February 15, 2012

This Thursday February 16 at 7:30 p.m. at 400 Witherspoon Street will likely be the last meeting of the Planning Commission on deciding the fateful go ahead for the 15-unit housing facility that the IAS wishes to build. The central argument seems to be whether or not there was a battle on this IAS land. In the past several months I have attended all of the planning meetings and have been following articles in the newspapers and one point sticks out. The ABPP Study along with testimonials of published historians clearly states that about 60 percent of the battle or what many like to call Washington’s counter attack did take place on this IAS land.

An IAS supporter came forward to say that he is tired of hearing about this so-called sacred land. What else can we call ground where over 500 American and British soldiers died or were wounded on January 3 1777?

The IAS is pushing to develop this land and to date they don’t even have all of their approvals, including wet lands, zoning, variances, engineering issues and a 1992 resolution on cluster housing that one would surmise would be put forth before going to the Planning Board. I join many others who are passionate for history and its preservation in a biodegradable society that cares more about tearing down and building up.

History is becoming an endangered species!

R. Iain Haight-Ashton
Site Director, Wyckoff- Garretson House, 
Somerset, N.J.

To the Editors:

I am not an historian nor can I quote prior discussions between the Institute and the State on the Institute’s Planning Application. However, it may be more valuable now to separate the logical arguments from the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric.

Most contributors agree that:

1. The battle of Princeton was a very important part of the Revolutionary War.

2. We want to be sure future generations remember and commemorate the soldiers that found the courage to charge the British lines.

3. The Institute is a valued part of the Princeton community, enriching our lives and raising the town’s profile by attracting world-class scholars.

4. The Institute has been a major contributor to the creation of the existing battlefield park and memorial.

The disagreement focuses on the best use of the undeveloped strip of Institute property bordering the existing park:

• Some believe it would add to the commemorative impact of the existing park, preserving what may be the precise spot of Washington’s critical counter-attack.

• Others believe it is important to restoring the residential nature of the Institute, a part of its successful formula for recruitment and collaboration that has been eroding for some time.

Sadly, this is the point at which the rhetoric has become inflamed. Those who find the latter use more compelling have been branded un-patriotic, complicit in the desecration of “sacred ground.”

By one definition of sacred, “entitled to veneration or religious respect,” I believe that every spot where a soldier gave his life to preserve my freedom is sacred. When I run through the Institute woods I think about what a teenage soldier must have felt treading the same ground, wondering whether the next rise would reveal a phalanx of the most powerful army in the world. However, by another definition of sacred,“”devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religious purpose; consecrated” the designation is not appropriate. Were we to consecrate every spot in Princeton where a soldier fell, we would not have a town, we would have a museum.

Some have claimed this specific plot is so historically important that it should have higher preservation priority than any other. Were its historic status that compelling, it should be possible to raise funds to buy it from the Institute for an amount that would purchase private homes in similar proximity to current faculty housing (e.g., Battle Rd, Haslet Ave). That no such alternative has emerged suggests that views on the historical significance remain equivocal —– even the most informed experts disagree on the interpretation of the famous spy map and other historical references.

If the only cost of giving the benefit of the doubt to preservation were to steer a commercial developer across town, the decision would be easy. However, to deny a valued member of our community the right to continue their mission of maintaining a community of scholars, after all they have done to create a commemorative park and to revise extensively their plans to minimize any collateral impact, based on a belief that any chance that one particular war tactic occurred on one specific spot should overrule all other considerations would be a travesty.

Brad Corrodi
Mercer Street

February 1, 2012

To the Editor:

Last Thursday night we attended the third Planning Board meeting on the application of The Institute for Advanced Study to build 15 much-needed faculty residences on their land adjacent to Princeton Battlefield Park. It was a tedious continuation of the efforts of the Princeton Battlefield Society to prevent approval through delaying tactics and obfuscation, raising issues not relevant to consideration by this governing body.

This project meets the requirements of our zoning regulations without the need for variations. The IAS development plan carries out the intent of our Land Use Ordinance by accepting cluster zoning options. The application of these guidelines minimize land disturbance, reduce utility runs, limit storm water run-off by reducing impervious surfaces of roads and walks, and create large areas of commonly-owned open space. This is an excellent example of a creative land-use ordinance at work.

In our opinion the current nearly 65 acres of Battle Field Park, more than a third of which was obtained from The Institute for Advanced Study, is more than adequate to commemorate, and to exhibit the scope of, this important battle. In fact the proposed plan will enlarge the park by the inclusion of 13 acres of public-access open space adjacent to the park as well as extend visual access by the relocation the bordering tree line some 200 feet back from its present location.

