Montco Buzz

A weekly look around Montco.

Issue 1 - A Wednesday parade and Ambler's White Mountains

Hey, neighbor. Welcome to the first Montco Buzz. Every Tuesday I'll send you one email about life around here, from Pottstown down to Cheltenham and along every pike in between. Germantown Pike gets a lot of love this week, since that's where the Farm Park is. This first one runs from Halloween week through the Saturday after Election Day, so grab a coffee and save it.

What's in this one

1

Hot picks · Collegeville throws its Halloween parade on a Wednesday night. Later in the week, the Blair Witch cast shows up live at the Keswick and Lansdale's old Freight House hosts a 21+ costume ball.

2

Field guide · How to do your first visit to Norristown Farm Park, plus the November owl walks.

3

The scrap · Two dispatches from Montgomery Mall, where Toys R Us is back and so is the paranormal.

4

What's building · Norristown council's Nov 4 hearing on townhouses in the R-2 zone. Plus what Conshy's study-commission question and Hatfield Township's open-space tax question actually ask on Nov 3.

5

Makers · A big church-hall holiday market in Harleysville on Nov 7, and a two-day craft fair at Foulkeways in Lower Gwynedd.

6

Deep cut · Why Ambler has three grassy hills by the Wissahickon, and what's under them.

7

Season · Cider pressing at the Peter Wentz Farmstead, and the Ambler Farmers Market's last Saturday.

Hot picks

This weekend's best bets around here.

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, but Montco starts on Wednesday with a parade in Collegeville. After that it's a horror movie night at the Keswick, then a grown-ups-only costume party in Lansdale on Friday.

Costumed marchers in last year's Collegeville Halloween parade

Last year's parade. Photo: Joe Groarke

Collegeville · Wed Oct 28 · festival 4-6pm, parade 6:30pm, after party about 7:15-9pm · free

Collegeville Halloween Festival, Parade and After Party

Collegeville does Halloween midweek. The festival runs 4 to 6 at Collegeville Community Park, Park Ave and W. Third Ave, with a DJ and inflatables. Costume judging is at 6, and the parade leaves Schrader's Service Station at 6:30, heads down Main Street and turns onto W. Third Ave, with local businesses open for trick-or-treating along the way. It ends at the Collegeville Station lot, 50 W. Third Ave, where the after party has Troubles End Brewing, Bonjung Korean BBQ, La Familia and DonutNV Pottstown. Entering the parade is free, and there are contests for kids by age, owners with pets, families and decorated vehicles. A parade on a Wednesday is a bold move, and honestly my Thursday self is already tired. Halloween Parade

Glenside · Thu Oct 29 · doors 7pm, show 8pm · all ages (under 16 with an adult)

The Blair Witch Project, plus the cast live, at the Keswick

The Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave, screens the whole 1999 movie, and then Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams come out on stage to tell behind-the-scenes stories and take audience questions. The venue calls it a rare, limited-engagement tour. Tickets are on the Keswick site, which adds service fees. Two nights before Halloween seems like the right time to finally ask somebody why they kept filming. Keswick Theatre

The Fright House Halloween Ball banner from Discover Lansdale

Lansdale · Fri Oct 30 · 7-11pm · 21+

The Fright House Halloween Ball at the Lansdale Freight House

Discover Lansdale is throwing a Halloween night inside the historic Freight House at 111 S. Broad St. There's a light bite buffet, drinks, a DJ all night, tarot card readings, a roaming magician and prizes for the best costumes. It's 21+ with valid ID, tickets are on Eventbrite with no refunds, and all proceeds go to restoring the building. A haunted party in a train freight house is a pun that wrote itself, and I respect that they leaned all the way in. Eventbrite

Field guide

One useful guide to living around here.

Cut November fields at Norristown Farm Park with a stone farmhouse, a big barn and an owl on a fence post at dusk, hatch

Norristown Farm Park · W. Germantown Pike and Barley Sheaf Dr, Norristown (2500 Upper Farm Rd)

Norristown Farm Park for first-timers - the working farm you're allowed to walk

You've probably driven past Norristown Farm Park on Germantown Pike a hundred times and figured it was just fields. It is fields, and that's why I love it. The state owns it, the county runs it, and about 450 acres are still farmed. You can walk or bike more than eight miles of paved trail right through the middle of a working farm, for free, any day from sunrise to sunset.

