Liberating House and Grounds from Vines

We had another highly productive and rewarding workday this past Saturday at the Veblen House, organized by the Rotary Club of Princeton as one of their service projects. The focus was on removing invasive vines from house and grounds. It was a real pleasure to have the help of Bob Wells, and hear his many stories about living there with his family from 1975 to 1998. Also in the photo are architect Ahmed Azmy and neighbor John Powell, both Rotary members and strong supporters of rehabilitating Veblen House.

 John was wielding loppers against the wisteria, which had begun back in Elizabeth Veblen's day as a pretty ornament for the trellis, but which has spread into the surrounding woods. You can see the strangle hold it takes on trees, in this case a dawn redwood planted by Bob decades ago.

Wisteria can also climb around itself,

forming a trunk almost as large as the flowering dogwood it was mobbing. We speculated whether the dogwood would recover now that the vines have been cut. I took the more optimistic point of view, noting various branches still showing healthy leaves reaching out beyond the smothering embrace of the vine.

This Pieris, now liberated, may live to grow another day.

Bob told us that Elizabeth's fishpond, now visible again with the vines removed, used to hold water and was stocked with goldfish.

 Meanwhile, vines have been showing interest in the house. This vine, possibly a Virginia creeper, has a stem growing up inside the wall. Not ideal. A snip with the loppers should have been applied years earlier, but at least that vine won't be growing any farther. It's reassuring at such times to remember that builders have consistently found the building to still be in solid condition and worth saving.

A much smaller vine, Japanese honeysuckle, had headed into the basement. You can see the white shoots that indicate the lack of sunlight. It took me back to 6th grade science class, when we grew one set of bean plants in a closet and another set on a windowsill. Several weeks later, everyone was surprised to find that the ones grown in the closet were much longer, and lacked any chlorophyll. The lack of sunlight stimulates the plant to invest what energy it has in length, the better to eventually reach a source of light.

The moist ground made digging soil away from the foundation relatively easy. A backhoe will be needed to do a more thorough regrading, but hand shoveling allows for some serendipitous discoveries, like a beautiful buried boulder that used to serve as a step for the side door.

We ended the workday with pizza, basking in the beauty of the day and the peacefulness of the Veblen House grounds.

Thanks to the Rotary Club of Princeton for the support and talent it brings to the Veblen House project.

Magnetic Rocks in Herrontown Wood

We call it Herrontown Wood, but this post is about Herrontown Rocks. What makes this nature preserve extraordinary is the layers of meaning to be found there. Begin with the soil, which was formed out of and influenced by the underlying diabase rocks. Add the woodland, of course, whose botanical richness is so well preserved in part because the many rocks discouraged any plowing back during Princeton's agricultural era. (Plows obliterate the roots, seedbank, microorganisms and complex structure that comprise a soil's biological memory.) Add the wildlife drawn to the long corridor of forest, where stubborn boulders discouraged development long enough for open space groups to achieve permanent protection. Add to that the cultural history that endures in rock walls, rock foundations, quarried stone, and the farmstead and house of Oswald and Elizabeth Veblen, with their multifaceted legacy of international import.

Along with the many roles the rocks have played in the past two hundred years, there is the story of how the rocks got there in the first place. It's told by the great majority of rocks and boulders never piled in rows or split apart. One important point to grasp from the get go is that the glaciers did not form the Princeton Ridge. The glaciers' southernmost extent coincides with where Manhattan is today, some distance to the north. What forces, then, created this long ridge of boulders?

A couple weeks ago, I joined my neighbor Jon Johnson on one of his morning walks with his dog Cocoa in Herrontown Woods. His expertise is in groundwater, but he's been studying the rocks he finds in the streams and along the trails, and sharing some of what he's discovered with students at Little Brook Elementary, where his kids go to school.

He begins by asking the kids a simple question. Why is one stepping stone along the trail rounded, while the one next to it is square?

Why are some boulders and pebbles magnetic, while others are not?

