Community debates Arts Council's plans to expand facilities
In a small town like Princeton, everyone has a role to play. But the size of the role ? of the Borough government, of the neighborhoods, of the University ? all depends on the angle from which one views the stage, and how closely one listens to the lines.The Arts Council of Princeton ? a non-profit community arts organization located on the corner of Witherspoon Street and Paul Robeson Place ? has proposed an expansion to more aptly perform what it considers to be its role in the community.The proposed expansion, once rejected by the Borough planning board and recently revamped, would more adequately serve the council's more than 40,000 patrons by adding a new performance space, gallery and Communiversity room, as well as completing handicap-accessible building renovations.In the view of many members of the John-Witherspoon community, a mostly black and hispanic neighborhood that abuts the arts council to the north, the expansion would do more to harm rather than serve them.Last December, the planning board voted six to five against the arts council proposal, finding that the proposed building would be an "increased burden" on the neighborhood, "not in harmony with the development of this residential district and detrimental to the adjacent properties on Green Street." The current proposal, a scaled-down version of its predecessor, has yet to be finalized.For African-American members of the John-Witherspoon neighborhood, an expansion of the arts council represents not only an "increased burden," but also another step in a long pattern of injustice.Until the construction of Palmer Square in 1936, the homes of black families extended almost all the way to Nassau Street.