By Taylor Smith
When the weather outside is frightful, try spending a cozy afternoon or evening at Princeton Garden Theatre, located at 160 Nassau Street across from Princeton University Library. The Garden is proud to show first-run films of the highest artistic quality. During the holiday season, the Garden has added a lineup of festive Saturday children’s matinees and classic Hollywood favorites. more
By Taylor Smith
Nino’s Pastry Shop at 3800 Quakerbridge Road in Trenton has all the classic pastries and desserts that you, your friends, and family will love. Guests will savor every last buttery crumb of Nino’s Sicilian Cannoli, walnut rings, pies, Danish, and cookies. more
By Taylor Smith
Finding a unique and meaningful holiday gift for loved ones can be challenging.
“Like cooking, skincare is an art and ingredients matter. So, we use the simplest, most nourishing ingredients in all of our products. People see the difference in their skin. We’re promoting wellness and encouraging people to take advantage of that renewing experience that we get in the bath,” says Deborah Lukasik O’Shaughnessy, an art teacher, educator, and East End resident. more
By Taylor Smith
Kale’s Nursery & Landscape Service operates a beloved Christmas Shop every holiday season that is a “must-see” for families, friends, and those seeking to experience some yuletide magic. more
By Taylor Smith
Each year, Scots from around the world gather in the darkest days of winter for a traditional evening meal and celebration to commemorate the birthday of one of their favorite native sons, Robert Burns. Born on a tenant farm on January 25, 1759 in the village of Alloway, near Ayr, Burns’s early life was marked by back-breaking work on a succession of small family farms. With an ear for Scottish folk songs and traditional stories passed down by his mother, Burns grew to become a widely-respected poet and lyricist. more
By Taylor Smith
Experience the season at New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) Holiday Train Show, now through Sunday, January 6, 2020. Natural materials such as fruit, seeds, pine cones, twigs, bark, stems, fungus, acorns, lotus pods, and cinnamon recreate a sweeping metropolis designed by Paul Busse of Applied Imagination. more
By Taylor Smith
The Nature Conservancy of New Jersey is encouraging Garden State residents to stay active this winter season with the introduction of the High Mountain Challenge, inspired by New Jersey native Jessica Bagley’s running achievements. The Nature Conservancy is also hoping to raise awareness of High Mountain Park Preserve, a protected 1,260-acre tract of forested land in New Jersey’s Piedmont region (near North Haledon and Wayne). more
By Taylor Smith
This year’s gala benefit for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation took place on Thursday, November 14 at Cipriani South Street in New York City.
The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation grew out of the community-driven Stifel Paralysis Research Foundation, which was founded in 1982 when Henry Stifel, a New Jersey high school student, was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed at age 17. The organization evolved into the American Paralysis Association (APA). When actor Christopher Reeve was injured in a horseback riding accident in 1995, the APA was one of the first places that Reeve and his wife, Dana, sought support. By 1999, the APA and Christopher’s foundation united as the Christopher Reeve Foundation (Dana’s name was added to the moniker after her death in 2006). more
By Taylor Smith
Experience two of the sharpest comedic minds onstage for one special evening as Stephen Colbert (a New Jersey resident) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus team up for the Ninth Annual Montclair Film Festival Benefit on Saturday, December 7 at New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Prudential Hall in Newark. The comedic festivities begin at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $79.50 and are available for purchase at www.njpac.org. more
By Taylor Smith
Learn what makes the vibrant shore town of Asbury Park unique at The Asbury’s Winter Wonderland Weekend, December 7 and 8.
The Asbury is situated just two blocks from Asbury Park’s famous beach and boardwalk and is easily accessible from several NJ Transit lines. Designed with a nod to the shore town’s rock n’ roll past and proximity to the seaside, The Asbury offers upscale lodging, dining, multiple vibrant bars, live music in the lobby, and more. more
By Taylor Smith
Winter often signifies a challenging time of year for birds to find adequate food and sustenance. Decorating an outdoor tree with edible ornaments is a way to attract winter birds, providing them with shelter and a wide range of foods. more
By Taylor Smith
Take a trip back to the 1920s at Hopewell Theater’s New Year’s Eve party on Tuesday, December 31 starting at 6 p.m. The evening features a three-course dinner by Brick Farm Tavern; live music by Philadelphia’s vintage swing band, Parlour Noir; a swing dance lesson; party favors; and a cash bar. The event is semi-formal and vintage attire is encouraged. more
By Taylor Smith
Giving back during the holidays doesn’t have to cost a lot of time or money. Simple gifts of happiness and good cheer can go a long way in improving another person’s day. Here are some suggestions for being more generous this time of year. more
By Taylor Smith
Registration is underway for winter art classes for adults, teens, and children at The Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster. With more than 35 offerings to choose from, classes begin in January 2020. more
By Taylor Smith
November is still a fantastic time to find fresh fruits and vegetables at area farmers markets. Here are just a few to look for: more
Princeton-Born Pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton are Rising Stars
By Anne Levin
Classical music claims a long tradition of sibling performers. There are the Shahams (violinist Gil and pianist Ori), the Labeques (pianists Katia and Marielle), and the Capucons (violinist Renand and cellist Gautier) — just to name a few.
