Alan Freed Urns Final Resting Place

Alan Freed

Legendary Cleveland DJ Alan Freed has a final resting place -- almost 50 years after his death on Jan. 20, 1965.

After an unceremonious exit in August from their home of 12 years in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Lance Freed has found a new home for his father's ashes: Lake View Cemetery.

"It's a lovely spot near a lake," the younger Freed told cleveland.com from his office at Universal Music in Los Angeles. "It's not a traditional gravestone. We're creating something unique: a rough granite stone that will have a microphone in the granite and plaque nearby regarding my dad, and 1921-1965."

"We're thinking of putting his legendary words, the way he signed off from his radio show on the stone: 'This is not goodbye, it's just good night.' "

The senior Freed's urn is already at Lake View, but not on view to the public. Lance Freed hopes to have the new memorial created by late March or early April, around the time of the annual Moondog Coronation Ball.

It was the first Moondog ball in 1952 at the Cleveland Arena that helped establish rock 'n' roll as a cultural force to be reckoned with – and Freed's importance in the culture.

Freed's ashes were originally brought to Cleveland from the Ferncliff Memorial Mausoleum in Hartsdale, New York, where they had been interred since his death at age 43 in 1965. They went on display at the Rock Hall in 2002, under the leadership of then-CEO Terry Stewart.

Lance Freed said that the family believed the Rock Hall would permanently keep his father's urn and ashes, as part of their Alan Freed exhibit. But current CEO Greg Harris asked that the family remove them in the summer.