Dr. Daniel Soffer practices internal medicine and cardiology at Penn Internal Medicine in Media and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He lives in Swarthmore. The Swarthmorean called him for his perspective on the COVID-19 outbreak.
It feels wrong — discordant — that the issue of the Swarthmorean published during the first full week of our COVID-19 anxiety is the summer camp issue. Of course, special issues are planned a long time in advance. Still, maybe it’s not so bad.
The following statements were given by district parents and students during the public comment section of the March 9 Wallingford-Swarthmore school board meeting. The speakers were responding to the removal of three books on LGBTQ+ subjects from a fifth-grade classroom library.
It’s hard for parents to know what to let their children do during the COVID-19 outbreak — how to keep them safe and also keep them occupied. The following email was sent to a group of high school boys by their mothers.
What’s that old Petula Clark song? “When you’re alone and life is making you weary, you can always go…” To the ’Ville! At least that’s the way it’s sung in Swarthmore, where a plurality of respondents to Unscientific Survey No. 4 reported using that name for the central part of town.
When Plush Mills started 12 years ago, we had lousy food and great coffee. Every time the food service changed, we told the new guys, “You can fix the lousy food, but don’t touch the coffee!” They didn’t. Now the food here is good. Sometimes it’s even great, especially since Frank, our executive chef, learned the new sous-vide system of cooking.
Board president David Grande emended usual procedure to open the meeting with a statement. Over the past week, he said, the community had been dealing with a number of challenges — coronavirus, field trip anxieties, questions about sleep and school start times, and concerns over what the district is doing around diversity and inclusion. Many people had been in touch with the board about these and other issues, Grande said. “I want to make sure everyone knows that we receive your messages and read each and every one of them.”
Firefighters were called to the Swarthmore Apartments at 111 S. Chester Road on Sunday, March 8, at 6:07 a.m. for a “general basement fire alarm.” First on the scene was Assistant Chief Rick Lee, who entered the building to size up the situation. Opening the boiler room door, he saw an orange glow on top of the boiler, and heavy smoke, whereupon he quickly closed the door and backed out of the building.
Approval of Swarthmore College’s land development plan for building a new dining hall and reconfiguring the existing Sharples Dining Hall as a student activity building passed unopposed at Monday evening’s Swarthmore Borough Council Meeting. The council also discussed preparedness for a local outbreak of COVID-19.
When it comes to changes in voting, Delaware County’s new paper-ballot machines have gotten the lion’s share of the attention. But an equally important change is being made across the entire state. PA Act 77, signed into law late last year, permits mail-in voting for every voter who wants it. Here’s how it will work, and how it’s different from absentee voting.
It’s noon on Tuesday, and I’m sitting at my desk at home, still in my pajamas. I got up extra early this morning to finish the article (in this issue) about last night’s quite emotional and unusually interesting Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board meeting. Now I want to write something about the new coronavirus. No one in Swarthmore — no one in the school district — has tested positive. But not writing about it seems like ignoring the elephant in the room.
Trees are now available from the Borough’s Street Tree Committee to Swarthmore Borough residents who wish to plant a street tree this spring, or replace a tree that has been lost. Ordering deadline is Friday, March 20. A limited number of trees are available.
When you drive down Chester Road in Swarthmore these days, you may notice a house you haven’t seen before — or at least not for a long while. 211 S. Chester Road has been hidden behind thick trees and overgrowth for years. In December, a great crane drove onto the property and began taking down the trees. Now, two months later, not only has the ground been more or less cleared, the house itself has been emptied. This is its story.
I walked home from the Swarthmore Borough Council work session this warm winter evening, wondering whether I should write up the meeting for the paper. There were some interesting tidbits and new conversations. New to me, anyway. And if this newspaper doesn’t write about them, how will anyone know? Editorial
Anticipating continued discussion of the intersection of Yale and Cornell avenues, approximately 15 people showed up at Monday night’s meeting of the Swarthmore Borough Council Public Safety Committee. Eric Johnson of Pennoni Associates, the borough engineer, presented a study he conducted over several days in February. He was trying to determine whether the intersection meets the formal warrant for a four-way stop. He concluded that it does not.
Most of the February 24 meeting of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board was taken up with financial questions: capital improvements, bond refinancing, and responses to state policies.
Swarthmore College was defeated by Johns Hopkins 73-71 on Saturday, February 29, in a game that proved all the basketball-isms true: it’s hard to beat a team three times in a row; Sports Illustrated feature stories are always followed by bad luck; three-pointers are worth more than two-pointers; UCLA’s 88-game win streak will never be shattered; and, basketball games become way more interesting with four minutes left to play.
Last October, fifth graders at Swarthmore Rutledge School read about Indigenous Peoples’ Day in a Scholastic magazine. They were surprised to learn that few states formally celebrate the holiday - Pennsylvania among them. At the same time, students were learning about Columbus’ “discovery” of America and about colonists coming to “the New World” from the perspective of indigenous people. This spurred them to want to learn more about Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
You love it but you don’t use it. That’s one way to view the results of Unscientific Survey No. 3, about the Swarthmore Community Center. The SCC’s lease from Swarthmore College is ending as of August, and with the organization’s future uncertain, we asked you about your use of and thoughts about it.
When The New York Times published an article last week about an extensive dam-removal project on the Brandywine River, some Swarthmoreans were already familiar with the plan. They were the 80 or so folks who attended Science on Tap at waR3house3 on February 20.
