Our Princeton Newsletter

    (yes, that’s me with a REAL Emmy – if ever get my own, i’ll tone down the grin ….) Ever wonder why it’s called the “Emmy”?  ME TOO!   It was almost called the “Ike”, a nickname for the iconoscope: the first television camera. Since that name was already associated with Dwight Eisenhower, the Academy…

  I’d be on BROADWAY instead of the sidewalks of Princeton! (This is my mom and she just nagged me to blog more …..  this photo of her is my emotional emancipation move) Anyhoo, for all you COMMITTED PRINCETON MOMS out there who want to provide A SURE FIRE WAY FOR YOUR CHILD to  GET…

 Today is the birthday of Henry Ford, American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company.    Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed and manufactured the first automobile that many middle class Americans could afford to buy.  As owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known people…

Rumor has it, Hamilton really did throw away his shot, and he threw it straight into Nassau Hall!! Ever since Sir George Otto Trevelyan published “The American Revolution” in 1905, word on the street has been that Alexander Hamilton shot a famous cannonball into Nassau Hall.  In the story, Sir George Otto Trevelyan tells of…

  CONGRATULATIONS TO MY FRIEND GRANT SOMERVILLE! Grant and Judy were married last weekend.  When the pastor asked for a funny story about their courtship, WE WERE MENTIONED DURING THE WEDDING CEREMONY! Here’s the sweet story Judy shared with the pastor:  On our second date Grant invited me to dinner at Mediterra in Princeton.  After…

ON BLOOMSDAY, june 16, 2021, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY’S UBER COOL PROFESSOR, Paul Muldoon WILL BE ZOOMING A 1 HOUR READING OF favorite passages and FORBIDDEN TEXTS FROM BLOOMSDAY BY James Joyce!!   (did you know Princeton’s own Sylvia Beach, owner of Shakespeare and Co., published the scandalous novel?  TRUE!)   She actually had to publish it…

Today in 1920, sparks literally flew destroying Marquand Chapel and Dickinson Hall.     The destruction prompted the construction of the internationally famous Princeton Chapel. Did you know ….. The University Chapel the second-largest university chapel in the world? The organ inside has 109 stops and 8,000 pipes? The oak pews in the nave are made…

Go to Grounds for Sculpture – You may have heard about the 35 acre cultural park with amazing views: …. Did you know there’s an open air outdoor employee shower at Grounds for Sculpture?  TRUE!         (Here’s a shot of one of the employees taking a quick rinse! I KNOW!) Did you know J….

  Students at Princeton University were surprised to find a plethora of reporters that ask for their reaction to the admittance of Brooke Shields to the class of 1987. (It’s not unusual to see Brooke back on campus – especially during reunions!  Towns people remember her attending mass at St. Paul’s on the regular as…

  Yep, April 26, 1997, Mike Beer *95 and Jason Rudy ’97 became the first same-sex couple to marry in Princeton University Chapel. Amen (& Cheers) to that! Given that same sex marriage was not yet legal and Mr. Beer and Mr. Rudy were atheists, there was quite a bit of commotion on campus about…

On April 8, 1960, The Board of Trustees of Princeton University selected the color that would hereby be the official “Princeton orange.”  (Insiders know in 1866, George Ward, a member of the Class of 1869, proposed the color orange in reference to the Prince of Orange, William III of the House of Nassau. The first…

Well, that’s kind of how it happened ……   Every 17 years a special group of cicadas emerge from Princeton’s underground.  The last time they were here was 2004, where people tell grizzly tales of being covered by the bugs, having to walk the streets with an umbrella and, if the buzzing noise of the…