It's Never Ugly in Princeton (Even When the Air Quality is Awful)

Yesterday, we took the train from what has to be one of the filthiest, smelliest, most dilapidated train stations in New Jersey: New Brunswick . . . the passages between tracks are often closed, the station houses a number of drug-addled street folk, and there's the ever-present smell of urine and feces; the dark warren of grubby shops is rather pathetic, there's a gross Dunkin' and a little flower and plant store (which our friend owns and runs; she finally had to call the cops because there's so much drug dealing and drug use right in front of her shop) and the railing all the way up the stairs to the southbound track is rusted, jagged, and coming out of the concrete—and New Brunswick Station is even more of an eyesore now that the multi-billion dollar HELIX (Health and Life Science Exchange) complex is nearly finished, as it's located directly across the street—but if you take a 17 minute train ride south, to Princeton Junction and then ride the two-car "Dinky" train for five minutes (2.7 miles) into Princeton proper—as we did yesterday—then it's like you've left New Jersey and gone to to a different country . . . the train station is beautiful and immaculate; you walk up a set of modernist stairs and past an enormous outdoor sculpture installation featuring 12 massive bronze animal heads that represent the signs of the Chinese zodiac-- and then we stopped at one of the best small plate and fancy drink places in the universe:The Dinky Bar and Kitchen-- which is in the old train restored station . . . we had espresso martinis and bao buns-- and then we wandered through the Gothic stone buildings on campus (some of which are hundreds of years old) and we then wandered over to the Princeton University Art Museum-- which is a Manhattan quality museum plopped down right in the middle of campus, and totally free-- and we saw the recent new exhibit, the mesmerizing and layered abstract canvases of Willem de Kooning-- plus loads of other stuff (which only represents five percent of the museum's holdings) and then I got some expensive sorbet at The Bent Spoon while my wife went to the consignment shop and then we met a bunch of friends at Triumph Brewery to listen to jazz and drink great beer in what might be the nicest bar in New Jersey (it took seven years to renovate the old post Office in Palmer Square into this space) and then we were lucky enough to catch a ride home-- Cat and I are the only people that regularly take the train to Princeton, I'm not sure why-- but everyone else drove-- and the next thing we knew, we were in South Brunswick, the North Brunswick, the New Brunswick, then Highland Park . . . and all that Laura Ashley preppy style was long gone and we were back in the Jerzee we all love and know.