Road Report for March 16 to March 20

ROAD-REPORT-road-construction-widening-road — Road Report for March 16 to March 20

PennDOT has announced the following weather-dependent road projects that could affect drivers in the greater Chadds Ford area from March 16 to March 20. Motorists are urged to allow extra time traveling through one of the construction zones. Work schedules are subject to change.

• Overhead utility work will cause daytime lane shifts on E. Cypress Street at its intersection with Ways Lane through April 9.

• Vegetation management will cause daytime lane closures on Northbrook Road between Route 162 and Indian Hannah Road, and on Wawaset Road between Camp Linden Road and Carolannes Way in Pocopson Township through April 18.

• Overhead utility work will cause daytime lane closures on Route 1 between W. Pennsbury Way and Bayard Road in Pennsbury and E. Marlborough Township through April 9.

• Milling and curb/ADA ramp installation will cause daytime lane closures on Creek Road between Route 1 and Upper Bank Drive in Chadds Ford Township through March 31.

• Tree trimming will cause lane closures with flagging on W. Unionville Road between Route 52 and Red Lion Road through April 3.

• Tree trimming will also cause lane closures with flagging on Wawaset Road between County Prison Farm and Route 52 in Pocopson Township, and on Route 52 between W. Lafayette Road and Route 926 in Pocopson and East Marlborough townships through April 3.

• Curb demolition, milling, and ADA ramp installation will cause daytime lane closures on Route 1 between Creek and Ring roads in Chadds Ford Township through March 31.

• Utility installation will cause daytime lane closures on E. Marshall Street at its intersection with N. High Street in West Chester through May 8.

• Tree trimming will also cause daytime lane closures on Brandywine Creek Road between Green Valley and Harvey’s Bridge roads in Newlin Township through March 27.

• Roadway coring will cause periodic daytime lane closures on High Street at its intersection with Gay Street in West Chester through March 18.

• Continuing, motorists should expect daytime lane closures in both directions on Route 1 between the Kennett Oxford Bypass and Greenwood Road in Kennett and East Marlborough townships. The closures are to facilitate widening that 1.3-mile stretch of roadway to three lanes in both directions. Work is expected to continue through April 17.

• Intersection reconstruction will cause a full 24/7 closure of Bethel Avenue between Conchester Highway and Cherry Tree Road through late 2026. Detours to be posted.

• Road reconstruction will continue to cause lane shifts on Conchester Highway between Chelsea Parkway and Cherry Tree Road in Upper Chichester through Oct. 15.

• Roadway construction will cause daytime lane closures on Route 1 between the Kennett Oxford Bypass and Webb Barn Lane in East Marlborough and Kennett townships through April 24.

• Kennett Square is reporting that the Birch Street Reconstruction Project is scheduled to end in the spring of 2026. During this time, Birch Street will experience rolling road closures where one or both lanes of traffic may be closed for a few hundred feet at a time. In general, the road will be open to local traffic, and road closures will be minimized as much as possible. When both lanes of traffic need to be closed for construction activities, access will be available on both sides of Birch Street, from South Broad Street and South Walnut Street.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

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The Most Delicious Number in Math: Pi Day Celebrated at Nomadic Pies

Business, Local News, Local News Kennett

Nomadic Pies Celebrates Pi Day, The Most Delicious Number in Math

Every March 14, math lovers celebrate Pi Day, honoring the famous number 3.14. In Kennett Square, the holiday has become a much sweeter tradition thanks to Nomadic Pies, the beloved bakery known for its handcrafted pies and strong connection to local farms.

This year, the shop is marking the occasion with a special Pi Day celebration featuring Pie Flights made up of miniature three inch pies that allow customers to sample several flavors at once. Guests can choose flights of five or ten mini pies, creating a tasting experience that makes it easier to try a little bit of everything.

In addition to the flights, visitors will find hand pies and cookies available in the shop, along with freezers stocked with savory pies that can be taken home for later meals.

The Pi Day celebration is a natural fit for a bakery whose story began with creativity and a sense of adventure.

Owner Molly Johnston launched Nomadic Pies in 2012 after purchasing and renovating an old newspaper delivery truck. With help from her family, she transformed the vehicle into a traveling pie shop and began selling pies at farmers markets throughout Chester County. The mobile bakery quickly developed a following among customers who appreciated both the quality of the pies and the bakery’s commitment to using local ingredients.