And why are some rocks rough textured while others are more smooth?

The story he tells goes back to the time of Pangaea, that is, when Africa and America were all one land mass. As the continents pulled apart, a basin expanded between them, received sediment from eroding land masses on either side, became interrupted by upwellings of molten rock that rose through the sedimentary layer, cooled into diabase and subsequently eroded to form the boulders we see today.

Jon showed how Herrontown Wood tells this story through the geologic transition visible in the park. If you walk west from the parking lot (the one off of Snowden Lane), then follow the main creek upstream, you'll see the rocks in the stream are at first squarish. This is the sedimentary rock. Some are rougher than others, suggesting that they may have contained fossils that lost their shape when heated by molten diabase.

Head upstream and you'll see the rocks getting rounder

and larger. This transition goes from sedimentary to metamorphic, to the big, round diabase boulders further up the slope. (A similar transition can be found at Witherspoon Woods, up the hill from Mountain Lakes.)

You can see in this photo a magnet stuck to a boulder. The magnetism comes from magnetite, which usually makes up only 2% of the diabase, but may comprise up to 20% of some rocks. Even different layers of the same boulder can differ in the presence of magnetite, which explains why a magnet may stick to one part of a boulder, but not another strata a few inches down.

To find the areas of the park with the most magnetite, Jon has played the role of prospector, walking up one or another tributary of the stream, testing the pebbles for magnetism.

When my kids were younger, we would go to Herrontown Wood and find joy in climbing the rocks. The main story we saw was how the rocks got bigger as we walked up the hill. Now, thanks to Jon, we can go beyond aesthetics and size, and more deeply appreciate these rocks that have served Herrontown Wood in so many ways.

Will the Real Veblen House Please Stand Up?

They're both still standing, but which is which? To tell the truth, people who leave not one but two houses in the public trust really should consider including an endowment for clear labeling.

On your left, dressed in black (it used to be a two-tone with the second floor a chestnut brown color), is Veblen House, the 1920s prefab in a lovely setting where the Veblens lived.

On your right is the cottage, more commonly seen because it's at the intersection of two main trails in Herrontown Wood. This 1870 Dauer farmhouse was used by Veblen as a study, beginning in the 1930s. Though it isn't "Einstein's house", as one rumor had it, Einstein would visit his friend and colleague Veblen, and spend some quality time surrounded by nature and the simplicity of this rustic farmstead.

Veblen House in Trenton Times Article

The Trenton Times ran a front page article today, Sunday, on the Veblen House and the Rogers House--another county-owned historic building that has fallen into disrepair. (It's early morning, and I first wrote "fallen into repair". Wouldn't that be nice.) It's a well-written article with a big photo of the house in the print version. Note that the online version has one photo of the cottage that may still be labeled "Veblen House". The cottage is the 1870 Dauer farmhouse that Veblen acquired in 1936 and used as a study. It's just a few hundred feet from the house, which they bought some years later. If you click on the other online photos--there's a series of twelve--you'll find photos of the house as well.

You can find information on this website about the Veblens, the house and cottage, and the initiative to save them by clicking on the various tabs. Below are a couple links to overviews of the site, and what it looked like when the Veblens were living there.

Historic Structures at the Veblen Site

The Veblen House in the 1950s

For more info, I can be reached at stevehiltner(at)gmail.com, or give me a call at 609 252 0724.

May Flowers Persist at Veblen House

The Veblen House garden, so loved by those who have lived in the house over the years, continues to bloom. Iris make a blue arc in the front of the house, perhaps a legacy of Elizabeth Veblen.

A Rhododendron was tall enough to elude the deer through the long winter.

A Fragrant snowbell (Styrax obassia) adds an oriental touch around back.

And a new planting at the edge of the field, part of a town-wide effort to bring back the native butternut, may need some watering if a drought comes along.

