We don’t need them in our communities. I don’t care how many get approved by local municipalities, my opinion remains unchanged.
Billboards suck. Communities have these monument monstrosities forced upon them and it is never about the community, it is about whomever is erecting them and the sheckels they can make. I know one billboard owner in particular who does not love my opinions. Macht nichts, dude, I am entitled to my opinion under the First Amendment like your ilk thinks it is a First Amendment right to erect billboards.
And not only do I think billboards are ugly, I think they are a driver distraction.
We were in Delaware over the weekend. We met people at Cantwell’s for an early dinner one night. I love Cantwell’s. It’s historic and the food is good.
And Odessa, DE? Odessa is one of my favorite little towns, ever. It’s quaint and historic and they take their history and preservation seriously. Awesome historical society with wonderful events. (Check out Historic Odessa Foundation.) Communities like Odessa, DE should be an example to other communities. They show you preservation IS possible and communities will embrace it.
Odessa and the surrounding small towns aren’t perfect. There are houses that you see that are distinctly unloved. But these communities are trying and it is SO nice to see farm and fields and water and a distinct lack of townhouses and ugly apartments. And there are some little bed & breakfast inns tucked here and there.
Because of the Sunday Delaware beach traffic, we took some windy and twisty back roads coming home. I saw some cool little crossroads towns and hamlets, all chock full of historic houses. Including in Port Penn, where I saw a fabulous but boarded up house owned by the State of Delaware. Another Linden Hall, AKA the Cleaver House.
“The Cleaver family dominated Port Penn throughout the nineteenth century. Joseph built this Federal-style brick house, which included an office and store at right, divided from the residence by a firewall. The whole resembles two urban town houses. Cleaver maintained the adjacent wharf, practiced law, founded an insurance company, served on the board of a bank, and was local postmaster. The contents of the house are known by a room-by-room probate inventory undertaken after his death in 1858. In 1977 a new owner altered the interior for rental units and redesigned the roof of the wing, which caused the front wall of that section to collapse. In 1994 the State of Delaware bought it.”
The State of Delaware hasn’t done much with it. It’s a beautiful structure even in decay. It was built around 1814. Thanks to the Port Penn Historical Society, I learned a little more about the property and found some old photos (mixed in with photos I took):
Yep, I can find old structures to be obsessed over everywhere. Also flew by the Augustine Inn…too fast to get photos so I looked them up. Also found the place written up in Delaware Today. And a piece on Augustine Beach too.
The Augustine Inn was on Ghost Detectives once upon a time:
Port Penn was kind of cute. Did not realize until I looked the area up that a lot of the houses were moved from Reedy Island. This is all on the Delaware River, which you take for granted exactly HOW wide it is until you see it again. The Augustine Wildlife Area is here. There are beaches too. Saw lots of folks fishing.
Delaware has a lot of cool little nooks and crannies. It was fun exploring them a little bit again. Just like Route 9 in NJ leads to some fun meandering, so does Route 9 (and other roads) in Delaware.
When I was little my family went to Avalon after we went to Ocean City. We started going to Avalon as a family in the early 1970s because Ocean City at that point was getting so overwhelmed by new development we didn’t like it as much.
We had friends who loved Avalon. They had houses on 17th St. and 13th St. and a couple back up on the bay in those fingers where all the new houses with docks were popping up.
Seeing videos wanted me to buy the history book that was referred to throughout these videos by Robert Penrose who passed away a year ago this time. So I hunted around and couldn’t find any copies of the book anywhere so I wrote to the Avalon History Center/Avalon Historical Society. Could I buy a book, make a donation, and pay for shipping.
I don’t know any nonprofit large or small that isn’t willing to ship items they sell. I wasn’t asking for the item to be shipped for free, I wasn’t on any particular time schedule, I just would like to buy a copy of the book and pay someone to ship it.
Guess what? They couldn’t possibly. Quite literally they won’t. They are small, they have dedicated volunteers, but they couldn’t possibly ship anything.
Now I am not some crazy wealthy heiress who’s going to leave them a bucket of money, but I am a lover of history and a supporter of historical societies and small history-based nonprofits. I will never give anyone tons of money because that’s not in my wheelhouse to do at this point in time, but I do support organizations like this with annual memberships and whatnot. And what I can’t do in check writing, I try to make up in kind by paying it forward as a blogger.
From California through to the Montauk Lighthouse I have never had a nonprofit say they wouldn’t be willing to send me something if I was willing to pay to ship it. and for the most part I’m not talking huge non-profits.
