All posts by bfiggefox

“While buttons may seem to most like a common adornment that graces our daily apparel, so many of them possess historical value, are crafted from exquisite materials, and have been a masterpiece created by some of the most talented artisans around.”

So wrote Michelle Daino, for the Home News Tribune and the Courier News, about the button show tomorrow (September 13)

The New Jersey State Button Society (NJSBS) will present the fall s annual show and competition on Saturday, Sept. 13, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Union Fire Co., 1396 River Road (Route 29), in Titusville.

Paula Gentile, a representative from the Blumenthal Lansing Co., a button manufacturer that dates back to 1877, will give a talk on “Modern Button Design: From Concept to Finished Product.” A dozen dealers from four states will offer buttons suitable for quilters, crafters, re-enactors, and those seeking special buttons to wear. A button raffle and award presentations are also planned.

Here is the story as published in the two Gannett papers:

Thanks to Daino for a good story.

Giving Away $5 Million Per Year

Business, Technology & Innovation, , , ,

rita allen christopherson

Money is always fun to talk about, to hear about. Big money is even more fun to hear about — especially when it is dispensed locally and you know a nonprofit that is getting some.

And I’m always fascinated by the person giving away the money. In this case, speaking at the Princeton Regional Chamber breakfast on  Wednesday, September 17, it’s Elizabeth Christopherson, CEO of the Rita Allen Foundation and former head of New Jersey Network.

I interviewed Christopherson two years ago for U.S. 1, asking her what it was like to go from a nonprofit that needed foundation money, to leading the foundation that actually gave the money. She had just moved into her office on Nassau Street, over Hamilton Jewelers.  At that time she revealed that “— despite her genteel women’s club demeanor, she is going hell-bent-for-leather on effecting transformative change.” (My words, not hers.)

She heads one of the larger foundations in New Jersey. The monies for it came from Rita Allen’s first husband, Charles Allen, known as ‘the Shy Midas of Wall Street,’ founder of Allen & Company, the prominent boutique firm that is famously averse to publicity.  That’s a story in itself.

Now the  $140 million foundation grants more than $5 million per year. Previous grantees have been Isles Inc. and Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association.

Looking at the current web page for the foundation, it seems to me that Christopherson has realigned its focus. And she has planted it firmly in the 21st century. For instance, the website offers a social media guide for nonprofits, a downloadable PDF.

I’m eager to hear how Christopherson has settled into the job. Two years ago she admitted that what sounds easy — giving away money — is not easy. “There are not enough funds, and we try to be as strategic as we can be,” she said.  “It is very difficult to say no when you care — and we do care.” 

For sale in heart of town: 11 Green Street

Around Town, , ,

11 greene photo

I’d like to help sell this house and this is a blatant ad. It is listed by Marty Stockton of Stockton Real Estate for $419,000. Details here.

And here. Bids will be opened Tuesday.

Lots of people are interested in the house, and no wonder, because of its location. It is on the outer edge of the historic Witherspoon Jackson neighborhood, across the street from the Arts Council of Princeton and you can see the Princeton Public Library from the porch. Local lore says that the founder of the First Baptist Church lived here.

Yes, it needs work, but it’s worth saving. I think the real esate lingo is “Needs TLC.” It 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, lots of light and a nice lot.

The reason why I am involved in selling this turn-of-the-century house is that I am co-executor of a will, and the will says we have to sell it. Even though I never lived in it, I’m hoping to find the perfect buyer.

If you are interested, contact Marty.  She will have an open house this Sunday, September 14, 2 to 4 p.m. Parking may be a problem that day. But if you lived here, you would never need a parking place.

From Nikki Stern’s Vantage Point

Around Town, , ,

Nikki Stern’s quote opened the 9/11/2014 article in the New York Times on the Family Room, “which served for a dozen years as a most private sanctuary from a most public horror.”

“What tower? What floor? That was the way other people saw our loved ones,” said Nikki Stern, whose husband, James E. Potorti, was among those killed on Sept. 11, 2001. “It was adamantly not how we wanted to define our loved ones. The Family Room was the beginning of the storytelling that was controlled by the families.”

