Volume LXXI, Number 32
Hopewell, Pennington Area Life Pages 17-24 Charter School Prepares for New Year. . . . . . . . 7 Approval Still Pending on Triumph Move. . . . . . 11 Pop In Space Comes to Palmer Square. . . . . . 15 Moreau and Shepard Still Burning Bright. . . . . . 25 PU Grad Hompe Helps England at Women’s Lax World Cup. . . . . . . . . 29 Former PDS Standout Colton Moving Up Hockey Ladder. . . . . . 32
Artist Howard Russell Butler Lived in Unique Princeton Home. . . . . . 5 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Classified Ads. . . . . . . . 35 Clubs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Mailbox. . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Music/Theater . . . . . . . 25 New To Us . . . . . . . . . . 14 Police Blotter. . . . . . . . . 4 Real Estate . . . . . . . . . 35 Service Directory . . . . . 38 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Topics of the Town . . . . . 5 Town Talk. . . . . . . . . . . . 6
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Safe Streets Program Helps Unite Princeton, Opens Tough Dialogue Character Lesson No. 6 at the Witherspoon Street School for Colored Children (1858-1948): “You don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from.” Midway in the four-hour Joint Effort Princeton Community Critical Issues Discussion on the “Future of Princeton: A Sense of Where We Are and What’s to Come” in the Library on Saturday, Schools Superintendent Steve Cochrane reflected on all the learning he’s done in the past year, “especially about race.” And among his many “great teachers” from all ages and sections of the school and larger community, he said, has been Shirley Satterfield, Witherspoon-Jackson community historian, Safe Streets organizer, and a former student and guidance counselor in Princeton Public Schools, who passed along that lesson from the old Witherspoon Street School. The 2017 ten-day Safe Streets Joint Effort Program titled “Looking Back and Moving Forward” will wrap up this weekend with a flurry of cultural, athletic, and historical events, starting Wednesday with a book signing and discussion on I Hear My People Singing: Voices of African American Princeton with author Kathryn Watterson, and culminating Sunday with the all-day Joint Effort Pete Young Sr. Memorial Safe Streets Basketball Games at Community Park. The burial of a Community Time Capsule, containing important historical documents and memorabilia, to be opened in 50 years, followed by a Shirley Satterfield W-J Community Walking Tour and a Safe Streets Block Festival, will further highlight the rich agenda of events on Saturday. John Bailey, lead program organizer and moderator who grew up in Princeton and returns annually from his current home in Denver to assist with the celebrations, reflected on the growing Safe Streets Celebration. “It’s reaching its potential for community involvement — to bring people together to discuss the hard issues, to talk about where we’ve come from and where we’re going,” he said. “The potential is all of us, bringing people together. A lot of it has to do with having the will to do these things.” He continued, “I love this community, and we all have the potential to do more and be more.” Continued on Page 8
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Town to Take Over Herrontown From County Mercer County has agreed to transfer ownership of the 142-acre Herrontown Woods Arboretum to the town of Princeton, resolving years of discussion and opening the door for the Friends of Herrontown Woods (FOHW) to bid to take on restoration of the Veblen House. Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes and Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert on Monday made a joint announcement of the agreement, which must be approved by the Princeton Council, the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders, and the New Jersey Green Acres Program. In addition to woods and numerous hiking trails, the park includes a house, cottage, and other structures formerly owned by the renowned mathematician Oswald Veblen and his wife, Elizabeth, who gave their property to Mercer County in 1957 and 1974. The county acquired additional acreage in the 1960s. Since 2011 the town of Princeton has been responsible for management of Herrontown Woods grounds, and FOHW has taken the lead in restoring the trails and habitats. Attempting to block county plans to demolish the historic structures, which require extensive repairs, FOHW recently
proposed to repair and maintain the buildings, but the county rejected their proposal, claiming that the structures were in too poor condition and too expensive to repair. Ms. Lempert, who has praised FOHW as “one of Princeton’s great volunteer groups,” stated, “We’re thankful to the county for working with us to reach this
resolution. The municipality is currently in discussions with the Friends of Herrontown Woods to develop a separate agreement for the restoration of the Veblen house. We’ve seen a surge in community interest in preserving the property, and are hopeful that the municipality and the nonprofit can agree upon a plan. Any Continued on Page 8
FOPOS Gets Green Acres Grant To Tackle Invasive Species To many people, preserving open space is about preventing developers from turning fields and forests into housing developments. But maintaining the natural environment is also about keeping invasive species at bay. With a $50,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Green Acres Stewardship Program, the Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS) will be doing just that on 18 acres of the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve. This forest restoration effort, which will take two years, is designed to remove abundant invasive species and recreate natural plant communities.
The grant will be matched by a $35,000 gift to FOPOS from the George M. and Estelle H. Sands Foundation, as well as $6,000 of summer intern labor from the municipality and funds from FOPOS itself. This is the first year for the grants. “Many people know what an invasive species is,” said Wendy Mager, FOPOS president. “But the more time you spend with environmentalists, the more you realize that they really are a big threat to the intrinsic value of the land that we’ve preserved. I don’t call them invasive for nothing.” Some 2,400 trees and 5,000 herbaceous plants will be planted as part of Continued on Page 10
CELEBRATING BLACK CHURCHES: Joint Efforts Safe Streets organizer John Bailey, left with scarf, and many others gathered on Sunday in the Miller Chapel of the Princeton Theological Seminary at an ecumenical service that celebrated the four black churches of Princeton: First Baptist, Morning Star, Mt. Pisgah AME, and Witherspoon Street Presbyterian. The service also honored the historic Witherspoon-Jackson community and its people. (Photo by Erica M. Cardenas)
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