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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
PRINCETON (200 alt., 6,992 pop.) lives for Princeton University. A division between town and campus cannot be made. The gates to the campus open on Nassau Street, the main thoroughfare, lined with shops that blazon the orange and black Tiger colors; the railroad station follows the collegiate Gothic style of the newer university buildings ; stores, boarding houses and hotels cater largely to Princeton men and their guests. Townspeople cheer Princeton football teams, attend commencements and gather for Princeton entertainments.
The aristocracy of the village, including resident Princeton graduates
and trustees of the university, mingles freely with the faculty, forming a -
mature social group that serves as a stabilizing influence for the continuous
flow of youth.
The old order is deeply rooted in the eighteenth century village, spread along a low ridge in one of the most pleasantly green sections of the State, but the bright scions of the twentieth century have been grafted onto the little town. Filling stations and lubritoriums elbow antique shops and old houses along Nassau Street where horns once sounded in the days of coach racing; and glistening store fronts yield abruptly at the second-floor level to age-darkened original clapboard.
Palmer Square, the $4,500,000 civic center intended to remake Princeton into a "square town," lies north of Nassau Street, along a 400-foot front between John and Baker Streets. The plot was partly occupied by Negro slums until 1936, when a corporation headed by Edgar Palmer, New Jersey zinc magnate, began reconstruction. Under the direction of Thomas Stapleton of New York, architect, it is expected that by 1941 Princeton's Colonial charm will be recaptured. Old Nassau Inn has gone; in its place stands a charming reproduction of a Colonial tavern, complete with gambrel roof, first floor overhang and low kitchen wing. But it is something of a shock to find the tavern firmly attached to a large, fourstory, yellow brick structure which houses the guests.
The facade of the motion picture house, a native Colonial fieldstone gable flanked by little Colonial arcades attached to low wings, grows directly out of a massive brick wall-the body of a modern auditorium. Inside the theater, the walls of the foyer are finished in metal; the shellshaped and serrated ceiling of the auditorium, based upon Dr. H. Lester Cooke's isophonic curve theory of the perfect reflection of sound, is called the first of its kind in the world. Rambling around the sides of the square is a series of smaller apartment units, each a reproduction of a particular Colonial prototype, each one highly pleasing, but in the mass giving the restless effect of a museum collection of architectural Americana.
The Pennsylvania Railroad and the university have combined to make Princeton a society center of New Jersey. Close enough to New York and Philadelphia for convenient commuting, the town is yet sufficiently secluded for businessmen, scholars, statesmen and scientists to retire to its retrospective and scholastic calm.
The business life of Princeton is largely sustained by the university. No manufacturing is permitted within the borough limits.
The advantages of the site, and the academic atmosphere generated by Princeton University have attracted other educational institutions. These include Princeton Theological Seminary, the Institute for Advanced Study, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Hun Preparatory School, Westminster Choir School, St. Joseph's College, Mercer Junior College, Miss Fine's School and Country Day School.
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