The demolition of the dilapidated buildings on the corner of Cranbury and Princeton-Hightstown roads that began last month is another step toward the long-anticipated redevelopment of the whole downtown area.
And with the settlement with InterCap moving through the legal process and approvals given for the renovation of the former Acme, residents are that much closer to having a bustling train station village area, with residential units, a promenade, and some boutique businesses and restaurants.
But the recent progress with redevelopment has triggered memories for some of the town’s longtime residents, who recall the atmosphere of the downtown area long before it turned into what some residents call “Plywood Junction” today.
The moniker is a far cry from what was once a quiet farming community with shops centered around the township’s agricultural roots.
Over the past decade, residents have lamented the appearance of the rundown buildings, the lack of parking at the train station, and the lack of a downtown area where people can meet.
For residents like the Rev. Donna Bevensee, who called West Windsor (actually, she prefers Princeton Junction) her home since she was born in 1937, a “town center” with convenient shopping areas was not needed in the farming community that encompassed the township in its earlier days.
West Windsor has “changed so radically over the last 40 years,” said Bevensee, who hopes a social group can be formed to meet and discuss fond memories of the township’s past. “I think it would be good to have some kind of meetings where people could just sit down and talk about what it was like,” she said.
So what was West Windsor like before development seeped in? According to the Spring, 1998, edition of “Broadside,” a historical newsletter created by the Historical Society of West Windsor, Princeton Junction’s businesses in the 1800s were located near the railroad tracks on Station Drive at the end of Washington Road. “There was a level grade crossing at the tracks there, as well as at Alexander, Clarksville, and Quaker Bridge roads,” the newsletter states.
At the time, the Princeton Junction general store was located at the corner of Washington Road and Station Drive, where virtually everything was sold: food, clothing, and the tools of every trade, the newsletter states. Later in the 1880s, the general store was owned and operated by Isaac Hey (pronounced “Hi”), and then by his sons, Jacob and I. Voorhees Hey. The post office was also located in the general store.
The general store continued in business until 1947, when Jacob Hey died. The building was later sold, and the front portion became a barber shop. It has since turned into various restaurants, including Peking Express, in the 1970s, and Good Friends. Today AsianBistro, a new restaurant, is expected to open in the building.
At the end of Washington Road, Jacob Wyckoff operated a commodities business, dealing in crops such as grain, potatoes, coal, and hay. He moved his business to be near the railroad in 1865, after the tracks were laid through Princeton Junction.
L.C. Bowers operated a cabinet shop in a two-story barn in the 1930s on Station Drive. The building later burned. Dewey’s Upholstery shop was established in the 1950s by Charles Weingart at 33 Station Drive, the newsletter states.
But according to Broadside, Princeton Junction’s business district wasn’t on the map until 1932, when business started to move to Princeton-Hightstown Road. From 1939 to 1960, Conover & Emmons Lumber Company filled the area along Route 571 from Wallace Road to where Al’s Sunoco stands. That was bought by S. Pillsbury, and the area was known as “The Building Center.”
Lucar Hardware moved in a store across the street in the strip mall, which was built in 1963. When the Building Center closed in 1969, Lucar bought half the land for the hardware store, while Craft Cleaners bought the other half.
Conrad Schafer opened the first Schafer’s Service Station in the 1920s at 29 Washington Road. His son, Henry Schafer, moved the service station to the corner of Route 571 and Cranbury Road in 1940, a year after the second Washington Road railroad bridge was built. Schafer’s sold many products, including newspapers, magazines, greeting cards, and household goods, the newsletter states.
The Ellsworth Center was built in 1950, when John Ellsworth built a two-story cinderblock building on the corner of Cranbury Road at the foot of the Washington Road bridge. A liquor store was operated in part of the building, and a television repair shop was operated in the other half. In 1957 John Ellsworth built a new brick building to house Princeton Junction Liquors, which was moved into Ellsworth’s Shopping Center, where JEM Cleaners stands today.
Shawn Ellsworth joined his father in the 1970s, and in 1979, the liquor and wine business was expanded and moved into the current, larger building. The other shops and services were added in the 1990s.
The strip mall across the street from Lucar was built in 1963. The original tenants included the Thorne Pharmacy, Gourmet Delicatessen and Bakery, Lucar Hardware, and Windsor Toy and Hobby Shop. In 1978 the Windsor Plaza Shopping Center and the Acme Supermarket expanded, and the toy and hobby shop moved there.
When Bevensee was a child, the general store on Washington Road was the only store around for years. “There wasn’t much else,” she said.
Liz Mershon, who has lived in the township for nearly 81 years, said Princeton Junction was never known to have an extensive business district. Her father worked on the railroad, and the family lived in a house on Station Drive. Mershon attended St. Paul’s in Princeton before attending Princeton High. Later she moved to Cranbury Road, where she currently resides.
When it came to shopping, “you always had to go to Princeton Shopping Center or later, the A&P on Nassau Street (in Princeton),” said Mershon. “Everything was farmland, and there was no business in the area.”
Bevensee was born in 1937, a year before the “Martians landed” in Grovers Mill — an allusion to the radio show put on by the Mercury Theater. The “War of the Worlds” broadcast on October 30, 1938 was directed by Orson Welles (and adapted from H.G. Wells’s 1898 novel of the same name). The plot had Martians landing at Grover’s Mill, and the broadcast created mass hysteria that an alien invasion was actually occurring.
