The main sections cover "Housing," the "Apartment Lifestyle," "Commuting" and "Community Life." The Housing section covers issues that are just as relevant today as they were a quarter- century ago, like finding the right place, selecting your roommates, dealing with paperwork and legal issues, and how to move out. here is also a section on the Borough's Housing Code that contains pretty much the same things that appear in today's code, although landlords are no longer allowed to create apartments in basements, no matter how "dampness-proof" the walls and flooring are.

One of the longest sections covers leases, with subheadings like "Defensive Lease Reading" and "Obnoxious Lease Clauses." This was an era when rental housing was not well regulated, and as first-time renters, students were especially vulnerable to unscrupulous landlords. The Guide warned against leases that included waivers of the tenant's right to privacy and right to a jury trial, or clauses that allowed rent increases in mid-lease, or that required the tenant to pay the landlord's legal expenses no matter the outcome of a dispute.

The "Apartment Lifestyle" section contains mostly practical information, like how to open an electricity account, how to deter thieves, and what to do if roaches invade. There is a longish section on budgets and finances that includes the contact info for six local banks, of which only one -- First National Bank -- still operates under the same name today. The other long section covers food in all of its aspects -- how to balance a diet, how to save money, how to prevent grease fires while cooking, and so on.

The first paragraph under "Parking" in the "Commuting" section begins: "When you return in the fall, the first problem you will encounter, even before you walk into your first class, will be parking." How true then and how true now! The Guide offered the same solutions that are available today -- park on South Campus and take a shuttle bus to class, carpool with other students, and for a few lucky ones, buy a parking pass from the Borough.

One thing that is not likely to appear in the 2008 version was the section on "Do It Yourself Auto Repairs." The 1982 Guide offers five pages on maintaining a car, reading repair books, and trouble-shooting car problems, but automobile technology has changed a great deal since the days when you could set the spark plug gap with a matchbook and change brake shoes with two wrenches and a screwdriver. Electronic ignition, anti-lock braking systems, and fuel injectors all require more tools and know-how to maintain, while the demands of school and part-time jobs leave less time for students to acquire them.

Another section that will probably not make it into the 2008 version is called "Hitchhiking." After pointing out twice that hitching is "dangerous," the 1982 Guide describes it as "cheap, almost always available, and sometimes the only way to get where you want to go." With the "danger" in mind, the 1982 Guide offered tips: don't hitch alone, don't get into a car that already has three or more people in it, make sure the door on your side has a working handle, etc. It seems unlikely, however, that the University's current legal counsel would advise anyone to put this kind of information into a publication with WCU on the cover.

The last section on "Community Life" comes the closest to the goals selected by the University Area Neighborhood Task Force. After a brief statement about cooperating with Borough residents and a description of Borough government, the 1982 Guide provides about a page to voter registration and absentee ballots. That's followed by a long section on "Recreation" which reveals, among many other things, that there was still one movie theater in the Borough in those days (the High Street Theater at 120 N. High Street), two drive-in theaters within ten miles of the Borough (Exton, and US 2020 south), six places to see live theater productions between Valley Forge and Kennett Square, and a ski slope in Chadds Ford.

The last section lists places to eat in the Borough, and not surprisingly, almost none of them survive under the same name today. Burger King still occupies the corner of High and Price Streets, and you can still visit the Courtyard Inn, DeStarr's Restaurant, Dilworthtown Inn, and two McDonalds (east and south of town), or get pizza at New Haven, Las Vegas, Pizza Hut, and Sam's Pizza island. On the other hand, there is no more Gino's, Hardee's, Ivory Chopsticks, Lamp Post, American Restaurant or Roy Rogers, and the Nields Street Deli has become the Riggtown Oven while the South End Deli (at 137 Lacey Street) is now a student rental property..

The names of the members of the Off-Campus Student Association who created the guide appear nowhere in the book, so there is no way to know where they are today or what they remember about the effort to make this book. But we should probably thank them for two reasons: for creating a "time capsule" for Town Gown relations and for promoting conversations about issues that affect everyone in the Borough.

Click here to read the complete 3rd edition of "Game of Off-Campus Life" from 1982.

There are still plenty of people in West Chester who remember when Benson's was the second-largest department store in the Borough, surpassed only by Mosteller's on the corner of Church Street, a half block to the east. Benson's was founded by Samuel T. Benson, who emigrated from Kiev before World War I, possibly to escape the aftermath of the 1905 Russian Revolution. He and his wife Nettie ended up in Philadelphia and moved to West Chester by 1914, the year that they opened a dress shop at 109 W. Gay Street. Samuel was assisted by his brother Albert until he went on to become a schoolteacher in Philadelphia for thirty years.

