Monday night’s final Borough Council meeting was enlivened by interruptions of official business to celebrate Borough Council President Creagan, who has served for a total of eight years. Creagan’s calm and measured demeanor, cited by many of his colleagues throughout the meeting, was on display last night as he simultaneously ran an efficient meeting, paused to address a community-merit-badge-seeking Boy Scout in the audience, and found affectionate words for all.
Swarthmorean Leticia Roa Nixon recently worked both behind and in front of the camera in Day of the Dead festivals in Philadelphia. As a member of an Aztec dance group, she danced in Love Park and at Fleisher Art Memorial in early November, then turned to video recording and editing to capture the pageantry, magic, and cultural significance of Día de los Muertos processions and celebrations involving members of Philadelphia’s varied Latin communities.
Sophie Jackson, a sixth grader from Swarthmore, participated in the Saint Lucia celebration at the American Swedish Historical Museum earlier this month. This Christian feast day and celebration of lights commemorating the Italian martyr Saint Lucia marks the beginning of the holiday season for many Scandinavians.
The dark filled with color and light. Timeless. Respectful silence filled with song. Timeless. A community come together in a decades-old tradition. It has been 81 years since the first production of the Pageant of the Nativity here in Swarthmore. This dream of Charles D. Mitchell, director of the Swarthmore Players, came to fruition under his direction at 5:30 in the evening of December 18, 1938. Set in Clothier Memorial Chapel on the Swarthmore College campus, the pageant attracted 2,500 attendees — so many that a second presentation had to be given at 7:00.
When the British Consulate in New York called Emma Morgan-Bennett, Swarthmore College class of 2020, to congratulate her on becoming a Marshall Scholar, she started shaking. It was partly in response to the news, partly because she was taking an ice bath. “I was in a bit of shock until my [volleyball] teammates and I jumped out of the bath and started screaming together,” says the Honors medical anthropology special major from New York, N.Y. “And then, of course, I couldn’t stop smiling.”
Thanks to readers for heeding the call in last week’s article to keep the submissions coming. While observations may decrease at this time of year, species like the hooded merganser and brown creeper are only resident in this area in winter. So keep looking — the seasonal variation is part of what keeps it interesting.
The Swarthmore Senior Citizens Association (SSCA) Sidewalk Committee met in June with Borough Manager Jane Billings and Ross Schmucki, chair of council’s Public Works Committee, to discuss sidewalk regulation and repair. Homeowners in the borough are responsible for maintaining their own sidewalks, and the borough code is precise in its specifications. At the same time, repairing a sidewalk can be expensive. Getting rid of the sidewalk permit fee was a recommendation of the SSCA. Was it approved?
In these past three weeks, observations have been sparse — a few surprising herps, but mostly birds that migrate here in winter. I mistakenly predicted a few weeks ago that reptile observations had likely finished for the year, and then I saw a ribbon snake on a sunny 50° day in my yard.
Kick off 2020 — and the Swarthmore Recreation Association’s 80th year — by participating in SRA’s annual New Year’s Day 5K and kids’ races on Wednesday, January 1.
Dr. Kristopher Brown will be leaving his position as principal of Strath Haven High School (SHHS) in January 2020. In her report at the Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board meeting on Monday night, Superintendent Lisa A. Palmer announced that she hopes to fill the position on an interim basis with someone from within the district. She anticipates naming an interim principal in the next few weeks.
Thanks to the dozens of you who responded to The Swarthmorean’s online survey about short-term rentals in Swarthmore. It was exciting to see people interacting with the paper in real time, and to know that so many of you are eager to weigh in on issues affecting the town. We are presenting the results of the unscientific survey here, along with comments by those who gave us permission to publish them. Ultimately, 78 people participated.
Later this week, in a pretty Victorian house on Park Avenue in Swarthmore, a group of six women artists and makers will carry half the furniture upstairs. They’ll move the remaining tables and cabinets around until they’ve created just the right backdrop. Then they’ll begin arranging their work: jewelry, handbags, photographs, candles shaped like pinecones and beehives. Hat stands, tea towels, bowls made from salvaged wood. By Thursday evening, they’ll be ready to pour the wine, set out the cookies, and welcome the public. The fifth annual Handmade Holiday Home Sale will have begun.
The Swarthmore Nativity Pageant Committee has already begun preparations for the 42nd biennial Pageant of the Nativity. A Christmas tradition in Swarthmore since 1938, the pageant customarily has been presented every other year. It consists of five scenes from the Old and New Testaments, with narration of the Scripture and choral accompaniment.
Swarthmore’s Environmental Advisory Council (EAC)’s November 26 meeting was largely spent reviewing goals from 2011 and assessing how much progress has been made toward those goals to date. That year, a state grant funded a Temple University greenhouse gas inventory and action plan for the four communities of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District. Recommendations were made for specific steps municipal governments and broader communities could take to reduce future emissions — everything from encouraging residents to limit car trips to planting more trees.
The intersection of Yale and Cornell avenues was the focus of much of Borough Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting on November 19. The junction was the site of two accidents in recent weeks, so Chair Mary Walk asked Swarthmore Police Chief Raymond C. Stufflet to provide data on the number of accidents there over the last year.
Strath Haven High School Principal Kristopher Brown will be the next District Equity Officer of Abington Township. “This is a very unique opportunity to do work that I am incredibly passionate about in the community I grew up in and the school where my passion to become an educator was born,” Brown wrote in a letter to parents. “It has truly been a fantastic opportunity for me to work in this community, and I am better for having had the chance to be here and work to continue to provide a great experience for the students and the Wallingford-Swarthmore community.”
The thorny subject of Swarthmoreans renting out their homes for short periods of time was debated by the Planning and Zoning Committee of Swarthmore Borough Council at its monthly meeting on November 14. The issue was brought to the committee’s attention by neighbors of a house frequently rented out on Airbnb—sometimes to large groups—when the owners are away.
An unofficial theme has emerged in this Thanksgiving week issue of The Swarthmorean: community. We talked with two Swarthmoreans who recently moved back to the borough about what this place means to them, and both of them cited a sense of community as a special quality of the town.
The historic Thomas Leiper House will host its annual Colonial Christmas Open House on Sunday, December 15, from 1-5 p.m. The rooms are decorated by six local garden clubs, and refreshments will include a birthday cake honoring Mr. Leiper’s December 15, 1745 birth in Strathaven, Scotland.
The walkway along Providence Rd. (rte. 252) in Wallingford will receive a major upgrade thanks to a $500,000 state grant for sidewalk installation. State Representative Leanne Krueger (D-161) announced the grant from the Multimodal Transportation Fund to Nether Providence Township, stating, “This project will make our community more walkable and improve pedestrian safety, including for students in our region.”