Hooded Warbler in Herrontown Wood

This from a friend on May 26th, two days ago:

"I heard from Tyler Christensen (as I'd suspected a year or two ago) that he'd seen a Hooded Warbler in Herrontown Woods so I stopped by late today. It was singing up a storm and I got good looks at a very cool, mostly yellow warbler with a black "hood." It was singing two different songs, the alternate form supposedly is the "breeding" song which I hear later in the season at Baldpate Mtn, a "hot spot" for Hoodeds. I assume at least one or two pairs breed at the Institute Woods but none reported on eBird for 2 weeks. I consider myself lucky if I find even one in the Sourlands, a good place for them. I think the "Herrontown Hooded" is a testament to deer management and return of the understory. While not rare, they're not common either and Cornell was funding studies monitoring this species. Hoodeds nest low in bushes 3-6 ft off ground (dogs should not go off trail.)

(Correction: Hooded's are state-listed as a "Species of Concern" at the breeding level.)

I saw it along the uppér part of the trail (red one?) after passing the cottage and little barn (corn crib?) on my right. It was singing and looping around the rocks at the top between the gas pipeline, the rediscovered "cliff", and the stream going through the boulder field.

Also had Scarlet Tanager, 3 Veery, Ovenbird, 4 Wood thrush, Pileated, and 2 Common Yellowthroat Warbler."

Here is more info about the species, including a description of its preferred habitat: "Reaches highest densities in large tracts of mature, uninterrupted, deciduous forest with a dense shrub layer and scant ground cover." A sample of its call can be found here.

It's because of the Veblens' initial donation of Herrontown Woods, and the subsequent efforts of local and regional land trusts, with additional funding from the town and county, that species like this can be heard in the deep forest of Princeton Ridge East.

Rotary Club Hosts Pancake Festival May 24

The Rotary Club of Princeton is one of those organizations that works quietly to do a lot of good. I've been getting to know the club's members through their efforts to help save the Veblen House.

They are a group with a can-do attitude, who find pleasure and satisfaction in serving the community, and have international service projects as well. Their annual Pancake Festival at Palmer Square makes it easy to support their work. Come by tomorrow, Saturday, May 24, for food and jazz, then catch the Memorial weekend parade down Nassau Street.

Learn more about the Rotary at http://www.princetonrotary.org/community.html.

Old Fine Hall

Numerous sources state that Oswald Veblen largely designed the original Fine Hall, an innovative academic building that housed the Princeton University mathematics department from 1930 to 1969, and also served as home for the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years. Many will know Old Fine Hall as the location of Einstein's office when he first came to Princeton. When the math department (reluctantly) moved to the new Fine Hall in the 1960s, Old Fine Hall was renamed Jones Hall. It currently is home to the East Asian Studies Department.

In Old Fine Hall can be seen the merging of Veblen's vision for mathematics, his love of buildings, and his deep admiration for the legacy of Henry Fine, whose tragic death in 1929 had prompted the Jones family to donate funds for the building's construction. The building exemplifies the theme of "bringing together" found in many aspects of Veblen's legacy, and codified in a poem on this website.

From Veblen's own description: 'We have long felt the need for offices on the campus and now we have not only offices but actual studies, so attractive that many of us will be doing our private reading and research in these rooms rather than in our own homes. These rooms are going to be a godsend to young men on small salaries who find it hard to afford a house with a suitable study. The new building contains studies for all the permanent members of the staff and also for a certain number of advanced students. These quiet and comfortable rooms have already in two or three weeks, had a perceptible effect in drawing the group of mathematicians and mathematical physicists closer together and in promoting a spirit of cooperation."

"This increase of the solidarity of the mathematical group and its closer relationship to the physics group was definitely in mind in the planning of the common room a sort of club room and lounge for mathematicians and physicists, with a small kitchenette nearby. There is also another room of this sort reserved for professors. This is on the principle, not always understood by those who try to bring about closer relations between faculty and students, that in all forms of social intercourse the provisions for privacy are as important as those for proximity."