It is sad to contemplate the extent to which visitor appreciation of the battle could have been enhanced through better interpretative signage, pathways, interactive dioramas, and the like had the Princeton Battlefield Society spent their money for such facilities rather than for attorney and witness fees.

Tom and Peggy Fulmer
Hunt Drive

January 25, 2012

To the Editor:

With all the furor being created by the Princeton Battlefield Society about “preserving” for posterity a 22-acre parcel of land contiguous to the existing acreage of the Princeton Battlefield Park, you have to wonder where the Society’s members have been all these years while the Park’s infrastructure has been steadily decaying before their eyes. Have they added any additional land to the Park’s boundaries, as has the Institute (32 acres)? Have they provided any historical markers to better explain the progress of the actual battle? Have they helped maintain the existing infrastuctures in the Park itself?

As an example of constructive involvement, I can refer them back to the year 1957 when the Park’s Portico/Colonnade was about to be dismantled from the nearby Mercer Manor, a private home nearby, on Institute land. At the time, my father, Sherley W. Morgan, was dean of Princeton’s School of Architecture and president of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Because he felt the Battlefield lacked a focal point to direct visitors to the Unknown Soldiers’ graves which lie on the Park’s northwestern boundary, and because the portico was designed by Thomas Walters, the first president of the A.I.A., he set about raising sufficient funds to move the columns to their present location. In this effort he was greatly helped by congressman Frank Thompson, Governor Robert Meyner and the architect members of NJ’s Chapter of A.I.A., and by the Institute.

I think everyone today will agree that his goal has been achieved and the portico is what people remember when they recall a visit to the Battlefield. Unfortunately, both the portico and the grave area behind it, are in urgent need of cleaning, repair, and consistent maintenance.

Instead of hiring expensive “experts” to worry about how many musket balls may/may not be found under the land which the Institute owns and has every legal right to build on, or wasting everyone’s time in endless public meetings, I believe the Battlefield Society’s efforts would be more productive if they hired the appropriate experts to take care of what we already have in place for the public’s edification and enjoyment.

Arthur Morgan

Springdale Road

 

To the Editor:

I am a retired professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. I have enjoyed the beauty of our Battlefield Park and the memory of its history for more than 50 years. To serve as a fitting memorial of the battle, the Battlefield Park does not need to include the whole area over which fighting took place. Fighting extended over a wide area and into the center of Princeton, including the Institute buildings. Nobody suggests that the town or the Institute should be demolished in order to include the whole area of the fighting within the park. So I find it strange that the building of 11 houses for Institute faculty on Institute land should be opposed, just because this little piece of Institute land was included in the area of the fighting. The building of these houses will do no damage to the beauty and solemnity of the Battlefield Park. They will be as harmless and as respectful to our history as the existing Institute buildings.

Freeman Dyson

Professor Emeritus,

Institute for Advanced Study

 

To the Editor:

The Institute for Advanced Study is seeking approval to build faculty housing on its campus. I am writing to express my strong support for the project.

As a faculty member who lives on campus and a former member who spent his postdoctoral years at the IAS I can attest to the importance of the residential nature of IAS. Living on campus greatly facilitates my work, substantially increasing my interactions with IAS members and faculty. This residential nature makes the IAS unique and benefits members and faculty alike.

I believe that through the years the Institute has been a model citizen of this community. As a current neighbor of the Institute I deeply value the Institute’s commitment to preserving open spaces that include the wonderful “Institute woods,” nearly 600 acres of woodlands available to public use, and a substantial fraction of the Battlefield Park. The proposed project will add 13 acres of new land that will be permanently preserved as open space next to the Park.

During the last meeting of the Township’s planning board, Prof. Mark Peterson, a specialist in the American Revolution and early American History at the University of California at Berkeley, gave a very interesting presentation about how different localities preserve their historical heritage. Prof. Peterson helped towns in the Boston area develop plans to better preserve their historical sites and enhance the experience of visitors. I moved to Princeton from the Boston area, so I am very familiar with the sites he described, having enjoyed them on multiple occasions. As I heard him speak, I could not help but think that the current discussion surrounding the Institute’s project presents a perfect opportunity to improve the experiences of visitors to the Battlefield Park and their connection to this area’s past. I was glad to learn that the Institute has stated that it was ready to be a partner in trying to enhance the experience of visitors to the Battlefield

Park, for example by improving the interpretive materials provided in the site.

The Institute is by now also an important part of Princeton’s history. It has housed as faculty and members a large number of Nobel-prize winners, Field medalists, and the intellectual leaders of many fields of study. In my own area, astrophysics, the contributions of scientists who spent time at the IAS can be found almost everywhere and have shaped our current understanding of such diverse topics as cosmology and celestial mechanics.