This is a great month for a first visit, because the park runs owl walks. The adults-only Owl Prowl is Friday, Nov 6 at 4:50pm and it's free. Elmwood Park Zoo brings an ambassador owl for a $5 night hike on Friday, Nov 13. Both need registration. Bring a flashlight, and keep to the trails, since the county's archery deer hunt runs in two remote corners of the park into January.

The full guide has where to park, how to borrow free fishing gear, the rest of the November walks, and the story of the land, from the 1764 Shannon Mansion to the decades it was the Norristown State Hospital farm.

Read the field guide

The scrap

The best stuff you missed in the area's social media world.

It was a thin week for local posts, so this is a short one. Both come from r/montco, and both are about Montgomery Mall.

A small toy department sign inside a big department store, hatch

North Wales (Montgomery Twp) · Montgomery Mall · r/montco

Toys R Us is back at Montgomery Mall, sort of

Toys R Us is back at Montgomery Mall, and one neighbor measured it in Starbucks. r/montco

via u/whomp1970

The Beyond the Grave storefront at Montgomery Mall

North Wales (Montgomery Twp) · Montgomery Mall · r/montco

Montgomery Mall's newest store is Beyond the Grave

Montgomery Mall's newest neighbor deals in the paranormal, which feels right for the last week of October. r/montco

via u/Other-Employment-990

What's building

What's going up, getting paused, or getting fought over.

Election Day brings local questions in Conshy and Hatfield Township, and I've laid both out plainly. The next night, Norristown council takes up townhouses.

A Norristown rowhouse block with newer townhouses at the end of the street, hatch

Norristown · Wed Nov 4 · 6:30pm · Norristown Municipal Hall, 235 E. Airy St

Norristown council's hearing on townhouses in the R-2 zone

Norristown Municipal Council holds a public hearing Wednesday, Nov 4 at 6:30 on an ordinance that would let townhouses and multiplexes go up in the R-2 residential district. It also changes rules for lot sizes, yards and coverage, and lets garage spaces count toward parking when there's a recorded deed restriction and an HOA to enforce it. The legal notice says council may enact it that night, so a vote is possible but not certain. The Times Herald reports a developer wants this change for a 48-townhome concept on E. Fornance St, and that approving the text wouldn't approve that plan. The full ordinance is at Municipal Hall and the county Law Library if you want to read it first. If you live in an R-2 block, this is the meeting. Legal notice · Times Herald

Conshohocken · Tue Nov 3 · Election Day

Conshy's ballot question about a government study commission

Conshohocken voters get a yes-or-no question on Nov 3: "Shall a government study commission of seven members be elected to study the existing form of government of Conshohocken Borough, to consider the advisability of the adoption of a home rule charter, and if advisable, to draft and to recommend a home rule charter?" There's no dollar amount on the ballot, and it doesn't fund anything directly. A yes forms a seven-member commission to study the borough's government. If it recommends a home rule charter, that charter goes to voters at a future election. A no means no commission is formed. The same ballot has seven write-in lines for commission members, and the county says you can vote for members however you vote on the question. Read the official sample ballot before you go. Official sample ballot · County plain English statement

Hatfield Township · Tue Nov 3 · Election Day

Hatfield Township's open-space tax question

Hatfield Township voters get a yes-or-no question on Nov 3 about adding 0.25% to the township's earned income tax for open space. The county's plain English statement says the rate would go from 0.5% to 0.75%, and it only applies to earned income, so pensions, Social Security and other fixed income aren't touched. On $100,000 of earned income, the extra 0.25% comes to $250 a year, and the township's FAQ estimates it would bring in roughly $2 million a year. The money can only be spent on open space. That covers buying land, farm and conservation easements or development rights, the fees that come with those deals, and paying off a bond the township took out to buy open space. Up to 25% a year can go to improving and maintaining that land. A yes raises the rate to 0.75%. A no keeps it at 0.5%. Read the official wording before you go. Official sample ballot · County plain English statement

Makers

Local makers nights and market tables worth hitting.

