Volume LXXVII, Number 30
PBS Series on Country’s 250th Birthday Focuses Lens on Princeton . . . 5 Former Princeton Educator Paul Chapin Named Leader of Capital Harmony Works . . . . . 9 Princeton’s Newest Native Meadow is Flourishing . . . . . . . 10 Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer Lands at The Garden . . . . . . . 12 Princeton Summer Theater Presents Peerless . . . . .13 PU Summer Chamber Concerts Continues Season with Wind Trio 14 Former PU Men’s Soccer Star O’Toole Stepping Up in 2nd Season with NYCFC . . . . . . . . . . . 21 PHS Triathlon Club Getting off to Fast Start, Winning N.J. High School Championship . . . . . . 24
PHS Alum Tommy Delany Emerges as Key Reliever For Penn Baseball . . . 23 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-19 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 20 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . 28 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Midsummer Festivals . . 2-3 Obituaries . . . . . . . 26-27 Performing Arts . . . . . 15 Police Blotter . . . . . . . 9 Real Estate. . . . . . . . . 28 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
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Street Design Consultants Report to Council on Study of Nassau Street At a meeting Monday night, Princeton Council held a work session on a proposed plan for upgrades to Nassau Street from the Montclair-based street design firm Arterial, consultants on the project. The improvements would stretch from Bayard Lane to Moore Street. The project has been ongoing since 2016, and has included a series of public outreach meetings. The most recent presentation was held June 14 at Princeton Public Library, followed by an online survey to which more than 200 people responded to questions about Nassau Street, said Arterial designer James Ribaudo. Ribaudo provided details about materials, seating, and other aspects of the project, using before-and-after views of Millburn and Union as examples. Among the proposed ideas are reducing the number of travel lanes on Nassau Street between Witherspoon Street and Vandeventer Avenue, to create a bike lane on the north side of the thoroughfare. Since Nassau Street is a state highway, the project would require approval by the New Jersey Department of Transportation. The firm’s full presentation is available in the agenda packet from Monday’s meeting, on princetonnj.gov. The final schematic design is planned for this coming September. Subject to financing, construction is projected to begin in late 2024 or early 2025. Also at the meeting, Council voted to approve a $367,000 budget for 20232024 for Experience Princeton, formerly known as the Princeton Business Partnership. Councilmember Leticia Fraga read a statement about the changed wording of the “Welcome to Princeton” signs at entrances to the town. As of last Friday, the wording on the signage no longer reads “Settled in 1683,” to reflect “an important first step in recognizing and acknowledging that Indigenous people were the original caretakers and stewards of the land long before any settlers arrived,” Fraga said, adding that the acknowledgement does not negate or dismiss the contributions of those who came afterward. “Instead, it allows us the opportunity to embrace a more complete and inclusive understanding of history that recognizes the important role of Indigenous people Continued on Page 8
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Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Washington Road to Be Closed Until October Beginning at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, July 26, Washington Road will be closed between Faculty Road and Tiger Lane, as the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) replaces the bridge over the D&R Canal. Tiger Lane is one of the new roads into the expanded Princeton University Lake Campus on the West Windsor side of Lake Carnegie. Work is expected to be completed by October. In the meantime motorists will be detoured onto Harrison Street or Alexander Road. Local access will be maintained between Route 1 and Tiger Lane. NJDOT Press Manager Steve Schapiro emphasized the importance of the road and the urgency of the bridge replacement. He wrote in a July 24 email, “The Washington Road bridge over the D&R Canal was scheduled to be replaced within the next several years as part of NJDOT’s regular bridge maintenance program. However a three-day emergency closure was required last July to make repairs to the timber piles underneath the bridge and install temporary jacks to provide supplemental support.” He continued, “NJDOT has inspected the bridge monthly since last July to monitor its condition. Due to the emergent nature of those repairs, the decision was
made to accelerate the project as a high priority bridge replacement.” Princeton Mayor Mark Freda welcomed the NJDOT’s timely attention to this project. “I was on a recent call with all the stakeholders involved in this project, and the DOT was very clear that this project needed to be run well and run on time,” he said. “It will be an inconvenience, traffic-wise. But safety is important, so it is good to see the DOT take on this project prior to a failure of the bridge.”
Princeton Municipal Engineer and Deputy Administrator Deanna Stockton added that the NJDOT “worked closely with Mercer County, West Windsor, Princeton, and Princeton University to successfully incorporate our concerns.” Pointing out that Washington Road is a major entry point into both Princeton University and the town, Schapiro noted the University’s ongoing project to expand its facilities alongside Washington Road, and he added, “It is important to complete Continued on Page 7
Veterans in Warrior-Scholar Project Prepare for Transition to Classroom
Helping veterans to sharpen their study skills and prepare to transition to an academic environment, Princeton University is currently partnering with the WarriorScholar Project (WSP) for a Humanities and STEM Academic Boot Camp on campus July 16-28. Thirteen veterans are participating in this year’s WSP at Princeton, making a total of more than 80 participants since Princeton first hosted the program in the summer of 2017. WSP’s first boot camp took place at Yale University in 2012, and since then the program has expanded to 23 of the country’s top schools, giving
more than 2,100 veterans a boost on their way to higher education. Ninety percent of WSP alumni have completed or are on track to earn a college degree, compared to 72 percent of all student veterans and 65 percent of all traditional undergraduate students. Out of WSP’s 2022 participants, 60 percent identified as first-gen college students, 70 percent were persons of color, and 28 percent were women. This year the two-week boot camp at Princeton will be followed by WSP’s Second Annual Alumni Conference from Continued on Page 8
CAMPUS ART TOUR: Docent Leslie Sullivan, center in white pants, led a Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) “Campus Collections Outdoor Walking Tour” on Saturday and paused to admire “Head of a Woman,” designed by Pablo Picasso. Additional PUAM walking tours, which are free and open to the public, will be held on weekends through November 19. For more information, visit artmuseum.princeton.edu. (Photo by Sarah Teo)