I don’t go to Avalon anymore. It’s quite simply too built up for me. The last visits to the Jersey shore were years ago, and seriously? In South Jersey with the exception of Cape May a lot of these other towns have lost their charm because the development took over. So it’s not like I’m going to summer down there and I can just ride my bike over to the history center and pick up a copy of the book.
And I don’t really think I should impose on anyone to pick up the book for me. It’s kind of the principle of the thing at this point.
Nonprofits can be very shortsighted. I’ve seen it around here. One of my favorite examples is the uber insular and I can’t believe they’re not dead already Radnor Conservancy. They are one of those nonprofits that I do not understand at all. I don’t even understand how they’re still in existence. and that’s just one example.
And people who work for nonprofits that would never send anything anywhere, started rethinking everything when Covid hit. All the zoom platform talks and lectures and gatherings, to yes indeed they would ship their gift items if you were willing to pay for it.
Quirky bits of history are kind of one of my things. That’s why I wanted the book on Avalon. But it’s not worth it to them to extend themselves to try to get more people interested and more donations. Because if these folks were willing to extend themselves, they would offer to ship books, T-shirts, memorabilia they sell. It’s not so difficult to do. And people understand with small nonprofit they might only ship a couple of times a month or something like that.
So I will close the door on wanting this book. And it will make me think twice about ever visiting Avalon in the future. Right or wrong it doesn’t leave a good impression.
I wish them all the best and keeping the history going on the island. And maybe someday a copy of the book will show up on eBay.
Let this be a cautionary tale to small nonprofits. and having volunteered with very small nonprofits in my life, I usually found them to be the most generous of nonprofits —-the fewer the hands the more open the hearts.
I used to love Avalon as a kid. I stopped going in my mid to late 20s because the more it got developed, the less I liked it.
When I was a kid there was the penny candy story on 7th street. A tiny cedar shake shingled general store down around 7th street that had penny candy. Once when we were really little a friend of our parents and their friends named Weezy gave us each $1 and told us to go “blow our minds.” Root beer barrels, Charleston Chews, Mary Janes, those little colored sugar dots on white paper, caramels, and more. My mother would maybe give us a quarter if we were really good.
When it rained at the beach it was like the sea and air met as one. I remember going as a little girl to the then tiny and old Avalon, NJ library. Not the new library that stands today, but the little old dark one which still stood in the early 1970s. When you went up the stairs and opened the doors they gave that old creaky and heaving sound. Inside the library was dark and had that beach smell of sand mingled with mildew. I remembered picking out well worn copies of Nancy Drew books to take home and read. Or maybe we would go to the Paper Peddler and buy a book or a copy of Mad Magazine (which my mother hated).
In those days, Avalon had really tall dunes and the island began at 7th street. The first few blocks of Avalon washed away before I was born. That was the famous Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962, which was truthfully a Hurricane Sandy-like storm. But the only a block of houses were swallowed by the sea at that time – 6th street. Below that had never been really developed because of tides. This 1962 storm was what caused the Avalon Hotel to be moved to 8th street. As a little girl I remember looking out over those beaches down by 7th street and wondering what the swallowed block of houses looked like? Was it a perfect bunch of houses just underwater like the fictional Atlantis, or a jumble of destruction? After watching the videos I discovered on You Tube which prompted this post, I learned more.
1970’s me photographed on the dunes probably between 10th and 17th streets in Avalon, NJ
When I was little, the dunes were magnificent. I remember going through the twisty beach paths with mountains of sand and dune grass and scrubby pines on either side and even some old beach (probably rugosa) roses. This is where I first fell in love with black eyed Susan’s and beach daisies which grew in and on the edges of the dunes along with other wild flowers and cacti. In the summers when I was little too you could often see the sea turtles come ashore and lay their eggs and then wait for them to hatch and see all the little turtles head for the sea. It’s where I first fell in love with waxy bayberry bushes, and those memories are why I am trying to get a pair to grow in my own garden.
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
Courtesy Avalon History Center Facebook Page or Google
These videos done by the Avalon History Center are wonderful. It takes you back to the 1700s…and all the way through to today. And with the 19th century photos what I never knew before was how heavily forested the island was. Cedars and oak trees…and even cattle at one point. In the late 19th century there was a sawmill on the island that gave developers back then their wood for structures…and eventually deforested the island.