Holiday shopping season starts the Saturday after next, whether I'm ready or not. Harleysville has a big church-hall market, and Foulkeways in Lower Gwynedd runs a two-day craft fair.

Shoppers at a past Holiday Marketplace of Harleysville

A past marketplace.

Harleysville · Sat Nov 7 · 10am-3pm

Holiday Marketplace of Harleysville

Christ Lutheran Church at 2211 Mainland Rd in Harleysville, just off Turnpike exit 31, fills up with local Pennsylvania artisans selling ceramics, candles, jewelry, woodwork, textiles and more. The artisan spaces are sold out. There's a homemade pie sale, specialty food trucks, and Santa photos from 10:30 to 11:30 and 12:30 to 1:30. Raffle money goes to Todi's Place of Hope, a new homeless shelter in Lansdale run by RHD Montgomery County Homeless Services. Parking in the church lot is free. They say to buy a pie and freeze it for the holidays, which assumes a level of willpower I've never had. Holiday Marketplace

A craft table with quilts and wreaths, hatch

Lower Gwynedd · Fri Nov 6 and Sat Nov 7 · 9am-3pm · free

Foulkeways Annual Craft Fair

Foulkeways, at US 202 and Sumneytown Pike diagonally across from the William Penn Inn, opens its craft fair to the public for two days. More than 30 craftspeople sell things like pottery, quilts, wreaths, woodwork and knit goods. There's a bake sale and lunch, plant and book sales, and a kids' art studio with face painting and balloon animals. Bring pantry items and toiletries to donate for neighbors in Montgomery County. It's open to the public at no cost, which makes it the cheapest way to cross a few names off my list. Craft Fair

Deep cut

One local history leftover worth knowing.

Three steep grassy hills behind a fence along a creek in Ambler, with old factory stacks behind, hatch

Ambler · the capped asbestos piles along the Wissahickon (fenced; view from public streets)

The White Mountains of Ambler - the asbestos town and the hills it left behind

Most of us know Ambler for dinner on Butler Avenue and a movie at the Ambler Theater. Not far from all that, along the Wissahickon, there are steep green hills behind a fence that people here used to call the White Mountains. They're more than 1.5 million cubic yards of asbestos waste, and they're the reason Ambler looks the way it does.

Keasbey & Mattison moved to Ambler in the early 1880s, because the railroad could bring asbestos down from Quebec. Dr. Richard Mattison ended up owning roughly 400 homes in town and putting up the streetlights, and for about three-quarters of a century Ambler was known as the asbestos-manufacturing capital of the world.

The waste piled up from the 1930s on, and one pile reached 70 feet. EPA put the site on its Superfund list in 1986 and decided that trucking it out would spread too much dust, so it capped and planted the hills instead. The full story has the playground that closed in 1984, what it cost the people who worked there, and a myth check on the dates you'll see quoted.

Read the deep cut

Season

What's in the air right now. Farm stands, orchards, peak harvest.

This week it's an old farm pressing cider and dipping candles, the way it would've looked in the 1700s. And one of my favorite Saturday markets closes out its year on Halloween morning.

Worcester · Sat Nov 7 · 10am-4pm · free, $2 suggested donation

Fall harvest day at the Peter Wentz Farmstead

The county's colonial farm at 2030 Shearer Rd in Worcester shows you a farm at harvest time, with cider pressing, candle dipping, cooking demos and other hands-on stuff. You can take a house tour and buy lunch from a local food truck. The house was built in 1758, and George Washington used the farm as a temporary headquarters in 1777. This year is the farmstead's 50th anniversary, per the county. It's free for all ages with a suggested $2 donation. My kids will dip one candle and then ask where the food truck is, and I'll be right behind them. Events at Wentz

A corner market stand with produce crates, hatch

Ambler · Sat Oct 31 · Saturday morning

Last Saturday of the Ambler Farmers Market

Ambler's farmers market runs every Saturday morning from May 9 to Oct 31 at the corner of Butler and Maple Avenues, next to La Provence. That means Halloween morning is the last one of the year. Go grab whatever you'll want for the long winter of grocery store bread. Wearing a costume to buy eggs is optional but I think it should be encouraged. Ambler Main Street

See you on the Pike.

Montco Buzz · written from around here · Tuesday mornings

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