The next four photos are combined with text from George Dyson's book, Turing's Cathedral: Equations for gravitation, relativity, quantum theory, five perfect solids, and three conic sections were set into leaded glass windows, and the central mantel-piece featured a carving of a fly traversing the one-sided surface of a Mobius strip.

"Every little door knob, every little gargoyle, every little piece of stained glass that has a word on it, was something that Veblen personally supervised,” noted Herman Goldstine in 1985.

(The door to Einstein's office.)

“There are nine offices with fireplaces and fifteen without,” reported Veblen. “Overstuffed chairs and davenports take the place of chairs and desks and the classrooms are fitted out after the manner of private studies,” reported Science magazine. The rooms were paneled in American oak, with concealed chalkboards and built-in filing cabinets.

In April 1930, Veblen wrote to Albert Einstein requesting permission to inscribe a remark Einstein had made in Princeton in 1921—“Raffi niert ist der Herr Gott aber Boshaft ist Er nicht” (translated at the time as “god is clever, but not dishonest”)—above the fireplace in the Professors’ Lounge. “It was your reply when someone asked you if you thought that [Dayton C.] Miller’s results would be verified,” Veblen explained. “I hope you will not object to our using this ‘child of your wit.’ Einstein replied that “Lord” or “God” might be misconstrued, suggesting that what he really meant was “Nature conceals her secrets in the sublimity of her law, not through cunning.” (end of quote from Dyson)

The paneling, with its unusual and varied patterns, is built of quarter sawn oak.

Veblen describes the beautifully wrought library thus:

"The chief need was for a convenient library and suitable studies. This library was placed on the top floor so that it should be as far removed from traffic and noise as possible. In order to make it easier to enforce a rule of silence there are four talking rooms in the four corners, where we can go when we want to discuss what we have been reading.

It is very desirable that the books on physics and mathematics should be close together. The new building is next to the physical laboratory, and the mathematics and physical libraries have been combined."

Below are fuller quotes from various online sources, with links.

From a bio of Veblen on a British website:

In 1929 funds were provided for Fine Hall at Princeton and Veblen provided most of the ideas that went into its design. He wanted the mathematicians in Fine Hall to be able to:-

... group themselves for mutual encouragement and support. [It had to be a place where] the young recruit and the old campaigner [could have] those informal and easy contacts that are so important to each of them.

However he also wanted a room reserved for professors since:-

... not always understood by those who try to bring about closer relations between faculty and students [is] that in all forms of social intercourse the provisions for privacy are as important as those for proximity.

From Robert Nowlan's online biography: 

Veblen largely designed the original Fine Hall, named for the deceased educator. It is an architectural masterpiece with a common room on the first floor on the way to the library. Faculty did not merely have offices, they were given lavish suites to provide a comfortable place to meet and talk with students. Fine Hall served as home to the Princeton mathematics department until 1969 when the growth of faculty and students made it necessary to build a new home, also named Fine Hall.  The old building was renamed Jones Hall, to honor the family who had provided the funds for the original building. Veblen began the custom of an afternoon tea at the mathematics department, where faculty and students had the opportunity for informal contacts.

From World Scientific: Academic genealogy of Mathematicians:

Veblen took charge of this project. He visited Oxford University in 1928-29 and designed Fine Hall as “Oxford College Style”. For the interior he worked closely on the furnishings with a high-quality firm of decorators from New York. Faculty members had “studies”, not “offices”; some of those were large rooms equipped with fireplaces, carved oak paneling, leather sofas, oriental rugs, and concealed blackboards. Fine Hall included a first-class departmental library, common rooms, and other facilities.

From George Dyson's beautifully written book Turing’s Cathedral:

Thomas Jones and his niece Gwethalyn pledged an additional $500,000 to build (and maintain) a new mathematics building in memory of Fine. At the time of Veblen’s arrival in Princeton, the mathematicians shared a few small offices in Palmer Hall. “The principle upon which Fine Hall was designed,” according to Veblen, “was to make a place so attractive that people would prefer to work in the rooms provided in this building rather than in their homes.” Jones, believing that “nothing is too good for Harry Fine,” instructed Veblen to construct a building that “any mathematician would be loath to leave.”