I saw Stern at the U.S. 1 writer’s party in August. The author of two books and an in-demand speaker (she  belongs to the speakers bureau of the Center For Inquiry) , she wrote a review of the new 9/11 memorial for U.S. 1 Newspaper. She served on the advisory committee for the museum, and notes,

One thing was clear: while other memorial space designers had the advantage of perspective, we had to supply it. Three years out isn’t much of a vantage point.

I am grateful for the chance to read about the museum from Stern’s vantage point.

 

 

Shakespeare without fear

Dance and the other arts, ,

There’s so much sensuality in the opening scene of Antony & Cleopatra, as staged by Emily Mann at McCarter, that you forget to be intimidated by the language. You are too busy ogling Esau  Prichett (what a hunk) and Nicole Ari Parker (hot for him) as they seduce and cavort.

If you read the synopsis in the program, you can follow the plot just fine. The action moves seamlessly between Egypt and Rome, and though the set doesn’t change (Elizabethans performed on a bare stage) you know exactly where you are because the lighting and the score sets the scene — harsh drums for Rome and whispered syncopations for Egypt.

It runs through October 5 in the smaller (Berlind) theater and 45 minutes before curtain time there is an introductory talk.

Full disclosure 1: Though I have never read this play, I was an English major and like Shakespeare.

Full Disclosure 2: You aren’t supposed to review a play in previews (we saw the first preview on 9/5) so this isn’t a review.

But I wanna say it was an edge-of-the-seat evening.

 

Here’s a religion story rife with irony. Millions of dollars from Jewish donors — intended to strengthen the bonds of the Jewish community — is now going to benefit the Wilberforce School, which bills itself as “a distinctively Christian school.”

Funds were being raised for a new Jewish Community Campus on Clarksville Road. When the funds dried up (story here) the property owner had to recoup his loss.  The Christian school counts this as “providence of God.”

‘What have you done for the world today?’

Business, Memoir, Technology & Innovation,

They had a party for Len Newton on Friday. There was a prayer. There was a military presentation of the American flag to Ruby, his widow. There were pictures, and speeches, and food, and memories of Len, who died at the age of 88 on July 19.

Most of all there was respect. Jim Floyd told of how Len helped to create Princeton’s first integrated neighborhood. Len marched in Washington for the “I Have a Dream” speech and again for its 50th anniversary.

Len was a stickler for accuracy and challenged lazy assumptions. In the ’80s and ’90s when U.S. 1 Newspaper staged forums, Len was first at the mike, asking the most challenging question. To an article about Opinion Research (the founder of Response Analysis, Len had pioneered at Opinion Research) he wrote an exquisitely measured letter, partly in praise, partly in correction.

Old age didn’t stop him from his passion for identifying a problem and trying mightily to correct it. When the recession hit, he enlisted the resources of the MIT Club (he had been the president) to create jobs in New Jersey. He talked and urged and bent ears to get people to join him in this effort. He enlisted competent people who helped stage an innovative job fair.

Len’s decline was swift — two months. As late as last year, he wrote urging me to note the passing of a pillar of his church, Witherspoon Presbyterian, the first church in Princeton to have significant racial diversity. As late as February of this year, Len was writing notes to Rich Rein at U.S. 1 Newspaper

An example of how he was amazingly active, even to the end: He astounded me and everyone else by showing up for a breakfast at Jasna Polana, where I was one of the keynote speakers. He didn’t tell me he was coming. He just hopped on a bus and got out at the corner of the vast golf course. Never mind that the entrance was a mile down another road. Somehow he made his way through the back entrance of the estate and found his way to the clubhouse for the gala occasion. In the pouring rain.

When Len Newton wanted to accomplish something, he didn’t take negative answers. His granddaughter summed his philosophy in a poignant speech at the wake, saying — whenever she saw him, he would always ask, “What have you done for the world today?”

A Facebook friend (Wayne Meisel) recently asked for tips for college freshmen and I grumpily replied something like “ignore all advice.” But on the editorial page of today’s Times of Trenton I found some Really Good Tips from Anne Waldron Neumann. Worth clipping. Worthy of my favorite returning student, Stephanie B.

Counting Schlegel’s column noted in the previous post, that makes two good articles in today’s paper. Support local journalism! John Oliver would agree. Here is his hilarious riff as sent to me by Scott Tilden.