13th Street Cabin
By the 1970s when we first started going to Avalon because Ocean City even down in the gardens was getting too developed, Avalon was developing but there was still a lot of room and cool old houses. The grey monster a big grey stone house around 10th street, and the cute little yellow cottage around the corner. I was fascinated by the old houses, a lot of them literally humble cottages. My parents’ friends owned the historic cabin on 13th street once owned by Woodrow Wilson when he was at Bryn Mawr College.
Listening to the history lectures presented by the Avalon History Center I literally watched a time line of how a small community became overdeveloped over time, including a garish recent example known as the Utz house that is this utterly vulgar high dune gobbling mega McMansion that created such a battle it even made the New York Times.
The New York Times also featured the reminiscences of a beach goer long ago that resonated. Jen Miller is her name. She talks about her memories before it became a summer McMansion boom town:
“On a hot August afternoon in the late 1990s, I waited at Donnelly’s Deli in Avalon, N.J., for our family’s sandwich order. This was a rare treat. We were a bologna-and-cheese-on-white-bread kind of family, loading up the car with beach chairs and boogie boards and a basket of towels for the drive to the Avalon beach from our trailer at a campground a few miles away.
I totally get her sentiments. I am one of those who remembers communities in the proverbial “way back when” of it all for lack of a better description. But what we see happening in and already has happened in quaint beach communities is happening on an even larger scale out here. Farms and estates and any open space getting gobbled up for condos, townhouses, and housing developments of all shapes and sizes where it’s crap, not quality construction and it’s packing them in like lemmings. You can’t even garden in a lot of these communities.
Watch these videos. It’s a cautionary tale as well as being a very well done history of a place I once loved…before McMansions and trying to make it the South Jersey Hamptons. The difference is in the Hamptons, they actually DO historic and open space preservation, it’s just ungodly expensive.
Oh and don’t forget to check out the news about the high rise in Miami that had half the building just collapse overnight. Surfside. Some news report said something about what the building was built on and how it was sinking. (see this story HERE.) This news is a cautionary tale of development for sure, and it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
And some day in a time far far away, maybe some historical society will be doing oral history videos and presentations where we live, and will talk of a time before pipelines arrives, and development gobbled up all the forests, farms, open space, and little hamlets.
For reals, Upper Uwchlan? Another Toll Brothers development?
I mean seriously, how many more fields of plastic Troll houses does one municipality need?
This is on the agenda for this evening June 21. I’ve included what I found on their website and a helpful screenshot of some of the who is who in this Township, and don’t you find it fascinating that the township solicitor who is the township solicitor in a lot of other townships locally as well where big developments are pending including Troll Brothers?
Between the proposed use of eminent domain in East Goshen to the continued travails of “Berwyn Square“ or whatever they’re calling it now in Easttown, to Crebilly in Westtown, development of the week in East Whiteland, West Whiteland, and more, poor Chester County is going to cave into the ground from development and possibly even bad pipelines, right?
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but figured people should know. Thanks for stopping by.
I had a grandmother who was Pennsylvania German. We called her Mumma. When I think of summer salads I often think of her.
I made homemade coleslaw because my vegetable box this week had a lovely fresh head of cabbage. I minced up the cabbage, grated a couple of carrots, added 1/3 cup minced sweet onion.
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons maple syrup 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
You whisk the dressing together and add the cabbage, carrots, and onion to it and mix it all together. Chill.
The second summer salad I made was a three bean salad. I use whatever cans of 3 different beans I have at the time. This time it was one can cannellini beans, one can pink beans, one can great northern beans.
To the beans I add a diced red onion (or yellow onion depending on what’s in the fridge) and a simple vinaigrette with extra garlic. Salt and pepper to taste, a few tablespoons of minced up fresh dill. Chill.
So….I did a FOIA Right to Know. I will genuinely compliment the new manager Derek Davis at East Goshen, as he appears to be a straight shooter and has been pleasant to deal with. Poor guy having to deal with the eminent domain triplets (Shane, Shuey, Lynch.)
I also keep getting all sorts of messages. From people against it to people who think I don’t understand. I do understand: the Hicks family have a working farm, equine based businesses. This is THEIR land and they said NO. And it doesn’t matter if they sold some land in the past, they don’t want to sell land now.
And you can’t compare East Goshen wanting to use eminent domain over a trail that might never be completed with Delaware County seizing Don Guanella land. If they didn’t the Archdiocese of Philadelphia which is perpetually cash strapped due to things like pedophile priests would sell out to a developer. Just look at Downingtown. And Delaware County is doing that to protect open space in a very developed area. That is very different from this.
