To the Editor:

Adding to a successful year (“Growing Town Balances Optimism, Concerns at 2024 Year End,” January 1, page 1), the nonprofit Princeton Einstein Museum of Science (PEMS) enlivened Dohm Alley on Nassau Street for over five months with a free exhibit, “Einstein’s Attraction to Magnetism.”  Over 20,000 people from across the country and around the world enjoyed the show, funded by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation and with special thanks to Stanley Dohm and Princeton Future.

PEMS closed out the year with a $50,000 gift from the William Watt Family and will be back next in 2025 with a new exhibit, “Einstein’s Brain: Mind of a Genius.”

Elizabeth Romanaux
PEMS Founder and Chair
Sycamore Place

To the Editor:

Regarding the upcoming referendum vote for Princeton Public Schools, I offer the following for consideration by the taxpayers as they weigh the pros and cons of supporting what I believe to be a well-conceived plan by the district. During my own recent service as a School Board member, I wrangled with this planning. As a parent, I know our middle and high schools to be unpleasantly crowded and Littlebrook School has no room for storage or growth. Redistricting is coming for our elementary schools no matter what, and the referendum will enable that redistricting to be thoughtful while supporting walking and biking to school.

I begin with the premise that small class sizes are in the best interests of our students and teachers. New housing units continue to be built in town. Growth is here and coming.  more

To the Editor:

Like many of our neighbors, one of the reasons we moved into the Municipality of Princeton was due to the excellent public schools. Our three boys (two of whom will graduate from Princeton High School this June) have benefited tremendously from their time at Littlebrook, Princeton Middle School, and Princeton High School. So that future students can likewise enjoy the advantages of a top-notch public school education, we urge our Princeton neighbors to support the January 28 public schools referendum.

Our schools are already at or near capacity — this before the increase expected in the coming years due to the 1,000+ additional housing units coming online in the next five years. In order to continue to provide the same level of public school excellence so many of our children have enjoyed, particularly related to class size, it is imperative that we plan ahead and provide more space in our schools and fund necessary renovations. Unfortunately, we cannot pay for the necessary expansions/renovations out of existing operating funds, due to the state-imposed 2 percent cap on the amount school taxes can grow year-to-year and because doing so would prevent us from receiving state aid to subsidize the cost of improvements (and, if all three of the questions described below pass, our community will receive an estimated total of $19.9M in state aid). more

To the Editor:

Rejoice! After years of asking, Mercer County is now accepting #5 plastics in our curbside recycling bins. So in 2025, we can recycle all #1, #2, and #5 plastics —including yogurt and condiment containers, amber-colored prescription bottles, take-out containers, beverage caps, and jar lids.

The county says that 91 percent of what we put in the yellow bins gets recycled, so long as it is clean and empty with no plastic bags. Per a recent waste study, of the 26,998 tons of recyclable material collected throughout Mercer County in 2022, 24,568 tons was in fact recycled into new raw materials.

The addition of #5 plastics will not only boost our community’s recycling gains, but also reduce the amount of garbage that goes into our trash bins and landfills, decreasing costs and increasing reuse all around. In a world where it’s not easy to avoid plastics, this is welcome news.

James Bash
Harrison Street

To the Editor:

The 2024 Year in Review [“Growing Town Balances Optimism, Concerns at 2024 Year End,” January 1, page 1] reminds us of what an exceptional place Princeton is to live in. We cannot let the moment pass without recognizing the outstanding year our performing arts organizations had as they brought national and world class talent to our area.

With a distinctive reputation for innovation and individuality, American Repertory Ballet (ARB) is recognized as one of the state’s premier performing arts organizations. Presenting classical repertory alongside new and existing contemporary work, ARB entertained the thousands who attended to start their holiday season with The Nutcracker, and pushed the boundaries with Artist in Residence Ethan Stiefel’s Princeton premiere of VARIANTS.  more

To the Editor:

Among our four families, we currently have nine kids (and one teacher!) in the first-rate Princeton public school system. Three of our children were lucky enough to be involved in the very first year of Community Park’s tremendous dual language program. We’ve got kids in the high school, the middle school, and the elementary school. Some of us grew up in this town and went to school here ourselves. We have all watched our children enter the Princeton school system during kindergarten and thrive in our schools in the many years since. We have seen the town change, the community change, and the schools change over the years. We are writing to ask for your support for the incredibly important upcoming school referendum.

At every point in our time as members of the Princeton community, we have seen significant pushback in any sizeable investment in our schools, even as we are all well-aware that a desirable school system draws professional families to the community and preserves our skyrocketing property values. We are nickel-and-diming our investment in our community’s children. Why? We are here for these schools — and the wonderful community that exists here. For those of us who don’t have children in the system, or whose children have aged out — this is still our community. These are our kids — yours, your neighbors’, your friends’, your family’s. We love this town— in no small part because we love our schools.  more

To the Editor:

Several days ago, a friend sent me an article from The Times of London in which the writer, John Darlington, bemoans the fact that we appear to be living in what he characterizes as the “Garb Age.” Instead of preserving the character of so many buildings that make towns and cities interesting and unique, we use the excuse that adaptively reusing them is too difficult and expensive.

Darlington cites the fact that the demolishing of old buildings in many cases throws away “an enormous amount of embedded carbon and spent energy,” only “to be replaced by a structure that requires still more.” In the U.K. “the building and construction sector is responsible for 40 to 50,000,000 tons of carbon emissions annually” — more than aviation and shipping combined. more

To the Editor:

As residents of Princeton since 1998, we feel very fortunate to live here. Our town’s many public and nonprofit institutions (library, pool, parks and playing fields, schools, universities, Arts Council, McCarter…) make Princeton uniquely vibrant, and enhance the quality of life for all. Directly and indirectly, we all benefit every day from the investments made in the past to build and maintain them.

For the life of our town, our public schools are the most essential of all these institutions. And what distinguishes Princeton Public Schools from similar districts — small class sizes; neighborhood elementary schools that foster strong bonds among families and children; excellent arts, music, STEM, language, and enrichment programs K-12 — can only occur in school buildings that have sufficient classroom capacity, space that is programmed for all of these curricular activities, and most importantly, up-to-date, efficient HVAC infrastructure necessary for safe, healthy learning environments.  more