Some people have an attitude about free newspapers that says, “If it’s free, how accurate can it be, and why should I be interested in what it says?” And, “if it’s just about local stuff, I couldn’t care less. If I have to rely on a newspaper for what I want to know about, I’ll use the New York Times.”
The point is that many people prefer to get their news by watching television instead of having to sit down and actually read — that’s hard and not very exciting. More importantly, many are simply not interested in what goes on in local politics, the school system, or anything else locally unless it might have an effect on, say, their taxes or when their garbage is going to be picked up. Beyond that, who cares?
If you walk around your neighborhood once in a while — a rare occurrence for most — you will notice some houses where there are several copies of the local free newspaper lying on the ground or in the driveway in their plastic bags. Sometimes as many as five or six. That may be a couple of months’ worth — just lying there.
Don’t these people ever look outside or care that this stuff (trash?) is just lying there? “Well, it’s not my problem, I didn’t ask for it to be delivered. As far as I’m concerned, it’s trash, and it’s up to the township or somebody to come and pick it up. But not me.”
I realize that sometimes there’s a reason other than indifference for letting the bags just lie there. Maybe the family has been away for a couple of weeks and didn’t ask a neighbor to take in their mail and the newspapers. Or maybe the occupant of the house is sick or physically unable to go outside and pick up anything as trivial as a newspaper — that they don’t want anyway. Yes, there are reasons, but I think in most cases it’s simply indifference.
I became aware of this situation many years ago in Princeton when the weekly publication Town Topics was delivered free to every house — and it wasn’t even in a plastic bag. It was a new idea then — in the late 1940s — to deliver anything free. I remember some people who thought it was pretty stupid, and they complained bitterly that all those unwanted newspapers were messing up the town. “You actually read that thing? Why?”
Well, Town Topics still lives, and you can actually have it mailed to you by subscription. It’s also for sale at newsstands for 75 cents. It’s made a go of it now for nearly 70 years. What fate awaits our current local papers remains to be seen, but the current generation West Windsor-Plainsboro News is doing just fine, despite its status of “free delivery.”
The informal joining of the West Windsor and Plainsboro communities began officially when the regional school district was formed in 1969. Before that the two townships existed independently and shared only their common boundary, the Millstone River. Even before the official regional school district was formed there was talk of Cranbury being part of it, too.
People had fun exploring possible names for the new district that would spell out what its constituents were. A favorite was Westplains Cranwindsor Borobury. Soon thereafter, however, the Cranbury schools decided to follow another plan, and the joining of West Windsor and Plainsboro as a school district became the basis for common interest in the local newspapers.
Long before the West Windsor-Plainsboro News (WW-P) came into being in 2000 there were other local papers in the West Windsor-Plainsboro area. Immediately preceding WW-P was the News Eagle. Its masthead claimed it to be “The Newspaper of West Windsor and Plainsboro.” It was for sale at newsstands (50 cents) and by subscription at $21 per year. It was published every Thursday for over three years before its last issue on April 24, 2000. It covered local events in both townships.
Before the News Eagle there was the West Windsor-Plainsboro Chronicle, another subscription paper. It started out at $4.50 per year in Mercer and Middlesex counties or 15 cents at newsstands. It began publication in 1973, and went on for more than two decades, or until mid-1997, shortly before the News Eagle began in August.
The first local paper that I have a copy of is the West Windsor World. It was published weekly, beginning on April 4, 1973. It claimed to be “West Windsor and Plainsboro’s Best Source of Community Information.” But it lasted for only 22 issues, or until August 29 of that year, when it announced that the high cost of newsprint made it impossible to continue. It has also been suggested that advertising revenue was in short supply.
One issue of the News Eagle that I have kept over the years is that for October 1, 1999. It was published shortly after the local area had been drenched by the rainfall of Hurricane Floyd, which caused major flooding in central New Jersey. Because I had lived in West Windsor through several other flooding episodes and had written about them, I was asked by editor Bill Neff to write about Floyd for his paper.
I also drew a couple of maps that showed where the worst trouble spots were. Without going into the details, it is safe to say that though there have been a couple of flooding episodes since that occasion, none have been nearly as bad — and that includes Hurricane Sandy.
Also in that issue of the News Eagle were the editorial and front-page story covering the death of Ron Rogers, namesake of the Rogers Arboretum. One of West Windsor’s most important advocates of open space preservation, he was a founding member of Friends of West Windsor Open Space and was actively involved in park planning. He also sold Christmas trees at his tree farm on Clarksville Road in Grovers Mill. That property is now part of the Rogers Preserve.
Between the West Windsor World and the News Eagle there was the West Windsor-Plainsboro Chronicle. It began with the issue for December 12, 1973, that featured a front-page story on the new parking lot at the railroad station. It seems that the State Department of Transportation had not approved it for use, and commuters were going to have to wait longer before they could use it.
At that time the round-trip fare from Princeton Junction to New York was $16.50 per week. It took some time, but eventually the station we have today was completed with an approved parking lot.
There have even been other publications in the area, including The View, published in Plainsboro during the late 1980s and early ’90s. Also, thanks to the West Windsor Lions Club, there was the West Windsor Newsletter. It was published monthly and was mailed to all addresses in the township from late 1954 until 1973.
It carried many ads for businesses that have been gone for many years, such as Reed’s Sod Farm, G.H. Piper’s Cinder Blocks, Stults’s General Store in Edinburg, and Princeton Circle Esso, where the price per gallon of gas once got down to 13 cents during a “price war” with the other stations at the circle. For a while, West Windsor Township itself sent out a periodic newsletter to all property owners to keep them up-to-date on township activities. That was discontinued some time ago.
In 1980 the Chronicle had extensive coverage of local politics. In those days West Windsor had a Township Committee form of government where the mayor was chosen from among the five members of the committee. In that year the political contests were covered in great detail because of the close contest among the Republicans.
The leading candidates were Doug Forrester and Stan Perrine, both of whom won seats on the council, with Forrester being chosen as mayor. It was he, of course, who later ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002, and, after being defeated by Harrison Williams in that race, for governor in 2005 — also a defeat, this time to Jon Corzine.
Speaking of mayors, there’s a front-page picture in a Chronicle issue in the spring of 1980 of the mayor of Plainsboro. Who was it? Why Pete Cantu, of course. He’s still at it.
