Volume LXXV, Number 29
www.towntopics.com
New Public Transit Is About More Than Replacing the FreeB
Trenton Circus Squad Takes a Leap Forward . . . . . . . . 5 Project Involve Informs and Engages . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Shakespeare Theatre Overcomes Wild Weather to Launch Summer Season . . . . . . 10 PU Women’s Rowing Legend Stone Headed to Third Olympics . . . . . 25 Former Princeton Fencing Star Holmes Hungry for Medals at Tokyo Games . . . . . . 26
Reading Ernest Hemingway On His Birthday . . . . . . . 15 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 21 Classified Ads . . . . . . 31 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 14 New to Us . . . . . . . . . . 24 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 30 Performing Arts . . . . . 16 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 31 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
Following a 16-month suspension due to the pandemic, free public transit is about to return to Princeton. Starting next month, fully accessible, free bus service will resume weekday mornings and afternoons on a continuous 30-minute loop. This is a three-month interim program that will follow a route similar to the one covered by the nowdefunct FreeB buses, focusing on residents of senior and affordable housing communities. Once the three months is up, the town, in partnership with Princeton University, is planning for an expanded, more ambitious program that not only replaces the former service, but also adapts to the needs of a growing population. “We’re looking at how public transit can be a solution to a whole host of issues,” said Princeton Councilwoman Mia Sacks, who serves on Council’s Public Transit Advisory Committee. “It will alleviate pressure on things like permit parking and congestion. We’ll be growing at a tremendous rate in the next few years due to affordable housing. So it’s not just about replacement, but what we need for real transit right now. That’s the big question.” The partnership with the University is part of the transit committee’s work, over the past year, to significantly enhance Princeton’s system of free public transportation. Several subcommittees were involved, doing outreach to underserved community members and other constituencies. The transit advisory committee also collaborated with the Princeton Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee and the Vision Zero Task Force on the launch of a community survey exploring how residents and visitors move through town, and how transportation can be improved. “The silver lining of COVID was that it gave us an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and look at how transit can make sense for a wider swath of people,” Sacks said. “The University has a new director of transportation and parking services, Charlie Tennyson, and he is very committed to a holistic vision of transit in the town.” For its Tiger Transit system, the University now uses WeDriveU, a Continued on Page 12
75¢ at newsstands
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
HPC Considers Club Row Historic District Resuming a process that began in 1992 before lying dormant for the past 26 years, the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) held a concept discussion on Monday, July 19, on the designation of a Club Row historic district on Prospect Avenue. Club Row is already on the National Register of Historic Places, but designation as a local historic district would provide a greater level of future protection to the Prospect Avenue streetscape with its stately eating clubs and other buildings on both sides of the street. It would also prevent future demolitions or construction without town approval. The creation of the district could not have any direct effect on pending applications before the Princeton Planning Board, according to New Jersey’s time of application rule, and historic preservationist Clifford Zink assured the HPC, “This process is not being done to try to make changes to existing applications. This is about the long-term future. This is not an effort to stop what is going on now.” But Princeton University’s pending application to move its 91 Prospect Avenue
building, the former Court Clubhouse, across the street in order to make room for construction of the “gateway” to its new Environmental Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences complex was a significant factor in instigating Monday’s proceedings. Princeton Prospect Foundation Chairman Sandy Harrison, who has been a leading spokesperson in opposition to the University’s planned encroachments on Prospect Avenue, expressed his support of the historic district designation for Prospect and alerted the HPC to “the threat that is perceived because of what we are going through now with the Court Clubhouse controversy. That threat is so palpable and real now, and I worry that the University is establishing a beachhead on Prospect that could threaten the clubs’ viability going forward. The next steps are moving and demolishing.” Quoting Marvin Reed, who was Princeton Borough mayor at the time of the 1995 hearings on the subject, and Wanda Gunning, who was HPC chairwoman at the time, Zink emphasized that their warnings about the need to protect Prospect
Avenue against future encroachments were “completely applicable to this present effort.” Gunning, as reported in the May 10, 1995 Town Topics, supported designation of Prospect Avenue as a local historic district. “It is important to look at Prospect as a group, a unique configuration of fine architecture,” she was quoted as saying. “I’d like to see a really wonderful group of buildings by fine architects preserved as a group, and see the architectural heritage of Prospect Avenue become part of the town’s heritage. It is surely one of Princeton’s assets.” Borough Council, according to the Town Topics 1995 article, instructed zoning and HPC officials to prepare an ordinance designating the area as an historic district. Reed, as reported by The Daily Princetonian of May 8, 1995, said that the motivation behind the recommendation to designate Prospect as an historic district was “the Borough’s fear that the university would raze the eating clubs and construct other buildings in their place.” Continued on Page 12
LOCAL HERO: Ross Colton, right, signs a jersey for Jackson Purdy last Friday at the Ice Land Rink in Hamilton in one of his stops with the Stanley Cup after he helped Tampa Bay Lightning win the NHL title . Former Princeton Day School boys’ hockey star and Robbinsville native Colton scored the lone goal in Tampa Bay’s 1-0 victory over Montreal on July 7 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final as it won the series 4-1 and earned the franchise’s second straight NHL title . For more details on Colton’s Stanley Cup experience, see page 28 . (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)