Hike #816; Changewater Mountain to Washington

Hike #816: Changewater Mountain to Washington

12/6/14 Changewater Mountain to Washington with Joe Tag, Jen Berndt, Ric Giantisco, Lyz Hagenbuch, Wilma Vargas, and Larry Philips.

The group on the Morris Canal; Port Murray Preserve

Our next hike would be a point to point in northern Hunterdon County and southern Warren County, ending at the Washington Theater where we'd have the annual Decemberween Party. The concept this time was to be a fundraiser to help save the theater.

This hike and party would be a great example of our traditions meshing well with new experiences and endeavors.

First, every December, we do a hike that passes by my grandfather's house. I've been running the North Hunterdon Back Roads and Trails hikes since the very early 2000s, and having it as a Christmastime tradition since 2005. Each year the hike ends up being somewhat different than the previous year, but each year we always visit my grandfather one way or another (The first year started at his church, then every year since we've gone to his house). This year I planned for the hike to start at his house and continue on.

Decemberween is something our friends Carol and Rob Creamer have hosted and opened to the group every year since 2009 (they hosted the event even before we met them). And so, every year from that time I planned hikes that would start at, end at, or be in the general vicinity of the Decemberween party. This year, Carol told me she would not be having Decemberween, but rather a regular Halloween party. It was too difficult for me to attend the Halloween party, so I asked her if she'd mind if we hosted a Decemberween as a fundraiser for the theater. She was cool with it, so I called my buddy Marco Matteo at the theater to discuss it.

I met Marco in 1998 when he organized S.T.A.R.T. (Save The Area's Regional Theater). The Washington Theater was in danger of being torn down and replaced with a drive through 24 hour pharmacy. People rallied behind Marco to save the theater.

Marco gained control of the building and began having community events. He started showing movies again and hosting live music. Still, the theater has been a costly struggle. In March, we had the annual Hikers' Hootenanny at the theater, which went great. Jack got his band, then named "Not Constantinople" to come out and perform for it. Now re-named Gypsy Funk Squad, I reached out to Jack and asked if they'd be willing to perform again. It has become more important than ever to rally behind the theater because it's once again in danger of being demolished. Everything seemed to be working out pretty well.

The hike I planned for the event would include some of the first hike I ever took at the age of three, much of Point Mountain Reservation, also involved in some of my earliest hikes, and later where I worked as an employee of  Hunterdon County Parks Department. I also assisted with planning and developing all of the trails in the north section. The hike would also include the new Port Murray Preserve with a new trail that I had only finished the initial clearing on the night before.

We met in the morning at the municipal town lot in Washington, across from the Krauszers convenience store. We shuttled from there to my grandfather's house to start the hike.

My grandfather, Eldon D. Allen, warning my friends of the dangers of hiking with me.

My grandfather has lived in the same house for over forty years. The house was partially a log hunting cabin built by the owners of the Dickson house down the road. It had an addition built on when it became a primary residence years later. The cabin section was probably built in the twenties or thirties. When I was born, I was brought home to this house. I had my own bedroom there from when I was little on until I turned 19 when I moved out. I went to live there again after my house burned down in Port Colden. This place was as much a home to me as Port Colden was, and I spent an almost equal amount of time or more there in my youth.

Before starting off the hike, my grandfather came out and jokingly warned my friends about the dangers of hiking with me. He also lectured me about going into dangerous places, and keeping out of the abandoned railroad tunnels (which he himself is responsible for bringing me through the first many times, which is what spawned these interests!). I think Jen brought up that fact.

We said goodbye and headed up Mountain Top Road toward Point Mountain Reservation. I explained to everyone that this section of road we were walking was also part of the first hike I'd ever done at the age of three, toward Point Mountain with my grandfather. We re-enacted that hike with Steve Rogers, and filmed it for the TV show Driving Jersey in 2007.

We headed down the road, passing the Adicks Orchard. The old house in front, a bit off the road, was now nearly collapsed. We continued down the road past the farm of Jay Garish, who had passed away this year. He had made his fortune selling hats from overseas and had a huge estate, with an historic farm and a new mansion overlooking Mansfield and Washington Townships. He was a good friend of my grandfather's and gave a great deal to charity through my grandfather's church.