Half a million dollars (equivalent to over $6 million today) went a long way in 1929. Fine Hall opened in October of 1931, with no detail overlooked: from the showers and locker room in the basement (“members of the department who wish to avail themselves of the nearby tennis courts or the gymnasium will not find it necessary to return to their homes to dress”) to the top-floor library with natural lighting, a central atrium, and a passageway to encourage mingling with the physicists in adjacent Palmer Hall. “There are nine offices with fireplaces and fifteen without,” reported Veblen. “Overstuffed chairs and davenports take the place of chairs and desks and the classrooms are fitted out after the manner of private studies,” reported Science magazine. The rooms were paneled in American oak, with concealed chalkboards and built-in filing cabinets. Equations for gravitation, relativity, quantum theory, five perfect solids, and three conic sections were set into leaded glass windows, and the central mantel-piece featured a carving of a fly traversing the one-sided surface of a Mobius strip. “Every little door knob, every little gargoyle, every little piece of stained glass that has a word on it, was something that Veblen personally supervised,” noted Herman Goldstine in 1985.

In April 1930, Veblen wrote to Albert Einstein requesting permission to inscribe a remark Einstein had made in Princeton in 1921—“Raffi niert ist der Herr Gott aber Boshaft ist Er nicht” (translated at the time as “god is clever, but not dishonest”)—above the fireplace in the Professors’ Lounge. “It was your reply when someone asked you if you thought that [Dayton C.] Miller’s results would be verified,” Veblen explained. “I hope you will not object to our using this ‘child of your wit.’ Einstein replied that “Lord” or “God” might be misconstrued, suggesting that what he really meant was “Nature conceals her secrets in the sublimity of her law, not through cunning.”
(For more on Dyson on this website, click here.)

Veblen's own description of Fine Hall, from the Princeton University website:

Professor Veblen made the final speech of the day. The text of his address follows: "The principal idea which has been built into Fine Hall is a very old one. It is nothing else than the idea of a university as a seat of learning. The first universities of Europe, such as Bologna, Paris, and Oxford were just loosely organized groups of learned men. The students who migrated from one of these centers of learning to another were very much the same sort of people as the graduate students and research fellows of today, poor material for the diplomatic service, but full of intellectual curiosity and sometimes having a spark of genius.

"The modern American university is a complicated organism devoted to a variety of purposes among which creative scholarship is sometimes overlooked. Those universities which do recognize it as one of their purposes are beginning to feel the necessity of providing centers about which people of like intellectual interests can group themselves for mutual encouragement and support, and where the young recruit and the old campaigner can have those informal and easy contacts that are so important to each of them.

"Such intellectual centers are provided in Princeton by a splendid group of laboratories for the experimental sciences and by McCormick Hall for the Department of Art and Archeology and the group of rooms devoted to the classics in Pyne Library. Now we have Fine Hall for the mathematicians and I hope that it will not be many years before we have analogous centers for other groups of scholars. I say analogous centers rather than similar ones, for I suppose that the historians or the philosophers will need something which differs from Fine Hall as much as Fine Hall differs from the Palmer Laboratory.

"It was a new problem to design a building for mathematics. Although there are such buildings at Chicago, Paris, Gottingen, and Jena, none of these had been finished before ours was begun. But it was not a very complicated problem in this case. There was no elaborate apparatus to provide. A pencil sharpener is about all the apparatus that a mathematician requires. There was no need for many classrooms or large lecture rooms, for there are plenty of these already on the campus. The new building has two small lecture rooms and two seminar rooms which can be used informally.

"The chief need was for a convenient library and suitable studies. This library was placed on the top floor so that it should be as far removed from traffic and noise as possible. In order to make it easier to enforce a rule of silence there are four talking rooms in the four corners, where we can go when we want to discuss what we have been reading. It is very desirable that the books on physics and mathematics should be close together. The new building is next to the physical laboratory, and the mathematics and physical libraries have been combined.

