46 Wiggins (once Yavneh House) Demolished:

In 1961, a few Orthodox Jews at Princeton University established a group called Yavneh. Currently, the term "Yavneh" refers to the activities of the Orthodox group at the Princeton University Center for Jewish Life. But this group's first two homes were off-campus. The second, from about 1966 to 1971, was at 46 Wiggins, a short distance NW of campus. The house was probably built in the late 19th century. Its interior was a bit bizarre. There was a small room on the first floor that could be shut off by closing a pair of large doors. We usually said prayers there. The room looked as if it had been used for other strange rites in the past. There was a small living room, a large dining room, and a kitchen.

The group got a zoning variance to operate a kosher kitchen there, open to outsiders. There was resistance from some neighbors. Their battle cry was “Today the Jews, tomorrow the Black Muslims.” But the variance was obtained. The kitchen had a non-working mechanism to enable people in the rooms upstairs (2nd and 3rd floors) to send a signal. Numbered metal tiles would have moved when a button was pressed upstairs. There were fore stairs and back stairs, apparently so that servants could move about the building without passing residents.

Yavneh left this building in 1971 to move to Stevenson Hall, 83 Prospect, a University-sponsored kosher dining hall. Since then, 46 Wiggins has and several owners (I think) and many residents. It became a condo, and later (again, I believe) owners lived in it while renting out apartments in the building. These owners expanded the house, building a side porch and a rear porch, and extending the living room to the side as well. Recently, 46 Wiggins was bought by R. B. Homes, a home builder. The house at 46 Wiggins occupied barely half the property, and it appears that RBH has other plans for it. 46 Wiggins was demolished this February (2009), in less than two weeks. Almost all of the demolition was done by one piece of machinery, shown in the photos.

This machine has an immense metal head that consists of a pair of clamping jaws. I think that most of the destruction was accomplished by hitting the house with these jaws, usually positioning them above something and dropping, to utilize gravity. Then the jaws dragged material away from the house.

46 Wiggins was of course much larger than the machine that destroyed it. But those claws made the house look feeble and in need of a mercy killing, making the structure shudder again and again as it was attacked. If we believed that houses had feelings like animals, we would never allow such a thing.
















Here is the house from the rear, showing the added porches:



Here's the house from the front. In preparation for destruction, a chain link fence surrounds the property:


Here's the front door, with the last piece of delivery (a newpaper) tucked in:


And here's a bucolic side view:


Here, the front of the house has been battered:


The side, severely battered:

Here's the machine that did it:



Here's the machine that did it, working on the side:


Here goes the top (1):


Here goes the top (2):


Here goes the top (3):


Here goes the top (4):


Just a pile of rubbish ...


It's all over:


It's February 24, 2009. 46 Wiggins is no more. (29 Olden, 83 Prospect and CJL are still standing.) Stay tuned for a pic of whatever gets built here next.
- Tobias D. Robison