We continued past the farm, and saw several sheep were left loose along the road. They ran away from us in the other direction as we moved on. After passing the ninety degree bend in the road, and the wires still left down but working since Sandy, we turned right into the the Wattles Fields of Point Mountain Reservation, We followed the trail across the long fields, and I told everyone about the wetlands restoration project I worked on with Don Donnelly when I worked there.

The trail continued along the fields and then entered the woods. It was alright in the fields until the end, then became somewhat overgrown. No one really maintains these trails any more, especially since I was laid off. I could see someone walked them and put up some new plastic white markers, but they hammered them completely into the trees, so they'll grow back out in a year or less.

Abandoned truck at Point Mountain

We entered the woods at the end of the field section onto the foot path section and and continued until the pathway picked up an old woods road. The trail follows the old roadway for a while, but does turn off of it from time to time in wet areas. Since the leaves were down, I was able to show everyone the long abandoned truck that is out there in the woods. I was only able to find one of the three that I know exist out there. When I worked for Hunterdon, Keith Monahan and I went out and searched the area, and found two sitting flat, then a third sort of upside down in the area. There is another old roadway just up hill from the one used by the trail at this point. I think it might go to an iron mine I saw on an older map, which I've never been able to find as of yet. I walked along the roadway for a bit to the old spring house ruin just a little further along, then made my way back out to the official trail, while the others followed me, and Larry messed around with the old truck. He was able to remove an old switch from it that he said was still usable.

Old spring house

The spring house is a nice old masonry structure of good size. The stone work is still in surprisingly pretty good shape. I headed back to the trail and returned to where everyone else had left it, and we soon were able to move on. We remained on the white blazed trail on out to where it intersects with the yellow trail. White goes to the right, while the yellow one turns left heading toward the main overlook. There are many branches and trees down over this section of trail, and several others in other places, but they've not been cleared in a long time.

The trail descended on a couple of switch backs, then crossed Point Mountain Road at the pull off parking area. We ascended on the trail, which now had been widened illegally by mountain bikers at the base, and climbed to the overlook.

View from Point Mountain

Hunterdon Parks had used a grey spray paint to cover over all of the graffiti that had been placed at the overlook recently. That was nice to see. We took some time here and enjoyed the view, climbed around a bit. After this break, we continued on the orange blazed Ridge Trail along to the very top of Point Mountain, passing the mock "dinosaur footprint" along the way, in a rock to the left. My grandfather had showed me this spot when I was very little. Probably only three.

The very top of Point Mountain is a rock that juts forward at 934 feet above sea level. Larry went and sat on it. We took a few moments here, where there is a limited view to the northeast, and then moved on along Ridge Trail.

Top of Point Mountain

The Ridge Trail continues past the intersection with the white trail again, at a spot where it descends slightly from the ridge along a stone wall, then regains the ridge as it descends toward Penwell. We headed gradually down hill (this is one of the only two places in my life so far where I have seen a Coyote in the wild, amazingly) and crossed over the stream area to reach the old woods road that leads right to Camp Bernie. We continued to the left, descending on the woods road, which the trail follows, past my favorite little spring, and out toward the Rosen Fields. Just before the fields, we made a right turn on the white trail toward Point Mountain's North Section.

Partially eaten white blazes.

While walking this section, there were some more new white plastic rail markers, most of them hammered in too far, and many of them already half eaten by rodents. It's really disheartening how they wouldn't listen to reason at the meetings when I was on their trails committee. They're still spending over $400 per order for these blazes which all disappear eventually or are chewed up. My two by three inch paint ones are still lasting very well after over six years.

The trail meandered through the woods above the fields, then descended on an old woods road to reach the edge of Beaty's Brook. I'd forgotten the name of the brook recently, and my friend Vance Calvin was able to remind me it's name. He lives on the brook just down stream, and I helped him work on  his yard when I was employed by his business, Works Data installing phone systems.