"We have long felt the need for offices on the campus and now we have not only offices but actual studies, so attractive that many of us will be doing our private reading and research in these rooms rather than in our own homes. These rooms are going to be a godsend to young men on small salaries who find it hard to afford a house with a suitable study. The new building contains studies for all the permanent members of the staff and also for a certain number of advanced students. These quiet and comfortable rooms have already in two or three weeks, had a perceptible effect in drawing the group of mathematicians and mathematical physicists closer together and in promoting a spirit of cooperation.

"This increase of the solidarity of the mathematical group and its closer relationship to the physics group was definitely in mind in the planning of the common room a sort of club room and lounge for mathematicians and physicists, with a small kitchenette nearby. There is also another room of this sort reserved for professors. This is on the principle, not always understood by those who try to bring about closer relations between faculty and students, that in all forms of social intercourse the provisions for privacy are as important as those for proximity.

"This building is not only a memorial to Dean Fine. It is a definite part of his work in constructing a great mathematical center here in Princeton. You know the outline of this story: How during a long of period of time Dean Fine seized each opportunity as it arose to strengthen his by calling in young men of promise. How its prestige gradually extended so that Princeton became known throughout the world as a center of mathematical production. How this work of construction was consolidated by the generous institution of the fund for research and science by the General Education Board and Mr. Thomas D. Jones, Miss Gwethalyn Jones, Mr. William Church Osborn, and others.

"When these things had been accomplished it became evident that a building was needed as a center for the mathematical interests of the University just as the various laboratories were headquarters for the various experimental sciences. This project Dean Fine discussed with the late Mr. Wickliffe Rose, then chairman of the General Education Board and a man who can be compared with Dean Fine and Mr. Jones for his insight into general university problems. Mr. Rose was then just at the point of retiring and the project went over to the new officers of the General Education Board who were considering it sympathetically at the time of Dean Fine's death. At this point Mr. Jones, who knew of his old friend's plans and hopes, came forward and asked President Hibben to allow him and his niece to provide the building and make it a memorial to Dean Fine.

"I believe that such a project has never been carried out in a more generous style. The donors decided that the building should be not only the matter-of-fact mathematical center which we had conceived but also a place which, as Mr. Jones expressed it, any mathematician would be loath to leave.

"In carrying out this purpose of Mr. Jones and his niece, the University was fortunate not only in having the services of an architect like Mr. Charles Z. Klauder, but also in the generosity of Mrs. John Alexander who freely contributed her trained skill and taste in the choice and arrangement of the furnishings. It is not only in providing so beautiful a building that Mr. Jones and Miss Jones showed their generosity, but in many unseen ways care has been taken and additional money spent to make the building more substantial and to reduce the cost of upkeep. Moreover, for the first time on our campus, the maintenance of the building and the renewal of the furnishings have been adequately provided by endowment.

"To return to the main point, Princeton now has a first-class home for its mathematical group. I hope that it will soon have equally good ones for the other academic groups which are not yet provided for. This is not merely because I like to see my colleagues comfortable, but because I think that it would greatly strengthen the University as a seat of learning if each natural intellectual group were so placed physically as to be automatically conscious of itself and of its relation to the University as a whole. I do not mean that this is our only great need at the present time. We need more endowed professorships right in the mathematical field. But at this moment, when we have been so generously favored, it is only just to point out that what has been done for us is of general significance and should not stop with us."

Daffodils of the Veblen Grounds

During a recent Rotary Club of Princeton workday at Veblen House, I got a chance to document the many kinds of daffodils that persist on the grounds.

No doubt Elizabeth Veblen, shown in this photo from the 1950s, had a lot to do with their presence.

Others may have been planted by Garden Club of Princeton volunteers back in the 1970s when they were active there.

Some research might reveal cultivar names for all of these subtle variations. Those on the left have whiter petals.