One of their boys was Bernard, a 1939 graduate of West Chester High School. In 1941 he married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Dallen of 125 W. Chestnut Street, and two years later he enlisted in the US Army. He was wounded but survived while advancing with Patton's Third Army into Germany, and returned home to join the family business. He and his wife moved into the front apartment just above the store, and were living there on the night on March 25-26, 1949, when thieves broke into the store and stole over $20,000 worth of clothing.

Bernard Benson, U. S. Army, circa 1945

Benson's logo

Mr. Rodriguez, who writes a blog called Arod138 in beautiful West Chester, Pa" asked if WCJIM knew anything about the plaque. A quick search of the files showed that the building was a car showroom in 1931, and was constructed some time after 1921. From 1956 to the early 1980s, it was the showroom for Turner Motors, a Mercedes-Benz dealer. More recently, it was Hannum's motorcycle shop, and after that, the Verlo mattress and futon store. At present, contractors are remodeling it into a shopping center that will be called "Gateway Plaza."

To get more information about the auto dealership, WCJIM made a few telephone calls. The first, to a retired postal worker with a lifelong interest in automobiles yielded pay dirt. He remembered the J. L. Boals company at that location in the early 1930s, and identified Boals as am agent for the Ford Motor Company. He also thought that they ran into trouble during the Depression and that the remnants reorganized into Wiley Motors, which operated at 110 N. Walnut Street (across from the Post Office) for many years.

A second phone call went to the Robert Henson, the host of WCOJ's "The Big Show," Although he is on the young side, Henson grew up in West Chester and also has a strong interest in vehicles and history. He said he'd once read that Henry Ford made it a point to visit every one of his dealerships in the United States, and wondered if he'd ever been in West Chester. A few moments later, another caller identified himself as an "old- timer," confirmed that the building once housed the Boals Ford dealership, and added that back when he was young, another old-timer had told him about Henry Ford's visit to West Chester.

Armed with this information, WCJIM headed to the Recorder of Deeds Office where he found the names of the people who owned the property since 1894. That year, the West Chester Railroad sold it to a real esate firm which eventually sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad. This was not surprising, since WCJIM already knew that West Chester's first station was located a short distance away at the corner of Matlack and Chestnut Streets, and the Pennsylvania Railroad acquired control of the WCRR in 1879.

Near the end of World War I, the PRR subdivided the property and sold the eastern part to a real estate development company. They do not appear to have done anything with it, and in August 1928, they sold it to Horace Temple, owner of a printing business which operated in the middle of the block on E. Gay Street until only a few years ago. Two weeks later, Temple sold the eastern half of the property -- the section at Patton Alley and Gay Street -- to J. L. Boals, Inc.

An undated notice from the West Chester Lions Club newsletter contained a brief biogaphy of James L. Boals Jr. He was born in 1893 in Philadelphia where he was raised and educated. After serving ten years as the chief clerk of a Ford dealership at Broad and Lehigh Streets in Philadelphia, he moved to West Chester and took over the local Ford agency located at 110 N. Walnut Street. Some time later, according to the notice, Boals built a "fine showroom" at the corner of Gay Street and Patton Alley.

There are still plenty of unanswered questions about Boals and his building. Why did he sell it to someone named Charles Kahn only a week after he bought it in 1928, for the same price that he paid for it? Was Kahn a representative of the Ford Motor Company? If so, then why did Kahn sell the property to Melrose Realty in 1938, and what happened that led to the sheriff taking possession by 1943? Perhaps most intriguing -- did Henry Ford ever visit the West Chester dealership, either on E. Gay Street or N. Matlack Street? And most of all, who designed the plaque and decided to put it on a wall facing E. Gay Street?

The 1932 Borough Council faced something similar in connection with delinquent water bills. In those days, the Borough owned the local water system, and used meters to charge Borough residents and businesses for their use. Council minutes located in the Chester County Historical Society indicate that the Borough, which drew its drinking water from the Chester Creek at Milltown in East Goshen, had begun to experience shortages as early as 1925 when the stream level dropped during the summer. As a result, Council began to refuse requests for new water connections, but had no unusual problems collecting fees from existing customers.

That began to change about two years after the Depression began in late 1929. Historians agree that the effects of the Depression did not appear all at once, but expanded gradually as banks failed, credit became unobtainable, companies went out of business, people lost jobs and merchants lost sales. By 1932, when the Dow Jones industrial average reached its lowest point and the national unemployment rate rose to more than ten percent, Council had accumulated a long list of delinquent water customers. Some had recovered, like Villa Maria Academy, which was located on the site of Seven Oaks Apartments in those days, but many others had not, including the largest factory in town, the Sharples Separator Works. The minutes of the March 3, 1932 meeting listed thirty-three customers who were at least four months behind in their payments (see box).

Borough Council also decided to instruct the members of its Water Committee to meet with all the delinquents and offer them a chance to either pay up or tell Council at their August 10 meeting why their water should not be shut off.