I am convinced that this project will not only benefit the IAS community but also the Princeton community at large. It will help maintain one of its vibrant academic institutions; it will add permanently preserved open land and can create the opportunity to improve the way the area’s residents can interact with its history.

Matias Zaldarriaga

Battle Road

 

To the Editor:

The Battle of Princeton is surely a remarkable moment in the history of Princeton as well as the United States. In January of 1777 Patriots battled for American Independence and to protect the rights of future generations.

It is important to commemorate and memorialize the Battle of Princeton, and that has been done with the Battlefield Park. The Institute for Advanced Study, another great historical institution in Princeton, has been a vital partner and supporter of the Battlefield Park. In fact, the Battlefield would not even exist in it’s current state, without the generosity of the Institute. The Institute donated the Portico that stands in Battlefield Park and commemorates the common grave of American and British soldiers. In 1973, the Institute conveyed 32 acres of land to the State which more than doubled the size of Battlefield Park. This conveyance was completed with the express understanding that the Institute could and would build housing on some of the remaining land. The Institute for Advanced Study has also preserved all of the land surrounding the Battlefield, and has made it accessible to the public.

The Institute for Advanced Study owns the tract of land on which they are proposing to build faculty housing. They have met every requirement of the planning board and the historical preservationists that would allow them to build the site plan currently proposed. In fact, they have gone above and beyond what was asked and have made sure the project has minimal impact on the Battlefield Park.

To suggest that the Institute should be prohibited from using their property, simply because it was a site upon which some of the battle took place, is exactly the type of oppression the Patriots were trying to eliminate. We are a country that values the rights bestowed upon us by law. Property rights are certainly one of the oldest and most treasured rights. Those trying so desperately to restrict those rights, by waging a battle against the Institute, should consider whether they value their own property rights. Surely the Patriots did not expect future generations to use the battle as a means of restricting the rights they were fighting for.

Shari Black

Allison Road

 

To the Editor:

I write in strong support of the Institute’s proposal for more faculty living on its campus, maintaining its walkable community. It would provide landscape screening along its border with the Battlefield Park; and build a memorial pathway as conceived by distinguished historians James McPherson and David Hackett Fischer. Altogether, the Institute’s proposal commemorates our historic past, and sustains our living community.

Robert Geddes

Dean Emeritus, Princeton University

School of Architecture

 

To the Editor:

It is vitally important that any new construction at the Institute for Advanced Study not detract from the dignity of the Battlefield Park. The faculty and friends of the Institute (of whom I am one) understand the importance of honoring our history. The proposed new faculty housing at IAS meets this test. The proposed housing consists of a small cluster of single family homes and townhouses located over two hundred feet from the edge of the park. A row of evergreens will stand between the housing and the park. The housing will barely be visible from the park, much less intrusive.

The need to preserve the dignity of the park should not be used as a reason to block all development in this part of Princeton.

Lewis Maltby, President

National Workrights Institute

Wall Street, Princeton

 

To the Editor:

Based on decades of experience we have long believed that controversies such as the current one involving the Institute’s proposal to build faculty housing near the Battlefield can be resolved in such a way that everyone comes out ahead, especially where people of good will are involved, as is the case here.

If you stand in the middle of the present Battlefield site and look up toward the land in question, what do you see? Well, what you don’t see is the Institute’s land. What you do see is a rather unattractive angled slash of tall trees impeding the overall perspective of the Battlefield site.

Now let’s look ahead around two years and what will you see? First, you will see another row of trees but these, replacing the ones currently there, will be set back some 200 feet and will screen the new housing. What you will also see is another 13 acres of unimpeded land which will greatly open up the visual experience. This land

will have been donated in perpetuity to the Battlefield by the Institute.

We had the privilege of living virtually across the street from the Institute for 21 years and found them to be outstanding neighbors and citizens. It is our great pleasure to strongly endorse their proposal, an outcome where everyone wins, the Battlefield, the Institute and the community.

Harriet and Jay Vawter

Constitution Hill

January 18, 2012

To the Editor:

I attended two previous Planning Board meetings at which IAS’s real estate development on the site of a critical point in the Battle of Princeton was challenged. As a Princeton Battlefield Society trustee I cannot question the good neighbor position held by residents near the Institute. Nor can I question the IAS’s tree line defense, its required design for housing, or the road’s width on the site. What I must question is: What does this defense have to do with the historical significance and proposed desecration of the property in question?

