painting called 'Blue' that reportedly causes cold spots — plus a brick from the Hindenburg hangar at Lakehurst.
637 Lake Ave, Asbury Park, NJ 07712
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Museum admission and ghost tour tickets available; see paranormalbooksnj.com for current pricing and tour schedules.
Access
Limited Access
Museum located above ground-floor bookshop; stairs required to access upper-floor exhibits
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 2008 · New Jersey's First Paranormal Museum · Asbury Park Cultural History · Hindenburg Disaster Artifact (Lakehurst)
Paranormal Books & Curiosities opened at 637 Lake Avenue in Asbury Park in 2008, establishing what the owners and NJ Family magazine identified as New Jersey's first paranormal museum. The business combines a bookshop focused on paranormal, occult, and unusual history titles with a museum of objects documented in paranormal research.
Asbury Park itself carries a concentrated paranormal reputation tied to its distinctive twentieth-century history: the city rose as a resort destination in the 1870s, fell into severe urban decline after the 1970 riots, and spent decades in a state of partial vacancy before a revival beginning in the 2000s. The layered history of the city — resort boom, riot, abandonment, revitalization — provides a backdrop that paranormal tour operators have worked into their interpretive frameworks.
The museum collection includes Ouija boards with documented histories of prior ownership and reported activity, dolls reported to be haunted, and a painting titled 'Blue' that staff and visitors have associated with cold spots and flickering lights. A brick from the Hindenburg hangar at Lakehurst Naval Air Station — the site of the 1937 airship disaster — is among the historically significant objects in the collection.
NJ Family magazine featured the museum as one of the state's distinctive attractions, framing it for general audiences as a ghost hunter's resource. The parallel ghost tour operation has run since the 2008 opening, making it one of the longest-established ghost tours in Monmouth County.
Sources
The museum's most consistently cited paranormal object is 'Blue' — a painting that staff and visitors have associated with cold spots and flickering lights in the room where it is displayed. Cold spots and light interference are standard paranormal report categories, but the specificity of the painting as the attributed cause distinguishes this account from environmental baseline.
The collection extends to Ouija boards with histories of reported activity or dark prior ownership, and to dolls that have acquired paranormal reputations through prior owners. Haunted-object collections in museums occupy an unusual interpretive space: the objects are displayed as artifacts of belief and reported experience rather than as proof of the supernatural.
A brick from the Hindenburg hangar at Lakehurst Naval Air Station is the collection's most historically grounded item. The Hindenburg disaster of May 6, 1937 — in which the German airship burned during its landing attempt, killing 36 people — took place at Lakehurst, about 25 miles southwest of Asbury Park. The brick is a material connection to that event rather than a haunted object per se, but its inclusion in a paranormal museum frames it within that interpretive context.
The museum also provides the base of operations for the Original Asbury Park Ghost Tour, which has run since 2008 and incorporates the city's documented history of resort boom, civic crisis, and revitalization into its paranormal narrative.
Where this legend is told
Browse New Jersey's first paranormal museum, operating since 2008 above Paranormal Books & Curiosities on Lake Ave. The collection includes Ouija boards with documented dark histories, reportedly haunted dolls, a painting called 'Blue' said to cause flickering lights and cold spots, and a brick from the Hindenburg hangar at Lakehurst Naval Air Station.
The museum operates the Original Asbury Park Ghost Tour, running since 2008 — one of the longest-established ghost tours in Monmouth County. Tours depart from the Lake Ave location and cover Asbury Park's documented paranormal history.
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