Save Me A Seat

This column originally appeared on Sunday, June 29, 2008

My friend Mike O’Rourke has taken to calling West Chester the “Peyton Place of Pennsylvania,” and not just because he has an innate fondness for alliteration. From miles away in Jacksonville, Fla., he reads my weekly columns and revels in the small-town dramas I describe.

So he’s going to love the Tale of the Missing Benches.

The benches, which sat in front of Mickey and Marina Cugino’s newsstand on West Gay Street until a few weeks ago, are not missing in the sense that a missing cat is missing. We know where they are, probably; they’re most likely at the West Chester Public Works utility yard, scattered in several pieces. We just don’t know exactly why they’re there.

The benches were among the last vestiges of the wooden pews that dotted each block of Gay Street at the time of its formal revitalization, circa 1980. They were placed along the downtown main drag to present a relaxed, village feel that would attract shoppers, give the weary a place to cool their heels, or provide skateboarders with something to jump off.

Over the years, however, the wooden benches were removed one by one because they became a haven not for the momentarily weary but for the continually tired. That is, people who sat in them all day, every day, because they had no place else to go. The benches became the borough’s Statue of Liberty, beckoning poor, huddled masses to our teeming shore. The homeless were sent, tempest-tost — or at least by police in Upper Darby wishing them out of their jurisdiction — to Gay Street.

And that’s where they sat, smoked and drank until they made a nuisance of themselves. Today, the only people who sit, smoke, drink and make nuisances of themselves on Gay Street pay the local saloon keepers good money to do so.

But not outside Cuginos. The benches at Cuginos stayed put for years, used primarily by the local folks for whom they were intended: The senior citizens taking a walk uptown to buy a lottery ticket. The local shopkeepers who wanted a break from behind the counter. The courthouse kibitzers who took a coffee break in the afternoon to slurp down some Italian water ice. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Now the twin benches are gone. When I called to inquire, a helpful fellow at the borough’s public works office said they’d been “destroyed” in a weekend vandalism spree and had to be removed for safety’s sake, although that may have come as news to the people who were sitting on them moments before the Public Work staff showed up to saw them in half and cart them away.

The helpful fellow promised that the option of replacing the benches was being “looked into,” although he warned that financial pressures might delay their replacement for the discernible future, by which he could have meant “when hell freezes over.” He suggested that the Cuginos could buy their own benches and assume the liability for sitters therein. His attitude was about as welcoming toward the return of the benches as the Arizona Minutemen are to illegal Mexican immigrants.

But questions remain. Do we want to enhance the feel of our small town with the simple accessory of a park bench? Is there a message that we are sending by taking them away with no promise of a return? How important were the benches in front of Cuginos to the mission of providing downtown with a sense of community, no matter how small, limited or transient?

And, who will play Mia Farrow’s role in the upcoming production of “The Benches of Peyton Place?” Tune in tomorrow.

Editor’s note: This column was written Friday morning. On Friday afternoon, the borough installed a replacement bench in front of the newsstand. One down, one to go.