Old mill site on Beaty's Brook, Point Mountain Reservation

The trail soon crosses Beaty's Brook on stones. When I worked for Hunterdon, we had a scout come in to do some work on this section. He was charged with the task of moving stones to made for adequate crossing of the creek. He crossed to an island and then to the other side beyond it. It still works pretty good, with the smaller crossing still in good shape but the larger one can be a little rough. Just on the other side is a sort of foundation site along the brook of what would appear to be an old mill. There is what looks like it could be a raceway and a former dam site. There is obvious remaining masonry, though it doesn't appear to have any mortar of any kind. I know very little about what was here, but this was definitely something, and the 1905 map of the area shows a dwelling in the vicinity. A more modern home also used to stand on a nearby lot called the Gruin house. It was torn down while I worked for Hunterdon. It would have made a lovely nature center if they'd have had the foresight to save it.

Soon, we continued to cross Penwell Road. We headed up hill on the white trail, a section I worked with the planners, and Principal Ranger Tom Lizzi, and naturalist Laura Kroon to scout out. I did some initial clearing and we flagged the route, then Student Conservation Association came in and did a fantastic job with the tougher rock work. It was great to see a trail now exist where I'd put up flags. We continued up hill on this section to the elevation of 1,005, one of the highest points in Hunterdon County, and re-grouped at the intersection of the white and red trails.

Once everyone was together, we followed the red trail ahead, along the gradual descent of the hill, and through the giant old stone wall just below the top. There were some downed trees here, so we lost the blazes at first, but then easily found them and descended to the white trail once more, now on a more obvious woods road. We descended on this through woods, and then former fields. We then paralleled the abandoned portion of Hermit's Lane which leads out to Old Turnpike Road. Someone had dumped a whole bunch of crap there recently, including some old rugs and a couple of old carpets. We headed out of the lot onto Old Turnpike Road. At the entrance to the lot is the steps and foundation of a former homestead that used to sit at this point.

Wynder Farm Bridge

We followed the road past Eddie Behr's house and farm (he has the lease on the farmlands at Point Mountain), then reached the Triple Stone Arch Wydner Farm Bridge. This is the only bridge of it's kind in Hunterdon County, connecting to Warren County. A few years ago they worked to refurbish it and did an excellent job.

Wyndner Farm Bridge being repaired in December 2011.

On the holiday north Hunterdon hike we did in December of 2011 we had to cross the bridge when it was under construction. The sides were crumbling and so they were rebuilt very well. The rest of the bridge too was stabilized.

It was now raining pretty consistently, and getting heavier all the time. I borrowed an umbrella from Jillane and carried it pretty much the entire rest of the hike.

We continued out to Rt 57 and turned left, heading west. We then continued to old abandoned Penwell Road along the river, just beyond the old lime kiln. We walked the abandoned road out to the current alignment with Penwell Road, then headed up hill again to Rt 57. Once here, we crossed directly to the church across. Since there was no one else around, I decided to lead everyone onto the weird route I'd discovered over the Summer, to make it more interesting.

We crossed into the field; there were no signs saying not to trespass. We stayed along the right edge of the field, cut to the left, still on the edge, and ignored the first turn into the next field. At the north end of the field we were following, a woods road led us into the woods, parallel with the north side of the field directly south of us. This woods road leads us out to another field to the east, which has a connection to the fields to the south. We turned left into this third field in the series, keeping to the left. At the end of this field, we passed through a line of trees to a fourth field. We turned right along the south side, and then passed through a line of trees to the fifth field. We turned left here to skirt yet another tree line.

Field perspective views

I stopped everyone to look back; it was starting to rain and a fog was fast rolling in to cover Musconetcong Mountain to the south of us, but we could still see the tops. I wanted to show everyone that we'd started out beyond Point Mountain, which was to our far right looking back, followed along this long rolling ridge to the north section, then descended from there. It's amazing to think we had already done that.

We stayed in this field section to the north, then turned right along it's north side until reaching a break where it led us out to the official trail on the outside of Mansfield Recreation Park. We turned right on the trail with the crushed stone surface.

An old Kaiser, as Joe identified it. 1951.

As we walked along, there were some views to the north along the fields to the left. There were abandoned cars in the woods to the right, part of the Columbia II junkyard. Joe identified the first one we came across as a 1951 Kaiser, and acknowledged that they were rare and only made for a few years.

