When we moved to Grovers Mill in 1957 from Princeton, few of our friends knew where we were going. If you had lived in Princeton then for a short time, chances were you had never heard of a place called West Windsor. There was Princeton Junction, of course, and places called Penns Neck and Dutch Neck, and — maybe — Edinburgh. But that was it for places to the east of Princeton. In fact, there was even uncertainty as to what direction you were going if you went to Princeton Junction or to Route 1. Today, Route 1 is carefully labeled as going north and south. Then, however, there were many who thought of it as going east and west. If you went to New York from Princeton, you went east. After all, everyone knew New York was east of Philadelphia.
But, directions aside, what was really out there toward Route 1 and Princeton Junction? Most people would have said, “farms.” There were still quite a few in Princeton Township then, as well as in the surrounding area in all directions. Except for Trenton, and the boroughs of Princeton, Hopewell, Hightstown, and Pennington, most of Mercer County was farmland. And this was long before there was any talk of “preserving” it, since the question of “developing” it had not yet become an issue. There were farms where the fields were and there were towns where the houses were. Naturally, each farm had a “farmhouse” where the farmer and his family lived. In this area, at least, the post-war building “boom” had barely begun.
The first housing development we became aware of was Colonial Park. This was a bunch of new houses on Penn Lyle Road a bit east of Clarksville Road. The first new street there was Canoe Brook Drive, and the last was Colonial Avenue. They were connected by Princeton Place and Nassau Place, which, in turn, were connected by Ziff Lane. This first part of Colonial Park to be built included about 60 houses. Eventually it became about double that size after Quaker Road, University Way, and Jeffrey Lane were added.
The notable thing about the new houses in Colonial Park was that some of them were of the new “split-level” design, meaning that a portion of the floor plan was single story with an adjoining portion having two stories, with the floor of the single-story portion part-way between the floors of the other portion. About that time we also learned that a new development of about 20 houses had been built on Alexander Road between Route 1 and the D&R Canal. It was called Glen Acres and was unique for being the first racially integrated development in the area.
Little by little the landscape of West Windsor began to change as some farmers chose to retire and sell their land to developers who saw great promise in the real estate future of this area — not just in West Windsor, but in the rest of this part of central New Jersey, as well.
Houses began going up near Edinburgh, Dutch Neck, and along the east side of Washington Road, as a sort of extension of Penns Neck and Fisher Place. The houses associated with Wallingford Drive on the other side of Washington Road came much later. In our own Grovers Mill area, new houses started to appear on the “farm next door” in the late 1960s — some of them on Cranbury Road. Steele Drive was the first new road to be built in that area.
With all the new housing there also came the businesses the new residents would patronize. When we arrived in 1957 almost everyone shopped in Princeton. If you lived in parts of the township closer to Hightstown or Hamilton, you went there, but the shopping was usually better in Princeton. By 1962 there was a new shopping center there on Harrison Street that included an A&P and an Acme, as well as restaurants and other stores, including a Bambergers department store. After Sears opened a store in Trenton in the early ‘60s, you might even go there, although it was hard to get there before they built the Trenton “bypass.” (That didn’t actually bypass Trenton, but just the road blockages you had to go around to get there. But also about that time a new highway bridge was built across the Delaware River that carried Route 1, so it became much easier to bypass Trenton completely if you wanted to.)
During our first few years in West Windsor, there were very few options for food shopping except to go to Princeton. There were “general” stores in Dutch Neck and Edinburgh, but you couldn’t do a “complete” shopping at either one. There was also Aaron Salkin’s Penns Neck Food Center where the pizza place is now on Washington Road. And right next door — although not a food store — was Perna the florist, possibly now the longest-lived business in the township.
Other important and long-lived businesses in West Windsor then included the lumber yard Conover and Emmons, on Hightstown Road where the PNC Bank is today, and Schaefer’s service station across the road near where the Rite Aid is. Schaefer’s was not only a gas station but also a sort of small general store. You could buy newspapers, magazines, comic books, milk, sodas, and penny candy there. It sold Tydol gasoline when we first came here. As far as milk was concerned, we had it delivered each day by Borden’s, whose driver left it in an insulated box by our front door. Eggs we bought from Mr. Anderson on Cranbury Road.
Surprisingly, there were several businesses on Route 1 near the Penns Neck traffic circle, in addition, that is to the four gas stations there — one on each “corner.” There was also an official office of the New Jersey State Police. It wasn’t a barracks as there is now up the road a way in Plainsboro, but just an office where troopers could keep patrol cars and take care of police business.
Our favorite store there sold lamps. Since we had just moved into our new house, we needed a new lamp for a wall location in our dining room, and we found just what we needed right there in Penns Neck. The lamp still hangs where we put it 50 years ago. Just a few years after we bought it, the shop moved from Penns Neck to Lambertville.
A most interesting part of West Windsor to us in those days was the land between Route 1 and Lake Carnegie, from Alexander Road to Harrison Street. After a while, we came to realize that most of it belonged to Princeton University. Exceptions were the Penns Neck school at Alexander Road and the businesses on Route 1.
As time went on, we learned more about all that land and what it was used for. Especially when our first two children attended the Penns Neck School, we came to know some of the other parents and learned a lot more about the area because of where they lived.
One family we got to know lived on Logan Drive, a small L-shaped road that connected lower Harrison Street with Route 1. Rick, one of their sons, was a classmate of our son. On frequent social visits with them we learned a lot about the area where they lived since Rick’s mother was the daughter of a former attorney for Princeton University. That’s how we learned that the university actually owned the houses on Logan Drive. It was also through her that we became aware of the annual Princeton Hospital Fete, which was held each spring on another part of the same university-owned land between Route 1 and the lake.
There will be much more to say about the hospital fete, as well as some of the other people from that area who we got to know. For now, I will say that one of the neighbors in that area was a pioneering female airplane pilot. I knew her husband, who worked in research administration at Princeton University. They had some exciting flying stories to tell. On the other side of Washington Road, there are the stories of dredging Lake Carnegie and the governor’s helipad. A lot of interesting stuff has happened in West Windsor that has nothing to do with building new houses.
