Update: For a quick recap of the Dinky controversy, check out the Ink’s previous coverage:
- Video: The Dinky Controversy Explained
- David Walter ’10 and his Dinky piece for the New York Times
- When we almost thought the Arts and Transit neighborhood was done for
Around 4:30pm, the canopy overhanging the old Princeton train station (aka “The Dinky”) collapsed during construction for the new Arts and Transit neighborhood. According to officers and workers on the scene, no one was injured. Update: search concluded at 8:15pm and confirmed that no workers were hurt. The area around the Dinky was already fenced off due to construction. Preliminary photos below, stay tuned for more:
R.I.P.Dinky. The last train departed on August 24th, but this may be the nail in the coffin.
Update: Official University statement here. Correction made to the time: 4:25pm. Described as: “the [200-ft] canopy at the former Princeton NJ TRANSIT train station tipped over into the track bed…As a result of the investigation the area of Alexander Street and University Place should be avoided for at least two to three hours. Please use alternate routes for both vehicular and pedestrian traffic…Train service to the new, temporary Princeton station up the tracks was not disrupted.”
Unfounded is the rumor that crouched beneath the rubble in a trench, recently destructively and dangerously bisecting the Dinky branch railroad right-of-way and passenger platform, were spotted the likes of Peter, Shirley, Bob, and Chris, together with other co-conspirator executives/trustees of Princeton University, McCarter Theater, Terra Momo Group, and the State of New Jersey, faces smudged and hands clutched to still-smoldering dynamite fuses! But just in case something had gone awry with the plot to topple the historic canopy, widespread over-the-top reaction by emergency rescue crews assured the culprits would be whisked away unbeknownst to townspeople! Now, prepare for the next act when the pair of historic terminal buildings’ roofs also may unexplainably “fail” as well! Await inevitable official pronouncements that there’s simply no way whatsoever that the world’s best architects and engineers on campus and anywhere else could possibly have prevented this from happening, which will then be parroted ad nauseam without question by local governments and news media! Welcome to the impending One-Percent neighborhood of Arts … and Transit and Culture Bowdlerization!