Mansfield Recreation Park

Abandoned building

We continued along the trail to the east end of the park and turned north, along the tree line and into a section of woods. At the north end of the park, the trail turned left through nice woods heading west. We eventually came back out in more fields and continued to the west end of the park. When the trail made a turn to the south, we turned right past an abandoned building, probably associated with the old tile factory that used to be there. I used to play with my brothers in that building when I was little.

We walked through every room of the old building, then headed out across the foundation of the tile factory to the railroad tracks within view of the old Port Murray Railroad station.

Historic view of Port Murray; station and tile plant

Today, the station is in nice shape, and there's an historic caboose sitting out by it. This wasn't how it was when I was little though, it used to be a real mess.

Port Murray Station

Port Murray Station back in the day

My grandfather, on our countless hikes when I was little, used to try to hike every rail line, active or abandoned, and if there were abandoned structures or tunnels and such, we would be in them. I would be scared often, but he'd tell me not to worry, and in we'd go. In the 80s and early 90s, the Port Murray station was in deplorable condition and falling apart. We used to go into it every time I was around. Some time in I think the late 1990s it was beautifully repaired. It would be great to see the post office occupy this building, as it currently occupies an ugly trailer sitting out front.

On the opposite side of the tracks, in a beat white building was the tile place. There would little round metal discs all over the floor of it I used to pick up. We used to be able to walk through one end and out the other through large doors, and into the rooms. I remember clipping the picture out of the paper when the remaining building was demolished.

We crossed over the tracks, crossed Port Murray Road, and walked up Hoffman Road to cross the former Morris Canal. To the right, there was a shed built on it, but beyond it was the property of my grandfather's late friend Harry Pool, who I knew through him as well. The county was working to acquire it while he was still living, but we didn't get to him in time. Now that he's gone, the banks have the property and they're not really interested in selling just the canal without the house on it.

Morris Canal in Port Murray

To the left, the canal is on private land and passes the best collection of canal related structures on the entire canal, but it's not public land either. Our Morris Canal Trail will make it's way in to the Port Murray Preserve by way of "Terracotta Road", an old road that went to the brick yard recently acquired by Warren County.

We made our way up hill, and I pointed out where the county will be constructing the new parking area, then headed onto the old road way that I will be marking as the Morris Canal Trail in the near future. I had been working on the new connecting trail further in several days a week in order to have it done for this hike.

Morris Canal Inclined Plane #5 West

Looking down at the site of Morris Canal Inclined Plane #5 West

We turned left on another old roadway further in, which is not part of the planned trail, and followed it south to pass some more old brick ruins. We then came to about where the top of former Morris Canal Inclined Plane #5 West was. The quarrying associated with first a clay pit operation, then the terracotta works had destroyed most of the remains of the canal in this area, although we've managed to find some remains.

Morris Canal Inclined Plane #5 West historic view

I showed everyone the top of the turbine chamber and where exactly the penstock used to be, where the water would have flowed to beneath the Scotch Turbine chamber. We descended from the hill down to the turbine chamber, which today remains exposed from the excavating that went on around it. It offers a unique opportunity for interpretation that none of the other former inclined plane ruins have due to it's exposure

Tail race tunnel, Plane 5

Turbine chamber, Plane 5

I pointed out to everyone where the turbine was situated, and we went through the tail race tunnel. It's always interesting to to this, but this time it was a little bit messier due to the heavy rain. I had already fallen down once while descending from the side of the slope to the turbine site and got my pants covered in mud.

Used this one for our fundraiser thing

After showing everyone the turbine site, we continued on the access road out to Brick Yard Road and turned right. Where the Terracotta Road joins the Brick Yard Road, Brick Yard Road follows the old Morris Canal Towpath. The trail turns to follow the towpath here, but is unmarked. I'd never organized a long hike to cover this section of the canal before this time.

We turned and crossed a Vermeule era drainage culvert made of concrete. Vermeule was the engineer in charge of the dismantling of the Morris Canal around 1930. Many concrete structures were erected to ease drainage, usually at sites where there were once weirs to compliment the water level of the canal but allow it to drain at times of high water (see group photo at top).

