Volume LXXIX, Number 25
Spotlight on
Cranbury
Pages 12-13
PU Community Connections Pages 18-19
Online Talk Recounts History-Making Flood of 1955 . . . . . . . 5 Brian Hughes Remembered By Colleagues . . . . . . . . 7 Many Issues on Tap For June 28 WJNA Meeting . . . . . . 9 Princeton Festival Continues with Opera Classic . . . . . . 17 The Bridges of Madison County Opens Princeton Summer Theater’s Season . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Ending a Historic Chapter In Princeton Rowing, Crotty Steps Down as Men’s Lightweight Coach . . . .26 PDS Boys’ Tennis Showed Fight to the End As it Lost Nail-Biter in Non-Public Quarters . . . . . . . . . . 29
Shown in 2012, Brian Wilson Waves Hello/ Goodbye This Week . . 16 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . 22, 23 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 24 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . 34 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . 14, 15 New To Us . . . . . . . . . 25 Obituaries . . . . . . . 32, 33 Performing Arts . . . . . . . .21 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . .10 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 34 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
Westminster Conservatory To Continue on Campus Through Fall Semester While the future management of Westminster Conservatory of Music has yet to be decided, Rider University has agreed to continue running the community music school through the 2025 fall semester. The plan was confirmed on Tuesday by Kristine Brown, Rider’s vice president of external affairs. The Conservatory will remain on the Walnut Avenue campus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University through the fall term. Rider, which merged with Westminster in 1991, moved the Choir College to its Lawrence Township location in 2020 after unsuccessfully attempting to sell the 23-acre Princeton campus. The Conservatory has continued to operate from the Princeton campus. The Municipality of Princeton acquired the site for $42 million via eminent domain this past April. Work has been underway “to reimagine this historic site to meet urgent public facility needs, while honoring the cultural significance of its past and leaving a legacy for future generations,” Princeton Council President Mia Sacks said at the time, adding that community engagement would be part of the process. Since Rider first announced plans to sell the Princeton campus in 2016, a group of alumni, students, and staff known as the Westminster Foundation has been working to return the Choir College to Princeton, where it was established in 1935. Those efforts included two lawsuits against Rider, related to the merger agreement. Both are being withdrawn. Constance Fee, president of the Westminster Foundation, said in an email to the Westminster community this week that the Foundation will be among the stakeholders included in discussions about the future. “In the meantime, current plans for the campus include preserving and maintaining the Quadrangle and Cullen Center buildings, with efforts underway to protect cherished memorials and historical markers,” she said. “After renovations and repairs are completed, spaces on the campus will be available for rental and use by community music and arts groups, including Westminster alumni. Leases will continue for most of the organizations currently renting space Continued on Page 8
75¢ at newsstands
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Pride Parade and No Kings Rally Pack Princeton The weather report was ominous and the rains came, but on Saturday, June 14, thousands of people poured into Princeton to make their voices heard — on Witherspoon Street marching up to the YMCA field for the Pride Parade and Afterparty in the morning, and in Monument Park and Stockton Street for a No Kings Day and Day of Defiance rally in the afternoon. “‘Nothing is going to dampen our joy’ was the slogan I heard most doing the day,” said Sara Wasserman, queer educator and local community organizer at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice (BRCSJ), which was the lead organizer of the Pride events. “We had quite a huge crowd of folks who didn’t care about the rain.” The No Kings rally, one of hundreds of similar events Saturday throughout the country with more than five million total participants, was a protest against authoritarianism, corruption, and billionaire-first politics. The Princeton Battle Monument with its representation of George Washington towering over a massive crowd was a particularly appropriate reminder of the nation’s founding on the principle that the president is not a king. Princeton Police Department (PPD) Captain Matthew Solovay, one of about 10 officers overseeing the morning events
and one of a dozen officers on duty for the afternoon rally, reported “no significant issues” except the weather and movement of the huge crowds and management of traffic during the day’s proceedings. Solovay estimated the crowd for the Pride Parade and Afterparty at 500-800 and the No Kings Rally, for which they were expecting 500-1000 people, at more than 3,500. Pride organizers estimated the Parade and Afterparty crowd at well over 1,000.
The greatest challenge for the PPD was helping to move thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles out of the area at the end of the No Kings rally. Solovay reported some traffic congestion as the PPD managed traffic flow and navigated the departure of pedestrians and vehicles. BRCSJ Chief Activist Robt Seda-Schreiber described the Pride Parade and Afterparty as “an extraordinary event and truly a magical day.” He wrote in an email, “Last year we beat the heat and soaked in Continued on Page 10
Sherrill and Ciattarelli Win Primary Races, Face Off in Gubernatorial Campaign
Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill and Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli are off and running in what’s been described by nj.com as a “bruising” race for governor of New Jersey, following last week’s primary election in which both candidates registered impressive victories over challenging fields of party rivals. In Princeton and throughout the state, Democratic and Republican parties are gearing up for the general election, with Sherrill and Ciattarelli vying to take over for current New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who is not eligible for another term. A number of state legislature and local offices are also on the ballot.
New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states with gubernatorial elections this November, with those contests being closely watched as an indicator of voter attitudes towards President Trump in his first year back in office. In the Democratic primary Sherrill, who represents New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, won 33.9 percent of the New Jersey Democrats’ votes, fending off five competitors. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was second with 20.6 percent and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop third with 16.0 percent, according to most recent unofficial totals. Continued on Page 9
NO KINGS: In the shadow of George Washington represented on the Princeton Battle Monument and in the spirit of Washington’s embrace of democracy, thousands of demonstrators overflowed Monument Park on Saturday afternoon, June 14, to join a nationwide expression of opposition to policies and actions of the Trump administration. The event featured six speakers, two musicians, and a “boisterous,” “upbeat,” “energized” crowd. (Photo by Phil McAuliffe)