Some may have been planted by the Wells, who rented the house from around 1975 to 1998.

Not everything blooming is a daffodil.

My family's garden in Michigan, bought from the estate of a U of M mathematician, had primroses much like these. Not sure how much can be inferred about mathematicians and primrose from a sample of two.

The large lawn hosts remnant populations of daffodils, some of which still bloom. It would be interesting to match up the primrose in the 1950s photos with what remains today.

First, find the rock.

Update, July 30, 2014: According to Bob Wells, Elizabeth Veblen had a plot of land back in what is now woods where she grew the different varieties in rows, for transplanting to the grounds.

Award-Winning Trail Work by Kurt and Sally

Some news that didn't get posted earlier: Back in January, two members of the Friends of Herrontown Wood, Kurt Tazelaar and Sally Curtis, received a 2013 Sustainable Princeton Leadership Award for their transformative work to clear trails at Herrontown Wood and Autumn Hill Reservation this past summer and fall. Trails through 200 acres of the Princeton Ridge nature corridor had become blocked by fallen trees and overgrown by invasive shrubs over several years. After getting the green light from Princeton's municipal staff, and using a chain saw, loppers and a scythe, Kurt and Sally spent some 400 volunteer hours making these two beautiful preserves a pleasure to hike through once again.

Presenting the awards, Mayor Liz Lempert commended them "for their energetic and inspiring work in clearing trails in 2013, making two Princeton nature preserves inviting and accessible to the public." A post from last August when they were just starting their trail work can be found at this link. 

They are continuing to work on the trails at Herrontown Wood, to make them more passable in spring when the ground is saturated with water. 

Congratulations to Kurt and Sally for this much deserved award.

A Pileated Woodpecker Pays a Visit

After a recent Rotary Club workday at the Veblen House site, one of the volunteers called to us as he was walking down the driveway.

Turned out he'd noticed two gaping holes in a white oak, whose size suggested the work of America's largest remaining woodpecker. The Ivory-billed was larger, but hasn't been seen in the southern swamps for decades.

The tree must have housed quite a cache of carpenter ants--the Pileated's main source of sustenance--to rationalize all of this chopping.

The sound of a pileated's woodpecking is said to be similar to that of someone chopping wood. The impressive size of these woodchips suggest considerable impact.

The long corridor of preserved Princeton Ridge woodland, which began with the Veblen's initial donation of 85 acres in 1957 and continues to be built on through local initiative, makes excellent habitat for these impressive birds.

This link should take you to photos of baby Pileateds poking their heads out of similar holes.

Architect Julie Capozzoli's Talk on Architectural Preservation

Here are some notes (hopefully accurate) from a March 19 talk by architect Julie Capozzoli entitled "Architectural Preservation in Theory and Practice", hosted by the Jewish Center of Princeton. Julie is an architect, chair of the Princeton Preservation Commission, and a member of the Princeton Planning Board. The Preservation Commission has a committee focused on the Veblen House, consisting of Julie and Robert von Zumbusch.

• The modern movement to preserve historic structures began with the fight to save the Penn Central train station in New York City. Though unsuccessful, the effort led to the creation of the NY City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. In 1975, New Jersey passed a law allowing the creation of historic preservation commissions, of which Princeton's is one. 
• She made frequent reference to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, which include guidelines for "preserving, rehabilitating, restoring, and reconstructing historic buildings".
• Rehabilitation is applied to deteriorated structures, and allows more latitude due to the buildings' condition. Restoration involves retaining components from the most significant period, and removal of other portions. Reconstruction is a rebuild of the original structure.
• She discussed adaptive reuse, and the embodied energy in existing structures, and offered a statistic that operational carbon is 65% of a building's total emissions. Preservation can be more sustainable than building new, because it avoids the carbon footprint of new materials. There's a Nantucket guide to making historic buildings more sustainable.
• There are 18 historic districts in Princeton, including Maybury Hill out Snowden Lane, and Jugtown.
• Historic designation does not preclude changes to a structure, as long as the changes minimize the loss of materials and preserve the building's defining characteristics. Any new work, such as additions, needs to be differentiated from the existing structure.
• Historic preservation is not just about buildings.