But one thing I am curious about are wetlands on the Hicks farm I have been told about? And the path would go through them? Where are all the environmental studies? And endangered species there? Endangered plant species? Why are there so many loose ends on the part of East Goshen? Where are they with West Goshen? I mean isn’t there a lot of stuff that should be ironed out BEFORE anyone chats eminent domain?
And with the whole West Goshen and East Goshen I do not get why they details between townships are not seemingly complete considering the relationships, right? East Goshen’s new manager used to be West Goshen’s assistant township manager, right? And both municipalities have the same solicitor, right?
And emotions are running high, which is what eminent domain does. It disrupts; tears apart communities. People can be passionate for sure, but must keep civil, cool heads.
And I have heard talk of a Go Fund Me, but haven’t seen anything. And for those objecting to former State Rep. Dan Truitt being interested in this and advocating for the Hicks family like he did at the meeting the other night? It is his right. He is not in my opinion creating a conflicting situation for his wife Michelle Truitt who is one the East Goshen supervisors against this.
East Goshen can stop the madness now if they choose. Only Chairman Shuey seems to find this all very politically expedient for him….like he found it politically expedient to object to Sunoco/Energy Transfer’s use of eminent domain and to object to the eminent domain that was threatened for the traffic circle plan that went away at 352 and King Rd. It’s a classic case of do as I say, not as I do. And wouldn’t he do himself a favor no matter what side of this issue he is on to tone down his bully pulpit on the dais in East Goshen? His behavior was horrible the other night and somewhat unacceptable. And that Lynch supervisor has a hard time staying on topic doesn’t he? Also does not seem not particularly pleasant in a public forum. And Marty Shane? Dude, your old paw prints are all over this aren’t they? And so they name a path after you when you’re gone as rumor has it, but is this nasty legacy the one you will settle for?
We close the week out here in Chester County with this issue continuing to grow. It makes me sad because it doesn’t have to happen AND East Goshen has other alternatives. East Goshen can choose OTHER than eminent domain.
Well here is what was released to me via the Right to Know. I am making it public and there was NOT any note saying I could NOT make this public. Direct questions to East Goshen.
I keep getting these emails….from the Progressive Women’s Leadership who say they are located right in Malvern PA at 384 Technology Drive.
Never heard of them before the spamalot e-mails. They always invite me to these fakakta seminars:
I lead myself and I am my own team, so why do I need their expertise? Oh and here is who they supposedly are, again, right here in Malvern:
Funny thing is…they are the same address HR Morning, Progressive Business Publications, and Learn Excel Now…Learn Excel Now also sends me junk e-mail.
Oh and the reviews of these spamalots is very amusing. See this wee snippet:
384 Technology Drive is a hopping place. This is the Kingdom of Spamalot. And they do not take you off of their lists you did not ask to be on in the first place.
What is totally amazing is some troll reached out to me from LinkedIn who claims to work for this company and well I’ll let you read his unsolicited message for yourselves. What is it with these people? I’m not a user. I don’t want anything to do with them. I never saw them out. I never signed up for anything. It’s Spamalot and apparently this is King Arthur:
Maybe I will hit up AG Josh Shapiro on Twitter to ask him about Spamalot Malvern.
Sometimes you have to giggle as a blogger. You get certifiable nutbags who leave comments. Some threatening, some menacing, some just plain stupid.
Today I am sharing the stupid variety. First up is “Max”, who got lost in spam from jump. “Max” is offended that I don’t think a college student with no life experience is a serious choice for a school board in GVSD. Let the kid get a job, support a family, pay real estate taxes, and have actual kids in the school district…not be a kid who graduated a couple of years ago (2019). Lauren Dicranian may have made it to the November ballot along with Alex Enderle, but neither are suitable candidates…they just happen to be like all of the other unsuitable candidates the Chester County Republican Party is getting behind because they have so few actually qualified and decent candidates after Trump…and recent scandals of those who loved Trump and have to pay back that cookie jar they had their paws in, well what next?
Then there is the rando from the IP address says Florida. “Tany” who thinks “Democrats are evil and have false flags.” “Tany” kept writing until “Tany” went to spam. “Tany” had written in about my Devin Nunes robo calls post. I will note that after I called my Congresswoman’s office the calls which had been going on for quite a while have stopped. “Tany” also said the calls were actually done by Democrats and supposedly Nunes said they weren’t him. (Newsweek once devoted an entire article on Nunes conspiracy theories as in he has lots of them.) Well I didn’t hear from Nunes or his office about that, so I am going with they originate from him and /or his campaign.
