Volume LXXV, Number 32
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Interior Demolition For Graduate Hotel Projected To Start This Month
HomeFront’s New Garden Is Labor of Love . . . . . . . 5 Council Hopes to Resume In-Person Meetings Next Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Re-establishing the Chestnut Tree in NJ . . . 12 Celebrating the Art of Robert Beck . . . . . . . . 14 Former PDS Coach D’Andrea Inducted Into NJ Lacrosse Hall of Fame . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Community Park Bluefish Swim Team Celebrates 50th Anniversary . . . 25
Former PU Star Johnson Wins 2nd Olympic Gold Medal . . . . . . . 22 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .20, 21 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 18 Classified Ads . . . . . . 34 New To Us . . . . . . . . . 19 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 32 Performing Arts . . . . . 15 Police Blotter . . . . . . . 10 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 34 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
Pending approval from various agencies, work is anticipated to begin by the end of this month on the transformation of 20 Nassau Street into the 180-room Graduate Hotel. The project, which was approved by the Princeton Zoning Board last February, is to start with interior demolition of the three-story buildings on Chambers Street that will be taken down to make room for a section of the hotel, which will front Chambers Street. That part of the demolition has to be approved by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. “All of this is anticipated, pending approval by different agencies,” said Jim Purcell, Princeton’s land use engineer. “They expect to have that approval by the middle of this month, and begin by the end of the month.” Exterior demolition is targeted for November. “We’ve asked them to make sure they’re not impacting traffic till after the holidays,” Purcell said. Launched in 2014, Graduate Hotels is run by AJ Capital Partners. The company, which focuses on college towns, has 30 locations across the country and two in England. Along with Princeton; Palo Alto, Calif., and Dallas are future locations under development. The hotel is on the site of a longtime office and retail building that has been occupied for decades by more than 100 small businesses, including psychologists and counselors. Among the retail operations currently located on Nassau Street between Chambers and Bank streets are Jammin’ Crepes, Milk and Cookies, Orvana, Sakrid Coffee, and Small Bites. Approval for the project came after several public meetings, during which residents of neighboring Bank Street voiced numerous concerns about construction, traffic, and aesthetics. Graduate Hotels held separate meetings with residents, and adjusted some plans in response to some of those concerns. A 20-foot wall will separate the rear of the hotel property and the Bank Street neighborhood. Scaffolding will be put up before replacement of windows on 20 Nassau Street gets underway. “It’s to protect pedestrians,” Purcell said. “There will be Continued on Page 10
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Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Environmentalists Weigh In On Climate Report A report issued Monday by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that global warming is nearly spiraling out of control, and humans are “unequivocally” responsible. The deadly heat waves, fires, huge storms, and other weather extremes that have caused death and devastation across the globe this summer are going to get worse in coming years, the report says. But fast action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions offers a small glimmer of hope that some impacts can be limited. Others are too far gone. Local environmentalists say the report is not entirely surprising. “This is a very grim picture of the future of the world,” said Jim Waltman, executive director of The Watershed Institute. “But I can’t say I’m surprised, because this is the sixth in a series that has been painting a very bleak picture. In part, what’s new here is the use of the word ‘unequivocal.’ It is used over and over.” Molly Jones, executive director of Sustainable Princeton, said the news is painful, but not unexpected. “I think it’s excellent that science continues to prove the truth we’ve all been made aware of,” she said. “But it is disheartening to see it is so highly driven by human impact, which is the main message.”
The report draws on more than 14,000 scientific studies. Unless immediate action is taken to reduce emissions, it says, the average global temperature is likely to cross the 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit warming threshold within the next two decades. “This is really a call to everybody to think carefully and deeply about their own behaviors and the institutions they belong to,” said Waltman. “How do those of us who care passionately, and that is a larger and larger majority, engage our
policymakers? It’s not good enough anymore to just cut back. How do we get to zero emissions as quickly as possible?” Jones said the report “further reinforces the urgency of the changes we’re trying to make here in Princeton.” Last week, Sustainable Princeton shared the 2020 Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the Princeton Community, which shows that emissions went down during the pandemic. “We really want to make Continued on Page 10
PPS Welcomes Karas as Director of Student Counseling, Lattimer as Riverside Principal Princeton Public Schools (PPS) students will begin the school year September 9 with a new director of student counseling services, and Riverside Elementary School students will have a new principal. Dana Karas, who has previously worked in PPS, is the new director of student counseling services, replacing Kristina Donovan, who left the district earlier this month. Ebony Lattimer, who has an extensive background in math, science, and special education, joins the district as the new Riverside principal, as Mark Shelley relocates to Pittsburgh.
Karas, who will officially join PPS at the end of September, worked as a middle school French teacher in Princeton early in her career. She later taught French at the Manalapan-Englishtown Middle School. She was a school counselor at Churchill Junior High School in East Brunswick, and in 1998, she became a school counselor at Freehold Township High School, a post she held until 2003 when she returned to Princeton High School as a school counselor. This fall, the guidance staff will be on the front lines as students return from remote learning and they resume their Continued on Page 10
ART IN THE PARK: Visitors enjoyed Grounds For Sculpture on Sunday afternoon . The 42-acre sculpture park, museum, and arboretum in Hamilton features nearly 300 works by renowned artists . Timed admission tickets are required . (Photo by Weronika A. Plohn)