Though the Veblen House and Cottage were deemed by an architectural study to be of national historic significance due to their association with Oswald Veblen, they never received the official historic designation. That, along with the rehabilitation required, suggest a measure of latitude in preserving the historic features in the process of adaptive reuse. The talk was particularly useful in distinguishing between the various approaches to preservation, pointing to the federal guidelines as a resource, and suggesting a resource for combining rehabilitation and sustainability.

Veblen, Reidemeister, Colin Adams, Knots, Sailing, Topology and Pi(e)

An interest in knots and Veblen lured me to a lecture on the mathematics of knots two weekends ago at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). One of my ideas for an offbeat daycamp experience at the Veblen House is to reintroduce knot tying to the younger generation, whose exposure to knots may not have advanced beyond tying shoes.

Little did I know that I would witness a mathematics professor being very nearly devoured by a great white shark during his lecture entitled "Blown Away: What Knot To Do When Sailing." Part of the PPPL's Science on Saturday Lecture series, the lecture explored the mathematics of knots through the travails of two characters--a Texan and an Englishman. Colin Adams, of Williams College in MA, was the mathematician/storyteller.

The tall tale he told was of being in a sailing race off the coast of England. In the midst of the race, he discovers there's a knot in the sheet (a sheet, as everyone knows, though I had forgotten, is a sailing term for one of the ropes on a sailboat), preventing him from coming about. Adding to the dilemma, the "sheet hit the flan" that he had brought along for a snack, making it too slippery to handle. He dips the sheet in the water to clean it, a great white shark grabs the rope, and he is suddenly confronted with the question of whether the knot can be undone without having one end of the sheet free.

This segued into an inquiry into how to analyze knots visually and mathematically, beginning with Kurt Reidemeister, who in the 1930s developed what Adams calls three types of "Reidemeister Moves". Knot to be undone, Adams eventually wrestles the rope from the shark, unties the knot, and sails into the sunset.

Reidemeister, it turns out, was a German mathematician who was transferred to a less prestigious university from his post in Konigsberg in 1933, due to his opposition to the Nazis. A search of the internet reveals a Veblen connection: Oswald Veblen wrote a letter of support for his fellow geometer Reidemeister (p. 89 in this online book). The strong connection between mathematics and the arts that is a recurrent theme at the Institute for Advanced Study can also be found in Reidemeister, who "wrote about poets and was a poet himself. He translated Mallarmé."

In another parallel with Colin Adams' thinking: An idea of mine for the Veblen House was to name the farmstead either the Pi Farm or the Pie Farm. The symbol for pi, after all, is shaped like a house, and most everything a farm grows can be put in one sort of pie or another. Turns out that Colin Adams co-wrote a book entitled The Great Pi/e Debate, in which they answer the question, "Which is the better number, e or pi?" Princeton has an annual Pi Day on March 14, to celebrate Einstein's birthday.

Another book by Colin Adams that combines math and whimsy, "A Deprogrammer's Tale", appears in recommendations next to "The Dot and the Line", a childhood favorite of mine that is given a connection to the Veblen's Herrontown Wood in this post. Adams also, like Veblen's family, has a Wisconsin connection, having received his PhD at U. of Wisconsin in Madison.

Yet another book by the prolific Adams is an Introduction to Topology. Here's a description of Veblen's contribution to the field: "Veblen's first work on topology appeared just before he arrived in Princeton. He went on to establish Princeton as one of the leading centres in the world for topology research. Analysis Situs(1922) provided the first systematic coverage of the basic ideas of topology and contributed to the development of modern topology."

And sailing? Well, sailing was one of Einstein's favorite activities, and the Veblens had a cottage in a town in Maine known for its wooden boat building. It's not clear if Veblen ever took to sailing. He may have been more comfortable in the woods, clearing brush.