I will also note I have plenty of issues with Democrats. Like why they don’t do more about pipelines and the safety of Chester County and other Pennsylvania residents, but that is a post for another day.
I have always been an equal opportunity offender when it comes to politics. That probably won’t change. Republicans feel I pick on them? Well I was a life long Republican until 2016 and have been aghast as what they have done since then. And let’s talk the lack of plausible deniability for a lot of them over January 6th? Are we going to pretend the Capitol Riots never happened? (Oh check this out about the Internet sleuths hunting down these people.)
Haters of blogs and bloggers is nothing new. We’re not breaking new ground here. What I will never understand is why is their opinion the one we are supposed to pay attention to? Isn’t the world a big enough place for multiple opinions?
Maybe Haters are indeed just confused admirers, after all?
I read local municipality agendas. It’s a very easy way to learn what’s going on around you. and when I read the most recent one for East Goshen Township warning bells went off in my head.
So….let’s get to it. Has anyone looked at East Goshen Township’s upcoming BOS Agenda? There is some special and interestingly worded language about a potential “right of way land acquisition” for the Paoli Pike Trail and the Hicks Farm. (Item 11 “New Business”)
When you read that after reading item 5B which refers to “Executive session” and “legal matter pertaining to the Paoli Pike trail”, if you have ever followed eminent domain cases it makes you wonder what East Goshen Township is up to precisely doesn’t it?
Read the agenda and ask those supervisors some questions….at the meeting.
At what cost do trails get built? And is this where they were talking development a while back?
Eminent Domain is something I despise. I helped find it successfully many years ago in Ardmore thanks to our groups help from the Institute for Justice in Washington DC. I learned about both kinds of eminent domain, private gain and public purpose. And municipalities love to say public purpose is for the public good but is it always for the public good?
Since I saw these items on the agenda I have been asking around. And I was told that indeed residents did receive an eminent domain letter from East Goshen Township. And then I saw this:
I went through the public meeting packet for East Goshen Township for their upcoming meeting. And there is nothing like taking letter included in the packet and that should be publicly posted. Because if they’re doing it for the public good, don’t hide it in executive session agenda items which I have to ask is that what they’re trying to do?
Ok East Goshen there is building a walkable community and then there is bullsheit. This,East Goshen, is bullsheit .
I am all for walking trails. And I love the trails that East Goshen has in their park down the road. But this this is crap. I mean what are they going to do connect their trail with West Chester Borough? I mean do they want to connect their trail to 202 or something?
I have not seen the eminent domain taking letter, only told by a few sources that it exists. If the owners want to make it public I am happy to publish it because Imms always going to have a problem with eminent domain. And I don’t think this has anything to do with public purpose I think this has to do with legacy building on the part of some of these supervisors and that is WRONG.
And when I saw this editorial, it did make me realize that Chester county does have an eminent domain problem from time to time and this is one of those times.
And East Goshen? Time to be public about this. And stop the madness. Why is it farms especially farms with horses have to be subjected to eminent domain takings? Aren’t enough things like overdevelopment threatening the equine and agricultural history and traditions of this county as it is???
Other things East Goshen is NOT considering is the impact this would have on a working farm or how this not might but would affect their liability and liability coverage.
Trails are like a shiny new bauble for municipalities but they have to be done and created for the right reasons. If East Goshen wants to use eminent domain it’s the wrong reason.
Farmers and equestrians I am asking you to stand with concerned East Goshen residents and the Hicks family Tuesday , June 15th at this IN PERSON meeting at EAST GOSHEN TOWNSHIP located at 1580 Paoli Pike West Chester, PA 19380. The meeting starts at 7 PM. If my friend the late Dick Saha was still on this earthly plane I know for sure he would be there with his farmer friends.
Also, I encourage people and media to FLOOD East Goshen with emails and calls:
Eeast Goshen Township Building East Goshen Township 1580 Paoli Pike West Chester, PA 19380-6199 Phone: (610) 692-7171 Fax: (610) 692-8950 Office hours 8:00 am – 5:00 pm Please note that you must wear a mask when entering the building.
Giddy up folks. This farm needs our support. And East Goshen? While I respect a lot of what you do, I don’t respect this and I am entitled to my opinion.
