Volume LXXV, Number 41
www.towntopics.com
Five Princeton U. Professors, Alumni Win Nobel Prizes
Students Step Up to Help Restore Sourland Habitat . 5 Social Justice March Includes Stops in Princeton . . . . . 10 Eisgruber, College Leaders Urge Congress to Double Pell Grants . . . . . . . . . 12 PU Orchestra Celebrates Live Performance . . . . 19 Theatre Intime Presents Eve’s Diary . . . . . . . . 20 PHS Field Hockey Edges Lawrence in Showdown to Stay Undefeated . . . . . 33 Moorhead Thrilled to Be Taking Helm of Princeton Rec Department . . . . . 37
Looking for America with Paul Simon On his 80th Birthday . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .16, 17 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 24 Classified Ads . . . . . . 40 New to Us. . . . . . . . . . 25 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Music Review . . . . . . . 19 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 39 Performing Arts . . . . . 21 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 40 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Theater Review . . . . . . 20 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Royal Swedish Academy has been smiling on Princeton University during the past week, with Princeton professors winning the 2021 Nobel Prizes in physics last Tuesday, October 5, and chemistry on Wednesday, October 6; journalist and Princeton 1986 graduate Maria Ressa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, October 8; and graduate alumni David Card and Joshua Angrist winning the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences this Monday, October 11. Card, who is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, received one half of the economics prize “for his empirical contributions to labor economics.” He earned his Ph.D. in economics at Princeton in 1983, and taught at Princeton from 1983 to 1996. Angrist, who finished his Ph.D. at Princeton In 1989 and is now a professor at MIT, shares his half of the prize with Stanford University economics professor Guido Imbens “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships.” The Swedish Academy noted that Card and Angrist were being recognized for providing “new insights about the labor market” and showing “what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments.” Cecilia Rouse, chair of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers and former dean of Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, commented, as quoted in a University press release, “Today’s Nobel in economics recognizes that investing in people — such as paying them living wages and providing quality educational opportunities — is beneficial not only to them but to society at large. It also highlights how economists can utilize natural experiments to analyze the causal impact of public policy, which has been an important advancement for the profession. Much of this work has its roots at Princeton University, and I am very proud to call the winners my friends and colleagues.” Wolfgang Pesendorfer, economics department chair at Princeton, added, “This is a great prize: David Card, in joint research with Alan Krueger done here at Princeton, changed the way economists think about the labor market, most prominently about how the minimum Continued on Page 7
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Council Approves NJDOT’s Intersection Plan At a meeting Monday evening, Princeton Council voted in favor of a resolution that supports the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s (NJDOT) plan to make the entrance to Witherspoon Street, from Nassau Street, 22 feet wide. Council had originally planned for the entrance to be 13.5 feet wide, believing that the NJDOT was on board with that figure. But state officials have indicated otherwise, it was revealed at a special meeting of Council on the Witherspoon Street redesign project last Friday morning. Had Council voted against accepting the NJDOT’s figure, the town would not be eligible for state funding for the project, which is estimated to cost about $1 million. Because Nassau Street is part of Route 27, which is a state road, the NJDOT has jurisdiction over anything that has an impact on its traffic. Last March, Council passed a resolution supporting the NJDOT’s preliminary preferred alternative for reconstruction of the busy intersection and replacement of the traffic signal. At the special meeting last Friday, Municipal Engineer Deanna Stockton told Council that municipal staff had submitted its design, with the 13.5-foot width, to the NJDOT in June,
believing the agency was in acceptance of the figure. “We worked with them. There was an assumption we were all on board with this,” she said. “We come to learn that in September, DOT had updated their preferred alternative to be a 22-foot-wide entrance. So that was a conundrum for us. We got a letter on September 23 from DOT saying this is now the preferred alternative, and there is a possibility of losing funding going forward.”
Stockton said the rationale behind the NJDOT’s figure of 22 feet is that anything lower would reduce truck access and not be safe. An additional change by the NJDOT involves the kiosk at the corner of Nassau and Witherspoon streets. It was originally supposed to be removed and replaced with a traffic controller box. But the NJDOT was able to reduce the size of the box, which will be similar to Continued on Page 7
Local and Statewide Races Heat Up; Early Voting and Election Day Approach
With races for governor, state Senate, general Assembly, surrogate, Board of County Commissioners, Princeton Council, and Princeton Public Schools (PPS) Board of Education (BOE), along with three public questions, all on the ballot, Princeton voters have a range of options for how they cast their ballots in the coming weeks. Locally, incumbent Eve Niedergang, and community leader Leighton Newlin, both Democrats, are running unopposed for two three-year terms on Princeton Council, and four candidates — incumbents Betsy Baglio and Brian McDonald,
and new candidates Mara Franceschi and Jeffrey Liao, who have all been profiled in previous issues of Town Topics — are running for three spots on the PPS BOE. Seeking to represent the 16th legislative district, which includes parts of Mercer, Hunterdon, Middlesex, and Somerset counties, in two seats in the New Jersey General Assembly, Republicans Joseph Lukac III and Vincent Panico are taking on incumbent Roy Freiman and Sadaf Jaffer, both Democrats. The 16th district state Senate race, for the seat to be Continued on Page 8
BEYOND WORDS 2021: The Friends of the Princeton Public Library hosted a kickoff event for their program to benefit the library on Hinds Plaza Saturday evening. The program will continue with two virtual events this fall. Attendees share why the library is important to them in this week’s Town Talk on page 6. (Photo by Charles R. Plohn)
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