Rock on

At the Westfield Spring Fling, the Rockin’ Jazz Band provided us with some music (it was good dancing music).

Arcanum Hall

I have a bunch of piecemeal sources that I’ve tried to assemble into a linear history, but I’m not 100% sure of any of this, so please correct me if you know I’m wrong.

Arcanum Hall is a neat little copper-domed building in downtown Westfield on the corner of Elm and East Broad Street. It’s been there for at least a hundred years or so.

Arcanum Hall, c. 1906. (From Lipson 1996, p.100.)

It’s called “Arcanum Hall” ‘cos it was built by “the Fireside Council #715 of Royal Arcanum,” which was the local chapter of a fraternity kind of like the Masons. Initially, apparently the original Arcanum Hall was a block away on a different corner (Prospect and East Broad), but that building burned down in 1892. And so the Royal Arcanum rebuilt the current hall in its current location shortly afterwards.

At the moment, the ground floor is home to Sole Italian shoes.

References:

Fuzy III, F.A. (2011?). “The history of Westfield; Westfield historical information; Interesting facts.” Tamaques Elementary. westfieldnjk12.org.

Lipson, S.H. (1996). Images of America: Westfield: The Golden Age of Postcards. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH. ISBN 0752404067.

Philhower, C.A. (1923). History of Town of Westfield. Lewis Historical Publishing Company: New York. http://www.westfieldnjhistory.com/scanned.books/Philhower.history.Westfield.pdf.

Ricord, F.W. (1897, reprint 2001). History of Union County, New Jersey, Volume 1. East Jersey History Co.: Newark, NJ; reprint: Heritage Books, Inc.: Bowie, MD. Google book.

Dancing queens

I generally have a policy not to post pictures of children, especially not without their parents’ permission, but these kids dancing their hearts out to the “Rockin’ Jazz Band” at the Westfield Spring Fling were just too freaking cute, I’m sorry.

Nobody can resist the rhythms of “At the Hop.” Yeah man, let’s GO!

Katzenjammin’

The Princeton Katzenjammers, Princeton University’s first co-ed a cappella group, performed for the Greenwood Gardens open house on Sunday.

(Princeton is about an hour’s drive one way from here, which is a pretty respectable time commitment for a college student on a Sunday in late April, so— props to them for making it!)

 

Unsurprisingly, they were a talented group of singers, and they consequently attracted a fair crowd.

 

At the end, they put on a cheer for us. I didn’t entirely understand it, and apparently some of them didn’t either (false start!).

 

They got it in the end, though.

Passing through

Sometimes trains pass through the Cranford train station! WHO KNEW.

All clear!

On NJ Transit, conductors look up and down the train and platform after everyone has boarded/disembarked at a station, and signal to the other conductors that no other passengers are coming and it’s okay for the train to pull out. (In daylight, they wave; at night, they flick a flashlight.)

The eyes have it

I’m taking a break from New Providence Daily Photo for a while— hopefully about a week. My goal is be back by March 18.

Let me preface this: I do try to avoid getting into personal stuff on this blog (even if it doesn’t seem like it). I only say this now to explain in un-cryptic terms why I will have gone missing.

That said: I’m scheduled for a little eye surgery. (I’ll be in the hospital as you read this.) It’ll probably be fine, but I’m told it’ll take me a while to recover from the anesthetic.

So: no blogging until I’m feeling up to it… and I can see.

But I’m sure The Internet will get along just fine in my absence.

Sometimes trains run (sometimes they don’t)

Um. Just. You know. Icicles on a train. ‘Cos trains have overhangs. And that’s, like, totally where icicles form. (On overhangs.) (Especially if the trains aren’t moving, because they’ve been suspended due to weather or some other silly thing.)

Nemo strikes!

Well that was a blizzard!

NJ Transit shut down several lines (including mine) at 8:00PM last night, and didn’t start them up again until noon today! (…in theory. They actually canceled the first westbound train after noon, from what I could tell.)

We only got about 9.5 inches of snow here (according to a report on CoCoRaHS), so it’s NOTHING like the 2-3 feet ya’ll got up in New England. Geez. Sorry, guys.

Some folks are relaxing at home, taking full advantage of the weekend “snow day,” but there are PLENTY of people out and about, especially now that the snowplows and salt trucks and shovelers and snowblowers have cleared the way for the rest of us lazybones. Thanks, snowbusters!

Secaucus, 7:42AM

The Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction station is a major NJ Transit transfer hub, and it’s about three minutes (train-ride-wise) from the entrance to the trans-Hudson tunnels (which are the tunnels that allow trains to pass from NJ to NY).

Another fun fact: as far as I can tell, there are two acceptable pronunciations of Secaucus.
The first is one that I use: “s’CAW-kuss.”
The second is one that the train conductors use: “SEE-caw-kuss.”

I have never asked native Secaucusians how they pronounce their hometown. They’d know what’s right, I’d imagine.