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 was 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?