The trail remains on the canal around some nice curves. The towpath is now a wide driveway, and the canal prism is well intact with some rip rap rock visible from time to time. Local businessman Don Mayberry told me there are foundations on the hillside of people's homes that worked at the clay pits from many years ago, even during the time of the canal possibly. This is part of my plan to make a loop trail in the future, to pass these structures and parallel the hillside through the woods.

Morris Canal Trail used as a driveway in Port Murray Preserve

When we near the property boundary, the county only owns the land on the south side of the canal. This means the trail "officially" has to remain on county land and can't be on the driveway for now. I volunteered to make it a Metrotrails project to build the new trail. I set myself a deadline to have the trail finished by the date of this hike, or at the very least passable. I succeeded in the very least, but was able to continue improving the trail after the hike was over in the following week.

For the previous trail work trips, Sandy Westermann and her three kids came out to help me clear. We managed to make a triple switch back, which still needs a lot of work, then cut along the base of the slope. During a county site visit, while walking with Don Mayberry, we found another route a little closer to a creek below that would work better. I had to abandon some of the work I'd been doing in favor of this better route. I finished an initial cutting of the whole thing on Thursday afternoon.

While working on this section, I was faced by more "opposition" than I'd come across on any other trail project. Although the county has closed on the property, and I even was in state uniform, the first guy, Mr. Egnatz, pulled up to us in his silver truck screaming at us "THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY!". I tried to explain "No sir, it's not, I'm with the Board of Recreation...". He interrupted me with an even louder "THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY!". At this point, I can see he's not going to be reasonable. I replied simply "No. No it's not, this is county land now, I'm here working to develop the Morris Canal Trail...". I don't recall how far I was able to go on; the Westermanns were standing behind me, and Egnatz spun his tires and tore off in the truck heading up the driveway, throwing loose rocks onto us as he left. I immediately rang up Corey Tierney from Land Preservation to report the issue, not so much because we had a problem, but to give him a heads up in case these people contact him. I also met a Mrs. Hannesak the same day, and she was much nicer. In the following days, I also met Mr. Hannesak, and I had a few really nice conversations with him. I recognize that these people have been living on this property for twenty or thirty years and aren't used to seeing anyone pass through. I explained to him that I was moving the trail further off into the woods to circumvent his home to be a good neighbor, and to respect the privacy they've had and try to make this something positive for everyone. So far all experiences with everyone except the first guy have been positive.

Every day I worked, Egnatz would go by, stop his truck parallel with me on either the canal towpath driveway to the north or the old trolley right of way to the south, stare for a bit, then spin his tires and tear off. The guy is doing a horrible job showing his dissatisfaction and he's destroying all of the work Mr. Hannesak put into the driveway. The most unnerving part is the fact I can see from a distance he stops at my car and stares at it as well. It has "Metrotrails" written on the doors, so it's not like he wouldn't recognize it every time. I'm afraid one of these days someone might try something on my car.

New Morris Canal Trail I've been clearing

We descended on the new switch back, which needs a lot of grading work. Even overhead, there is a lot of multi flora rose that is awful. My umbrella kept getting stuck on it, and the group kept helping me to get it loose again. The trail reaches the bottom, then turns left to the lovely little creek, crosses on rocks, then parallels it heading right, down stream. I weaved it back and forth on the path of least resistance, then out to cross the creek once more. It then reaches a sort of wet area, where we had to cross yet another small tributary and climb the embankment to the old trolley line.

Old trolley right of way at Port Murray Preserve

The trolley operated from Easton to Port Murray, but was called the Easton-Washington Traction Company. I believe it was planned to connect it to Hackettstown, and maybe Morristown, but it never came to be. "Trolley Fever" as it was called, was bit in the early 1900s, but it was short lived.

Our new trail route follows the trolley right of way to the west for a little bit until it gets to another house which uses the trolley line as a driveway. From here, the trail resumes on the old canal towpath heading west.

Morris Canal in Mansfield Township west of Port Murray.

Except for a little hacking, Youth Corps have been keeping the section toward Hart's Lane on the Morris Canal clear. It looks great, and it was so nice to finally be able to hike this section. It was both too overgrown and on private land before, making this section somewhat impossible to hike. We followed the section, first with a wide section of weeds separating us from the canal prism, but then opening up.