But I have other questions, such as what happened to the due diligence of the Historic Commission in researching and studying the issues raised by the Society? Did the Commission read and consider the APBB study? With all property owned by the Institute, why must this real estate development take place on this historic site? What consideration was given by the IAS board and administration to the implications of this real estate development on land critically important to American history and heritage? This was one of the reasons for the APBB study, which confirmed the Society’s position and was subsequently confirmed by noted historian, Dr. James McPherson.

I am not against the Institute. I am against its real estate development of this property. When a faculty member has to acquire land rights from the IAS and to build a required house design at his or her own expense, it can only be considered real estate development. A vote must come down to real estate development versus heritage. Not surprisingly, I would vote for heritage.

Bill Marsch
Old Georgetown Road

To the Editor:

Our back yard is full of treasures. We have dance, music, art, science, and history to explore. Behind all of this are educated people who deeply believe in what they study and perform.

The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is one of the most special of these treasures. There is probably no other institution in the world that is comparable. The interaction of the scholars is fostered by their living together. The freedom to engage with one another within the community of the Institute develops ideas, theories, with often groundbreaking results.

The land between the IAS and the Battlefield is in dispute. It shouldn’t be. This land is legally owned by the IAS and great care has been taken in honoring and responding to all concerns. The grounds of the Battle of Princeton reach far into our community, well beyond the land in question. The Institute is a good neighbor, has helped develop and enhance the park, and it’s important to the future of the IAS to allow it to offer housing to its faculty.

Louise and John Steffens
Brookstone Drive

To the Editor:

I am writing this letter in support of the Princeton Battlefield Society efforts to save the Princeton Battlefield. This Battlefield is an important part of American history. Without George Washington’s victory at Trenton and Princeton we may not have become a nation. This Battlefield must be preserved much like Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. The New Jersey Society of the Sons of the American Revolution supports the Princeton Battlefield Society efforts.

Clark D. McCullough
President, New Jersey Society Sons of the American Revolution
Middletown

To the editor:

Given the seminal contributions the Institute for Advanced Study has made for over 50 years to preserve the Princeton Battlefield and its environs, the current fractious opposition to its plans to build some faculty housing on a site clearly earmarked for that purpose at the time these contributions were made would be a breach of good faith. It would not augur well for future similar acts of philanthropy by other institutions in the community if that understanding were to be abrogated.

I concur fully with the Battlefield Society in its argument that the Battle of Princeton was a critical turning point in the Revolution and that its place in our history should be amply commemorated. As a staunch advocate for battlefield preservation in Virginia before moving to Princeton in 2006, I am quite sympathetic to the Society’s objectives.

However, a careful review of analyses by historians retained by both sides has convinced me that the Society has pressed its case too far based upon questionable evidence and assertions. The Institute’s plans do not jeopardize the integrity of the site, nor recognition of the battle’s crucial importance.

Historian James McPherson has proposed an accommodation that meets many of the Society’s concerns. Why not accept them and get on with making history rather than just commemorating it? After all, some of the intellectual contributions that have emanated from the Institute since 1939 are just as much a part of Princeton’s rich historical tapestry as the battle.

Ralph Widner
Elm Road

To the Editor:

I am writing to urge the Institute for Advanced Study to reconsider its ill-advised plan to build faculty housing on the Princeton Battlefield. There are few places in America where the hinge of history swung so dramatically, and precious few of them are left from the American Revolution in New Jersey. The Princeton Battlefield is New Jersey’s premier revolutionary historic site and is in relatively pristine shape. Putting up condos to serve the short term interests of the Institute would short change future generations of Americans, and hinder our study of how this critical battle was fought and won by Washington’s heroic troops. Moreover, the planned truckloads of landfill would bury our understanding of the fight along with potentially precious historic artifacts. I trust the Princeton Planning Board will see the folly of this plan and deny it accordingly.

Ben Strong
Harlingen Road, Belle Mead

December 21, 2011

To the Editor:

I am writing in support of the Institute for Advanced Study’s faculty housing proposal under review by the Planning Board. As a direct neighbor of the Institute, I can vouch for their integrity and sensitivity to land use issues. In the five years that I have resided on Battle Road, they have never embarked on a change that might affect me without notifying me in advance. They have been responsive to any concerns I have had and have responded promptly to my requests for amelioration. The Institute is exceedingly respectful of the community. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Friends of the Institute, and a former environmental regulator, I have been impressed with the thoughtfulness with which they have developed this project and I am certain that they will honor their commitments. Few people reside as close to this project as do my wife and I and, after careful consideration, I believe this project meets the objectives of respecting the neighborhood, the Battlefield, and the essential needs of my good neighbor, the Institute of Advanced Study.

Michael E. Morandi
Battle Road