Bevensee’s family lived on North Post Road in a house her father built in the 1930s (her son now lives in the home). Her father, Matthew Maxwell, worked for Princeton University, where he was in charge of the plumbing, heating, and roofing work for 40 years.
Bevensee was in Grovers Mill when the “Martians” landed. “My parents slept through it; they didn’t even know it was happening.”
Her father would call her mother on his way home from work in Princeton to see if she needed anything from the general store because it was the only place to stop.
“When we were kids, the big thing to do on Sunday morning was to go and get the newspaper at Schafer’s and go watch the trains at the train station,” said Bevensee. “Back then, there were lots of freight trains that also went through.”
The long building on the corner of Princeton-Hightstown and Cranbury roads that is currently being demolished (formerly home to Chicken Holiday) was a drug store. “That was a drug store for years and years. The post office was in there at one time,” Bevensee said.
Bob Sanders has lived in West Windsor for 78 years and has also watched it evolve. He also recalls the Schafer’s store. As a child, he recalls hanging out by Grovers Mill and also watching the trains go by.
“In those days, there weren’t many cars,” he said. “My grandfather had a car and my dad had a truck. At that time, he had a coal business in the winter and he farmed in the summer. It was better to have a truck than a second car.”
In fact, the only time he recalls there being a traffic jam is during the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, when people came to see the alien invasion. “We heard at the beginning of the program when they said it was just a dramatization,” he said. “But in those days, you had a party telephone with eight or so people on the line.” So people who caught the middle of the broadcast thought it was real and began picking up the telephone and telling others about it.
Sanders’ family owned a farm on Cranbury Road. “When I was growing up, this was almost all farms,” he said. “We still have 35 acres.”
The closest place to do grocery shopping in the 1940s was in Trenton. “It was all farms around here,” said Bevensee.
Because the township was so rural, it was a close-knit community where everyone knew each other. “You knew everybody in the township,” said Mershon. “If you wanted certain things, you knew where to go to get certain things from the farmers.” For example, one farmer on Bear Brook Road grew sweet potatoes, while another grew iceberg lettuce and tomatoes.
Aside from that, there was no need to have a grocery store locally. “Years ago, you had the bread man, the milk man, and there was a fish man who was a butcher who used to come around,” Mershon recalled.
Bevensee attended Dutch Neck Elementary School. At the time, it only contained eight rooms. In the sixth grade, she moved to Princeton with her family, and graduated from Princeton High in 1955. She moved back to West Windsor in the 1960s. By that time, a grocery store had opened in Mercerville.
“It was the first store to come here,” she said. “For me, the Acme was a blessing. For other seniors that live nearby, it was a blessing.”
She said that most residents today don’t want a megastore, but they did like the convenience offered of a small grocery store in their backyards.
As for a community “meeting place” or recreational areas, it wasn’t needed. “The reality is there weren’t a lot of kids around,” she said. “When people talk about wanting a place to gather, there weren’t a lot of kids.”
Mershon said that residents simply did not have time to meet up because they were always working.
Children would go to each others’ houses after school and play, and sometimes they would ride their bicycles to buy candy at the store, said Bevensee.
The firehouse used to hold activities, as well as the Dutch Neck Church, which held frequent dinners. Students would attend square dances at the school and go roller skating in Trenton. Children would also go swimming in the Millstone River, near where the Wildflowers of Princeton Junction property is located. “Those of us who grew up in the 1950s are just so grateful we grew up in that era because it would never be like that again,” said Bevensee.
Like Bevensee, Sanders also recalls swimming in the Millstone River. He also recalls heading to the apple orchard on the neighboring farm, where he would go in the summer to get a cup of cider.
Other than that, the other recreational activities kids enjoyed were going to the tennis courts behind Dutch Neck and going to Schafer’s after church on Sundays to get ice cream or candy.
There was a common place that many people gathered within township borders in the summer — a swimming area known as Sheep Wash located on the RCA property (Sarnoff). “People came from all over to go swimming there,” said Mershon. “They would have big picnics down there.”
A local resident even ran a concession at the swimming area, where he sold soda and watermelons and eventually put in swing sets and seesaws for the children, recalled Mershon.
“It was more or less a gathering place because everybody and their brother was there,” said Mershon. “We would basically have our dinner at noon time and go off to go swimming.”
In the winter, Mershon recalls ice skating at a small pond that used to be located near the railroad tracks, an area that was later filled in.
While Princeton Junction was always known as a commuting hub, it was never as populated.
Bevensee and her husband started a newspaper distribution service in the 1960s when they moved back to West Windsor. It was around this time that more residents began to move into the township and commute to New York, she said.
Since then, the township has changed, as most residents cite the school district as a main reason for moving into the community. Bevensee does not like the “Plywood Junction” nickname some have given the downtown area. “I think it’s hurtful to the people who have been here for 40 years and remember when it was different.”
Mershon, who later moved to Cranbury Road, said she bought what is currently the Wildflowers farm “to keep it rural. “I’ve seen a lot of changes. Things change, so you have to go with the flow.”
As things begin to change again, Mershon offers suggestion: “What they really need is a good restaurant because there is nothing here.”