Morris Canal nearing Hart's Lane

The canal was watered ahead, which very much adds to the historic ambiance of the canal. It wasn't holding much at first, but then was more full when we reached the next property. A small earthen dam had been placed across the prism so that the canal held water here. It made for quite a beautiful walk.

When we reached Harts Lane, the canal on the other side was clear and in good condition, but on private land. We had to turn left on the road and follow it down to the railroad tracks. We climbed down to the tracks and followed them to the west. We crossed a bridge along them, taking us over Domin Lane, where another section of canal trail will soon be available, hopefully. One of the only remaining bridges associated with the old trolley line is parallel with the regular railroad tracks

Morris Canal Inclined Plane 6 West tail race tunnel. Note the cave crickets.

We walked the tracks for a while more, and soon the stone wall appeared on the right side upon which sat the trolley tracks. The canal was further up hill from here, approaching Inclined Plane #6 West. We didn't actually walk down the plane this time, but visited the tail race tunnel from the turbine chamber.

Cave crickets in the tail race tunnel.

Lyz, Ric, and I went all the way to the back of the tunnel. Unlike in the Summer, now there were cave crickets completely covering the ceiling of it. I didn't realize how many there were at first. Once we were way in there, I started feeling things on my neck, getting in my shirt. I figured it was them. Once we got a light on the ceiling, we could see how many thousands of them there were. Jen heard cave crickets and hightailed it out of the tunnel having only just entered. I figured they were pretty cool. Still, even an hour later, I was finding them in my shirt.

Historic view: Morris Canal Inclined Plane #6 West

The Morris Canal will hopefully be a public greenway through the section we'd just done in the near future. There are one or two pieces of land missing in order to complete the greenway between the two historic ports. Mr. Domin, on Domin Lane, is very amenable to the trail, and the county was now closing on the Handlos Property out of Port Colden, at the top of Inclined Plane #6 West.

Plane 6W

With the last pieces missing, this will be possibly the most contiguous Morris Canal Greenway section in the state save for the Pompton Feeder Canal. For now, we just continued along the tracks heading to the west, which soon made it's way onto a higher fill. The trolley line descended a bit to lower level toward the old shops.

Port Colden Trolley Shops, now Jeff Hackett's garage.

Although it's not all that well know, the trolley shops still stand. Below the railroad tracks to the right is a large concrete building. It is now Jeff Hackett's garage, and locals knew it in more recent years as the old Seven Up plant. It still bore the "7-UP" logo when I was little, and I never knew that it was anything more than that for many years until I'd read that this was the former trolley shop. In fact, a trolley trestle still exists along the right side of the building.

Inside the trolley shops

The Easton-Washington Traction Company began operating to this point in 1906, and was extended to Port Murray a bit later. The tracks continued from the off road route from here onto the streets. It went down present day Rt 57, which I think was route 24, and continued through town along the road until departing near Stewartsville.

We continued along the tracks beneath the concrete bridge under Rt 57 and took a break there from the rain.

Washington Avenue in Washington with the trolley

Next, we made our way toward the Washington railroad yard. This area looks so much different than it has in previous years. There were all sorts of dirt bike trails to the right when we used to come down here before. Now this area was getting overly developed by new homes. There used to be a little trail that took us out to Warren Plaza I used to walk or ride, but no more.

As we walked, I couldn't see the old turntable pit, which was partially filled in to the right of the tracks in the past. I wondered if they'd covered it over or removed it.

Old Washington Turntable

I told everyone how in this area the original line, the Morris and Essex, when it was a rival to the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, had to put their tracks up higher level as not to cross the Warren Railroad at grade. Interruption in service would not be allowed by the company that was there first. Later, Morris and Essex became part of the Lackawanna system, and so it was re-aligned to the same grade as the rest of the old main line.

Washington Station

We passed where the station used to stand, to the left, where the rails diverge. The handsome brick station was torn down in 1982; at that time it was the only building in Washington on the historic register. That was the third station to serve Washington; the first was at Port Washington about a mile north next to the Morris Canal, the second was just to the side of the last one, as the last one was built on the foundation of the predecessor's turntable pit.

