Listen up, Marines.
When it came to West Chester, former Borough Mayor Thomas A. Chambers was extremely particular. That is, there were a few rules he wanted followed when his hometown was mentioned in the news columns of the Daily Local News. Foremost was this: West Chester is West Chester.
West Chester, Mayor Chambers (U.S.M.C, Ret.) instructed, is not West Goshen. West Chester is not East Goshen. It is not West Whiteland, nor is it East Bradford. Heaven knows it is not Birmingham or Thornbury. It is he one-plus mile square geopolitical entity that starts when you pass the West Chester Golf and Country Club and ends when you pass the main campus of West Chester University. That’s it, and that’s all.
Chambers was particular about this rule of geography especially when it came to news reports of misbehavior by people within the four corners of West Chester. Identify a person who was nabbed by police for purse snatching on East Gay Street as a West Chester resident when the evildoer actually lived in East Goshen and you might as well have left a message on Mayor Chambers’ voice mail suggesting, in fairly blunt terms, that it was just too bad that he had to go and join the Marines after the Army wouldn’t have him. That is, he did not take the notion kindly. Trust me, I know.
I say this as instruction for the fellow who very recently wrote a weekend travel piece that identified West Chester as a quaint little “city” where a slumming urbanite might spend a few fanciful moments before heading back to his or her trendy pad in Northern Liberties. Leave for a moment the fact that West Chester is not, and for my money will not ever be, a city. The writer proceeded to list a number of attractions that are not, technically, in West Chester. They may have West Chester addresses, but the Good Lord and Mayor Chambers know for certain that QVC studios and the American Helicopter Museum are not located in West Chester proper.
I have spoken before about this identity crisis that Chester County is prone to, so I should not be surprised, nor angry, about the mistake the writer made. Malvern, after all, is not just the borough that hovers between Paoli Pike and Lancaster Avenue, providing the good burghers of Willistown a place to go and get a newspaper and a decent breakfast before catching the Paoli Local into the city. It is now the megalopolis that spreads out over the map of eastern Chester County like a spilled glass of Bordeaux at a wine, cheese, and horse dung party up Charlestown way. The news that the founder of Urban Outfitters, one of the richest men in the world, will soon have the same home mailing address – West Grove, Pa. – as an assortment of mushroom house laborers speaks volumes, too, about how postal boundaries are not class-conscious.
But as understandable as the travel writer’s mistake may be, it nevertheless grates, primarily because the writer missed many great spots that weekend tourists could visit in the borough if they only took the time and stayed away from bars that are partially owned by former “reality TV” stars whose nickname rhyme with “Spam.”
Why not stop off at the Chester County Historical Society for a while to see how Chester County residents lived in the ages before the Internet took over? Well, at least the non-minority residents of the county, anyway.
Why not take a stroll down South Church Street from the downtown business district to the university campus? Along the way, visitors will get a view of some of the most striking examples of Victorian Era architecture that Pennsylvania has to offer, and at the same time can help collect cans and bottles that university coeds thoughtfully left behind to help spur recycling efforts in the borough.
Why not take an elevator to the seventh floor of the Chester County Justice Center and ask to be let into Courtroom One, where they can witness a panoramic vista of county countryside that is almost unparalleled in its beauty? If they are lucky, new President Judge James P. MacElree II will be on the bench and offer to show them what he can do with prisoner “shock belt.”
You see, you don’t have to while your time away watching spokes-models sell garish jewelry and read about the new design of a Sikorsky 91-XJ-7 to get a sense of what life is like in West Chester. You can get it all without having to venture outside its cozy confines.
You can stand at ease now, Mr. Mayor.
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