The August Council meeting was long and painful. Before it ended, Council voted to grant water at no cost to the Chester County Hospital on E. Marshall St. and the Homeopathic Hospital on N. Walnut St., and offered deferments to a number of people. Others were not so fortunate however, and by the end of the meeting Council had voted to shut off the water at a total of seventeen properties. They included the McCormick Brothers warehouse at 17 N. Walnut St.; the West Chester Auto Supply Company at 108 E. Gay St.; Frank Grubb's rental property at 128 W. Chestnut St.; Howard Clements' shop in the 400-block of E. Gay St.; two houses at 401 and 417 W. Market St. occupied by relatives of the owner, Charles Fullerton; and Nicholas Spaziani's grocery store at 142 N. Wayne St..

The largest group of properties to lose water service were rental units belonging to Harry Siegel, the owner of a furniture store at 139 W. Gay St.. According to the meeting minutes compiled by Borough secretary Fred Wahl, "Water Commissioner Reagan reported that Mr. Siegal (sic) is a persistent offender in the matter of paying his water bills and the same trouble is had with him each year. After a discussion by Council, Mr. Dewees moved, seconded by Mr. Hoopes: That water supply [be shut off] in all [nine] properties owned by Harry Siegal where bills] are delinquent. Motion was adopted. All members present voted in favor."

In every case where a property owner appeared to ask Council for leniency, they were rewarded with at least a one-month deferment. Council was especially reluctant to punish widows and as a result, Lucinda Lear at 105 E. Chestnut St., Fannie Butcher of 204 W. Lafayette St. and Sara Howard at 410 E. Miner St. all got reprieves. The Separator Works bought time by sending a check for $50. Lawrence B. Doran, the owner of a concrete block plant on E. Nields St. next to the railroad tracks (where the day care is now located) received deferments for that property plus two rental properties. Patrick Corcoran, a successful builder with a large number of rental properties in the Borough, managed to buy some time by telling Council, "he has a great many tenants back in their rents and he has distressed nobody."

A painter named William Badum, who lived with his wife Anna at 427 N. New St., told Council "he was unable to pay his delinquent water bill as he has not had work for some time and has considerable money standing out that he cannot collect. He will make a determined effort to pay by next month." Daniel Egio (a.k.a. Dausi Egide) of 00 N. Church St. obtained a reprieve by telling Council he'd lost his job, his tenants couldn't pay, this was first time to fall behind on payments, and he had a wife and two children to support. A printer named Frank Gilbert offered to work off his debt by doing some of the Borough's printing.

Council also gave an extra month to the State Armory, a laborer named Henry Canty (a.k.a. Countee) and his wife Mary at 114 S. Matlack St., a physician's stenographer named Frank Grant who rented at 114 W. Union St., the YMCA's locker clerk Samuel McDonald who rented 131 E. Barnard St., and several other people from the southeast part of town. They also voted to delay action on the bill owed by Walter Jackson of 123 E. Miner St., since he had recently died.

Despite the fact that his company had made no payments since the August 1932 meeting, on January 11, 1933, the company's secretary, Fred Wood, sent a written request for leniency. Council referred it to their solicitor, which is presumably where the matter stood in March when the company filed for bankruptcy. The July 12 minutes mention that the Separator Company continued to receive water service, and the October 9, minutes note negotiations were underway between the Borough and the company's receivers, with Council president J. Paul MacElree serving as the company's lawyer. He was absent from the July, August and September 1933 meetings. After his term ended in December, he appeared before Council in 1924 as the lawyer for Fred Wood and Thomas Slack, the court-appointed receivers for the company.]

By the summer of 1933, there was a new group of delinquent water customers that included the Darlington Seminary, the new owner of the Mayflower Lunch, which had gone bankrupt in 1932, and Cornelia Dilworth, a widow told Council that she had not missed a payment in twenty years, but fell behind because her tenants could not pay their rent. Council finally cut of Sara Howard's water in September 1933, and it continued to hone the process by which it dealt with delinquent water customers, but it never again invited them to plead their case en masse at a public meeting.

Today's article introduces such a contribution. A man named Charles Weatherby wrote "I recently completed a 10,000 word biography of former major league baseball player Bayard H. `Bud' Sharpe, West Chester's most popular athlete from the mid-1890s to 1916" and asked if I would consider posting it. After reading his work and offering some suggestions, I've posted his final draft in the History section of this web site. It's not only a good story about an early baseball player; it also gives a feel for how important baseball was to this town. At a moment when the closest thing we've got to a home team -- the Philadelphia Phillies -- are in spring training to prepare to defend a World Series championship, Weatherby's work seems especially timely.

Weatherby's biography of Bud Sharpe appears at http://wcjim.com/history/budsharp.htm and his biography of Bill Killefer appears on the SABR web site. Both offer some good reading and an unusual look at West Chester's past.