A popular decoration for bedroom and dorm room walls.
By: David Campbell
When former Princeton Borough mayor Barbara Boggs Sigmund first proposed short-term "kiss and run" parking outside the Dinky rail station in the late 1980s, she probably didn’t anticipate the extra work she was creating for the borough’s Public Works Department.
The distinctive signs that have graced the half-dozen or so spaces in front of the University Place train stop they read "10 Minute Kiss and Run Parking," just as the late Ms. Sigmund originally coined the phrase are so popular they keep disappearing.
Here’s how the process works. One of the whimsical signs draws the admiration of a local youngster or university student, who promptly returns with a screwdriver preferably under cover of darkness and removes it for display in a bedroom or dorm room.
Then, some public works staff have to be dispatched to replace the stolen sign with another which, in turn, draws the admiration of yet another youngster or student, who promptly returns under cover of darkness with a screwdriver to steal it for display in another bedroom or dorm room.
And so, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote in "Slaughterhouse Five," it goes.
According to Wayne D. Carr, the borough’s director of public works, the department has gone through six to eight of the popular "Kiss and Run" signs since late October or early November around the time University Place was reopened to traffic following reconstruction work there.
"We’ve tried everything to try and keep them there, but the kids manage to get them off of there anyway," Mr. Carr said.
The public works director said his department is taking a break from replacing the stolen "Kiss and Run" signs, which he said cost about $25 each, opting instead to hang plain old boring short-term parking signs outside the Dinky station.
But the hiatus from "Kiss and Run" is only temporary. In the next couple of weeks, Mr. Carr said, the distinctive signs will return.
Borough Engineer Carl Peters said the "Kiss and Run" signs are by far the most highly prized among sign stealers.
But what about the stop sign, that bold red classic of stolen signage that has graced the walls of countless teenagers’ bedrooms through the years? Or the highly personalized street sign with the sign stealer’s last name emblazoned there in block type?
Forget about those. They pale in comparison to the Dinky station signs’ coy and suggestive invitation to "Kiss and Run."
"They’ve probably been one of our higher lost signs," Mr. Peters said. "They’re replaced on a more frequent basis than other signs."
And what a shame it is, especially for Jefferson Road resident Adrian Wilson, who said he liked the signs so much that he proudly pointed them out to his mother visiting from England shortly before the Christmas holiday only to see them gone not long after the gifts had been opened and the holiday cheer exchanged.
"They were fairly new signs, as well," Mr. Wilson added. He said that signs back home in England are "absolutely atrocious" for example, he said, a sign pointing the way to a six-lane superhighway may be the size of a vinyl record cover, hung in plain view behind a large bush.
Mr. Wilson said the signs in Princeton are better than all that, but still for the most part, he continued, rather unimaginative. By comparison, he described the "Kiss and Run" signs as "an interesting bit of signage," and said he would like to see them put back up if possible in a fashion that they can’t be stolen again.
"It does put a smile on your face," the Jefferson Road resident said. "It’s something to show visitors that maybe people here have a sense of humor."

