Valeri Drach Weidmann

Princeton Ballet School, the educational arm of American Repertory Ballet, has found a permanent home on the fourth floor of Crossroads Theatre, a home that is perfect for an institution with deep roots in the city. The school has two other studios, in the Princeton Shopping Center and in Cranbury, but its New Brunswick location has changed several times recently. It was located at 80 Albany Street for almost eighteen years, and then moved briefly to New Brunswick High School before settling at Crossroads, in the heart of New Brunswick's theatre district.

When Sandy and Michael Gildenberg of Highland Park, take their seven year old twins out to dinner each Friday night they always end up at Aposto, a small Italian bistro at 76 Raritan Avenue.

“My kids love the pizza and won’t eat it any place else,” Sandy said. “”My husband and I like the fresh food, the friendliness, and the full menu. the kids will even eat salad here.”

In director Bob Sheridan’s new film adaptation of "Brothers," Sam (Tobey Maguire) returns from the current war in Afghanistan, a broken man. His wife, Grace (Natalie Portman) and his brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) are left to pick up his pieces. He goes because he’s the kind of guy who does the right thing and while he is at war he’s asked to do unspeakable things.

Brian H. Settles, a former president of the Highland Park Board of Education during the 1970s, has published No Reason For Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy, Infidelity, and War (2009) about his experiences as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

What was once a stuffy, crowded and paper-strewn architect’s office has been transformed into a light-filled, spacious reading room above a barbershop at 311 Raritan Avenue.

The man responsible for the transformation is  Rabbi Yossi Sirote, who opened People of The Book Jewish Library in October. In little more than a month he has gathered nearly 5,000 books for his Jewish book store and reading room, encouraging people to browse and read and buy if they like.

One hundred fifty years later, William Carlos Williams looked at the same falls and dreamed a poem:

Paterson lies in the valley under the Passiac Falls

its spent waters forming the outline of his back. He

lies on his right side, head near the thunder of the waters filling his dreams. . .

When you enter the Fit 4 Me - Women's Fitness Center you immediately notice that there are no muscle-bound men grunting, or large clunky weights crowding the gym floor. Located in a storefront at 75 Raritan Avenue, this is Highland Park's only all-women's gym. There are smaller weights, a circuit of eight hydraulic machines, and two cardiac trainers.

On a crystal clear October afternoon -- as the leaves along the Avenue hit their peak reds, yellows and oranges -- owner Trisha Grace (everyone calls her Grace) was enjoying a great day. It was her birthday and friends and clients were dropping off balloons, flowers were delivered, and text messages and phone calls were blowing in the door like so many leaves.

At a recent borough book club meeting, where the Barbara Kingsolver novel  The Poisonwood Bible was being discussed, several members reported that they were lapsed members of their religions. Some were sad that their children had no religious community or education, but that ultimately they had become disillusioned with their respective formal religions, because they separated people and because of rules that didn’t seem humanistic.

Jim Purcell, who worked as a full-time journalist from 1994 to 2009, described himself as a lapsed Baptist before he completed one of his stories. Purcell has worked for a long list of newspapers but in his recently published new book, Faith Outside The City [Word Riot Press], he writes about how his assignment in the days after 9/11, covering the story at ground Zero, changed his lapsed status.

The young artist meets the gaze of the observer, narrowing her eyes, somehow declaring her existence as an artist. Miriam Lefkowitz, a 52 year old borough artist and photographer, painted this portrait of Rebecca George, a 15 year old Highland Park artist. She titled it Great Expectations.

Eighty-nine-year old Ray Bradbury, the legendary science fiction writer, said in The New York Times recently that he was  asked by a child, “How can I live forever too?” Bradbury’s answer: “I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story of my life.”

It’s also the story of Jack Shapiro’s. Shapiro, who will turn 92 next month, has lived, painted, and carved stone in Highland Park for 55 years. Coinciding with his birthday, Shapiro is making an open-ended loan to the H.P. library of a five hundred pound carving in alabaster, to greet patrons in the entranceway.