Washington Station

We continued on the  tracks heading to the northwest and crossed the concrete arch culvert before descending to Rt 57. It was still raining pretty  heavily, and we were happy that we'd be done quite early for this one. We reached the highway and followed it to the east. The trolley line once passed directly beneath this culvert as well.

Culvert on present Rt 57 in the early 1900s.

We walked along the highway to the front of the Washington Theater, only to find Marco already there on top of the ladder, changing the sign on the Marquee to read "Metrotrails Decemberween". It was really cool to see our event up on the marquee.

Historic Washington Theater

I told Marco we were going to get a bit to eat, retrieve the cars from my grandfather's house, and then try to arrive back in an hour and a half tops to prepare for the party. Joe and Wilma decided not to hang around for the party, but the rest of us did. We got the cars, and then got food at Dicola's Pizza which is only a couple of blocks to the north.

Old view of the Washington Theater marquee

Washington Theater as it appeared when I was in high school and younger

We grabbed a few slices, I got cleaned up, and we headed back to the theater to prepare for the party.

Unlike the times in the past we've had to rally behind the theater, this time has been of the utmost importance because it's owners have now received permits for demolition. Marco said it best on a Channel 69 interview he'd done recently, that he couldn't picture Washington without the theater. The theater has been a recognizable landmark and popular gathering place since it was first built in the 1920s.

Downtown Washington historic

The problem with Washington is that it's a town with potential, but it doesn't know what it wants to be. It has a sign that says "Hometown Friendly" and yet has a code enforcer who's a stickler for everything, and several bars with rough characters hanging around. Some planners and such will get behind the Morris Canal, saying this is going to bring business to the town, but it won't. Washington will never be New Hope or Lambertville, or anything like those. They have several gimmicks, including the Delaware River, which Washington simply won't have. Washington needs an identity of it's own. I think the rouring twenties, with the theater as one of the centerpieces would be a good way to go. But the theater alone can't be it; the entire town will need to rally behind a plan. Prohibition era is a great gimmick, and the town even has an unused Prohibition era speakeasy beneath it's main intersection. There's also a vintage ballroom above the bank. These things are the infrastructure that need to be marketed upon. How to go about it, I simply do not know.

Washington Circle and the Theater

When I was growing up, the theater was "Washington Twin Cinema". It was owned by Nathan Page who also ran the theater in the Hackettstown Mall. These theaters were failing with the arrival of bigger, newer places like Regal, and the other place in Mansfield, but they lack the charm of the small town theaters. It would be great to restore the theater to it's original single plan.

Washington Circle. The building on the far left was moved to Park Ave.

Some things will never change in the town; such as the circle that used to exist at what is now 31 and 57. Parking is far worse than it used to be, but there is still a great potential. Hopefully some benefactor comes forward and is able to save the theater.

METROTRAILS DECEMBERWEEN

When I arrived at the theater, members of Gypsy Funk Squad had arrived, but the theater was closed and locked. The hikers were all waiting out front too. I called up Marco and found out he was at a dinner at Felix's Tavern in town. I had to run over and get the key from him to open up. He ended up having to do a networking thing after the dinner that helped him find more information to possibly secure some of the roof work needed.

We managed to get stuff set up, and Jack arrived a bit late anyway. Hardly anyone showed up at 6:30, so it was

just hanging out until around 8:00 when things started happening.

Gypsy Funk Squad at Metrotrails Decemberween

There was a lot of singing and dancing around. Not a lot of people wore costumes, but it was still alright. Jack had a mask, and one of the guys in the band was dressed as Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon. Counting the band and organizers, I counted 44 participants in the end. Not a bad showing at all. We didn't make a lot of money for the theater unfortunately, but at the very least this shows activity and potential, at least a justification to keep the theater there.

Decemberween

There was a guy named Tyler there who filmed some of the party for a documentary on the theater, which will also be great PR for the cause.

The bad weather scared off a lot of people who would have showed up otherwise, but we still had a really fun party considering all of that. Everything pretty much wrapped up by 2 am, and everyone headed home.

The best moment of the night for me wasn't dancing around or anything. Just sitting down and watching everyone dance, and knowing I put something together where so many people are having so much fun. Seeing everyone so happy and dancing around was amazing. Further, on a miserably rainy day, six people still showed up to hike with me through it. I feel incredibly thankful for what I have.