The Signs of West Chester

This appeared Janurary 26, 2006


By now you've seen the signs, and you may be as bewildered about the whole thing as I am. I mean the "West Chester" signs that have popped up, seemingly from nowhere, all across the borough.
They direct you to parking. They direct you to the Chester County Courthouse. They tell you you're entering the borough. They thank you for leaving the borough. They do everything except give you a recipe for a nice pot roast.
I didn't start bothering about them, though, until I paid a visit to the West Chester Library on North Church Street a few weeks ago. The stately old building has a huge turret tower that overlooks the street, and around which the words "Public Library" are emblazoned in bold wrought iron. Down below, a pleasant wooden sign announces that the West Chester Public Library was established in 1872. Symbols of books decorate the windows.
And now it has a cutesy little blue and yellow sign along the curb reconfirming that, yes, indeed, you're not mistaken, this is an actual library. Oh. Thanks. I was a little dubious.
(Note to borough sign officials: Blue and yellow are Downingtown colors; it's garnet and white at good old B. Reed Henderson High. This whole Devlin thing is out of control.)
Then I noticed the banners hanging from every street lamp on Gay Street. They must come in very handy on Friday and Saturday nights, when out-of-town revelers wake up face up on the brick sidewalks, after a few hours of revelry, and wonder where they are.
"Oh," they say, reading the banners. "West Chester. Thanks. Thought it was Manayunk."
All the new signs remind me of the flap a few years ago when the county commissioners decided to blow a few grand on signs, and planted an ugly gray stump of a sign in front of the courthouse that read: "Chester County Courthouse." They should have added: "Erected by the county Department of Redundancy Dept."
What this town needs isn't a sign letting you know that you just left town. What this town needs is a motto.
Mottoes are cool, like nicknames. You know, "San Francisco: The city by the bay." "New York: The city that never sleeps." "Philadelphia: Leave the money on the dresser."
We used to have a pretty serviceable one: "West Chester: The Athens of Pennsylvania." It had historical cache for all those radical preservationists who consider it a sin against God and Paul Rodebaugh to tear down any building older than their Aunt Charlotte, but it didn't seem to catch on with the public.
We tried, "West Chester: Little town, big art," but with the galleries closing right and left these days, it's more like, "Little town, Art who?"
I tried to get people interested in my own personal favorite during the garbage wars - "West Chester: Come grab our trash" - but the powers that be shut that one down.
So here's a few more suggestions I'll pass along to the folks at Gay and Adams streets. Use them as you see fit.
For the West Chester University set: "West Chester: Pat Croce didn't graduate, so don't sweat it."
For the aforementioned out-of-town revelers: "West Chester: More bars than barbers."
For in-town merchants: "West Chester: Plenty of parking. Really."
For the anxious: "West Chester: Don't worry, Coatesville's 10 miles to the west."