Currently prominent on that roster are Christina and Michelle Naughton, 31-year-old virtuoso pianists who spent their first year of life in Princeton, and returned last month to perform as soloists with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO). The glamorous Naughtons, whose father taught computer science at Princeton University, are not just sisters — they are twins. Good luck telling them apart.
As toddlers, the girls moved from Princeton to Madison, Wisconsin, when their father, Jeffrey Naughton, joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin. Their earliest music study was with their mother, an amateur pianist. There was no grand plan, at first, for professional careers. more
Dr. Richard Besser, head of Princeton’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is making a difference
By Wendy Greenberg | Photo courtesy of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Dr. Richard Besser, a pediatrician and head of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), has volunteered in a clinic in every place he has lived.
Seeing children once a week at the Henry J. Austin Center in Trenton brings health inequity into focus. There, in Trenton, the life expectancy for children is 73 years. In Princeton, the life expectancy for the same-age child is 87 years.
The clinic grants a window, he said, “into the lives of children, many of whom have profound barriers to health, children growing up in very different circumstances than the children in my hometown of Princeton.”
At a New York City health center, Besser met a grandmother who knows her grandchildren needs daily physical exercise, but was concerned about the safety of playing outdoors. He met a youngster whose asthma attacks were triggered by environmental contaminants in the family’s apartment. At the Trenton clinic, he met a mother of a son with significant developmental disabilities who has been waiting two years for services that would help him. more
Leonora Carrington, British, active Mexico and United States, 1917–2011, Crookhey Hall, 1987. Color lithograph. Gift of David L. Meginnity, Class of 1958. © Leonora Carrington / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Princeton University Art Museum Exhibit Explores Wellness and Illness, Care and Suffering, Across Time and Cultures
By Laurie Pellichero | Images Courtesy of Princeton University Art Museum
Pandemics and infectious disease. Mental illness. The hopes and dangers of childbirth. The complexities of care. These concepts and many others are explored through more than 80 art objects from around the world — from antiquity to modern times —including paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photographs, and multimedia, in “States of Health: Visualizing Illness and Healing,” on view at the Princeton University Art Museum November 2 through February 2, 2020.
“With the medical humanities a growing field, ‘States of Health’ afforded us an extraordinary opportunity to pose important questions about how we visualize both wellness and disease,” says James Steward, Nancy A. Dasher-David J. Haemisegger, Class of 1976, director. “By positioning objects that have likely never been in dialogue with each other before, the exhibition draws on multi-disciplinary perspectives to consider health and healing today, how artists have interpreted these states over time, and how they both differ and share certain characteristics across many cultures.”
“States of Health” is displayed in four thematic groupings: “Confronting Contagion,” “States of Mind,” “Worlds of Care,” and “Birthing Narratives,” with cross-cultural juxtapositions throughout the exhibition considering both broad issues and specific historical events from a visual perspective. more
“…improving the value of care in the United States is one of the biggest challenges our health care system faces. We also face challenges in providing care in a way that is equitable and that addresses other drivers of health, including social factors.”
Executive Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI)
By Donald Gilpin | Photos by Hoag Levins
Rachel Werner, M.D., Ph.D., took over last May as the first female and the first physician-economist executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI). She is a professor of both medicine at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, and health care management at the Wharton School; a member of the National Academy of Medicine; and a practicing physician at Philadelphia’s Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center.
Werner came to Penn in 1994 after graduating from Macalester College in Minnesota. She earned her M.D. in 1998 and her Ph.D. in health economics in 2004. She joined the Penn faculty in 2005 as an assistant professor of medicine and an LDI senior fellow. A longtime member of LDI’s executive committee, Werner has played an important role in expanding LDI data services and was director of the LDI health economics data analyst pool that provides LDI fellows with statistical analysts. more
Baker’s Alley in Princeton, looking south toward Nassau Street c. 1925. A historic African American neighborhood that was demolished to make way for Palmer Square. (Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Princeton.)
By Taylor Smith
The September 28, 1928 issue of Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) announced that “Plans for a gigantic program of reconstruction in the heart of Princeton, to cost several million dollars, have recently been made public by Edgar Palmer ’03, President of Princeton Municipal Improvement, Inc. This development will affect the section on Nassau Street from Upper Pyne Dormitory to the Second Presbyterian Church. The area to be reconstructed extends as far as Quarry Street, four blocks to the north of Nassau Street, and is bounded on the east and west, respectively, by Witherspoon Street and Quarry Street.”
Edgar Palmer.
PAW goes on to describe: “In place of numerous old wooden houses and tenements which are not only unsightly but which also form a great fire hazard, there will be two large apartment houses of the ‘garden’ type.”
The municipal square model was not everyone’s ideal. Significantly, the plan involved the removal of Baker’s Alley and the relocation of the majority of Princeton’s African American community to Birch Avenue.
Longtime Princeton resident Shirley Satterfield is an expert on the history of African American life in Princeton. “My family is six generations in this neighborhood, and I love this neighborhood,” she says.
Satterfield describes Palmer Square as Princeton’s first example of “urban renewal.” When asked to characterize the effect of Edgar Palmer’s plans on the African American community, Satterfield states, “It wasn’t a hardship for us, it was a movement for us.”
“A lot of our families were domestic workers and they didn’t talk about discontent to the children,” she adds. “In those days, a lot of people didn’t complain.” more