As the business grew, Nomadic Pies eventually settled into its brick-and-mortar home at 132 W. State Street in Kennett Square. The name “Nomadic” remains a nod to its traveling roots and the farmers markets where the business first gained popularity.

From the beginning, Johnston built the bakery around seasonal ingredients sourced from nearby farms. Fruit pies often reflect what is being harvested in the region, while savory pies feature a variety of vegetables, meats, and cheeses inspired by local producers.

Today the shop offers a rotating selection of sweet and savory pies, quiches, hand pies, and baked goods that have helped make it a destination for visitors and locals alike.

That reputation has even earned the bakery national attention. Nomadic Pies was recently voted the fifth best pie shop in the United States in a reader poll conducted by USA TODAY.

While customers visit throughout the year for classic favorites and seasonal specialties, Pi Day offers a particularly fun way to experience the bakery’s range of flavors. The mini pie flights give visitors a chance to sample several varieties at once, turning the holiday into a celebration of both math and dessert.

For anyone looking to mark March 14 in the most delicious way possible, Nomadic Pies is ready with a simple formula: Pi Day + pie = deliciousness.

More information: https://www.nomadicpies.com/about-5

About Jamie Kleman

Jamie Kleman is a children’s author, playwright, TEDx speaker, and the Executive Producer of It’s Not Mean to be Green, an award-winning book and musical that toured for two years and launched a national Make a Monster Difference movement. She is the creator of the It’s Not Mean to be Green Camp and Licensing Program, a turnkey theatre and sustainability curriculum adopted by schools, libraries, museums, homeschool networks, and youth organizations.

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A new twist on still life at BRM

Arts & Entertainment, Local News

DSC_2590.-Sto-Len — Artist sTo Len printed pieces of trash on a large fabric. The trash came from the Potomac River.

The Brandywine Museum of Art is opening a new exhibit on Sunday, “Abundance/Excess: A Contemporary Eye on Still Life.” The exhibit takes an artistic view on bounty, accumulation, and waste in 21st-century American culture through the work of 10 contemporary artists.

There are more than 45 works that range from paintings to sculptures to mixed media and video. But the exhibit avoids the standard still life of fruit bowls and flowers in a vase by themselves and rather starts with those early standards and injects some abstract into them, such as in Kate Abercrombie’s Impressions #1. Abercrombie said she starts with the basics of still life, then layers abstraction on top.

Curating the exhibit is Kerri Bickford, the associate curator at the museum.

“Something I was really struck by was the way in which still life has always had an interest in complicated relationships with the very bounty that is represented. The morality of that bounty, the aspect to which we’re celebrating,” she said.

But the exhibit focuses not only on the abundance, but on the excessive nature of how people treat things, the waste, and the decay. Kate Butler, another artist with images in the exhibit, shows a table with food, including fish, but with flies on the table in Kitchen Table Issues.

In terms of abundance, each artist explores some sort of plenty, including the hazards of wealth and how we accumulate things, and then how we discard them.

Artist Sto Len has a large piece on display, “Impressions for Coastal Constellation Alignment: Potomac River, Virginia.” Here, the artist uses a Japanese technique of monoprinting onto a large piece of fabric. What he chose to print on that fabric were pieces of trash pulled from the Potomac River.

Then there is Bound, by Tamara Kostianovsky, discarded clothing on metal hooks.

In The White Cake Series, King Cobra, an artist, creates silicone sculptures of cakes that are beginning to deteriorate, to rot.

According to Bickford, Cobra is making a moral point about the nature of national wealth, where it comes from, and how it was built over time. She said the deterioration in the cakes represents the diseases that European settlers brought to the New World.

But Cobra makes another point with “As the gauze in my mouth filled with blood and my limp body hit the concrete, I remembered Joyce Heth.” In that image is a skull, a pitcher, cotton, wheat, and scissors.

Bickford said Cobra is making reference to the life of Joyce Heth, a slave owned by PT Barnum during the last year of her life.

“He contracted to release her from her other owner, and he toured her around and advertised her as George Washington’s nursemaid and claimed that she was more than 150 years old,” Bickford said.

Barnum was known for creating spectacles; in this case, “He did it at the expense of the body of a very elderly woman. And this also suggests that, in order to make her look older… he claims to have pulled her teeth out. What King Cobra is referencing here is the way in which when somebody is owned in labor but also in body, there are really some consequences.”

Abundance/Excess: A Contemporary Eye on Still Life runs from March 15 through June 7.