Shows end on a sour note

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Until Sept. 27, it had been a near-perfect season for the Pennypack Park Music Festival. Although one concert — the Sounds of Liberty with the Polish-American String Band, on Sept. 8 — had been canceled because of bad weather, 10 others had gone off without a hitch.
"Our biggest concert was three- or four-thousand people, and when it was over, you couldn’t find one piece of paper on the ground," said Steve Hartzell, a Philadelphia police officer and festival board member, of the exceptionally conscientious throng.
Unfortunately, when the music was over, some folks decided to throw their own party at the park’s bandshell. So they broke into a nearby storage trailer and set it on fire.
Now festival organizers are counting losses valued at an estimated $15,000 to $20,000. And they’re asking local residents and businesses to help them recover.
The blaze was reported to city fire officials shortly before 7 p.m. that Monday. When firefighters arrived at the scene, a short distance from the intersection of Welsh Road and Cresco Avenue, the trailer was billowing smoke.
Though only a small part of the trailer actually caught fire, everything inside was damaged, either by heat or ashes.
The walls were caked with black soot. Plastic ceiling light covers melted from their fixtures in a scene reminiscent of a Salvador Dali painting. That plastic, in turn, dripped onto the contents of the trailer, which included everything from lawn chairs and tables to costly sound and lighting equipment.
According to Hartzell, 20 to 30 of the 50-some chairs fused together in giant blobs of molten plastic. Festival board member and sound man Norman Jadczak took the relatively new high-tech equipment home but hasn’t been able to test its operation yet.
None of the apparent vandals were in sight by the time authorities got there, but it’s clear that somebody burglarized the trailer. Besides stealing a bunch of soda and bottled water stored there, the trespassers scrawled obscene language and pictures on a wall-mounted chalkboard.
"Somebody probably broke in here," Hartzell said. "The fire marshal said it’s a preliminary thing, but probably somebody was smoking (something), and they dropped it."
The trailer floor is carpeted.
Officially, the fire remains under investigation. It has not been ruled as a case of arson.
"I don’t know if they popped the lock (open), or what they did," Hartzell said of the intruders.
Vandalism has been a problem at the bandshell for years. Young people apparently like the seclusion of the grassy area, surrounded by woods and the flowing creek.
Before the latest incarnation of the concert series began in 2001, the bandshell was covered with a collage of graffiti. Festival organizers, in cooperation with the city’s mural arts program, cleaned it up in 2000.
But graffiti is still a problem.
"They previously were coming down here and (doing) graffiti every other week," Hartzell said. "We had to get CLIP down here to clean it.
"One other time, the (trailer) lock was popped, but nothing was (taken) that time."
For the first few years of the concert series, organizers took the heavy equipment home after each show. Somebody donated the trailer early this year. It can probably be repaired, although days after the fire, flooding of the creek left a coat of mud on top of the soot inside.
The new Lowe’s store of the Northeast donated plywood, beams and nails to secure the trailer for the time being. Holy Family University students volunteered to do the work.
"People refuse to let this sink, even in the offseason," said Glenn McCurdy, vice president of the festival board.
McCurdy and other festival officials have no intention of letting the incident hinder their efforts to bring music to the park and the area’s youth in future seasons.
"It’s not going to set us back. We’re not going to let it set us back," said McCurdy.
Originally founded in 1977 by board president Ed Kelly, the festival disbanded in the early 1990s because of a lack of organizational help. Kelly, McCurdy and others revived it in 2001.
In four summers, the series has grown into a major local attraction. The annual lineup includes marching bands, jazz combos, choirs and dance troupes from area high schools, Mummers string bands and touring acts representing a variety of genres.
"It’s really the heart of summer activities in the Northeast," McCurdy said. "There’s really nothing like it."
Park ranger Doug Robinson, the Northeast supervisor for the Fairmount Park Commission, thinks the series helps generate interest in the park, too.
"It’s an incredible increase in visitation for the park," Robinson said. "A lot of people who don’t use the park every day don’t know about the series until they see the activity. And people who come for the series, after they see the park, they come to use it again. The next thing you know, there are more people coming for the environmental centers."
McCurdy envisions that partnership taking the series to new heights, too. It will require a substantial financial commitment from the city and community, however.
"Ultimately, in the long term, we need a (permanent) facility," he said.
A new park station could include rest rooms, a security office and multipurpose space.
"We could use a fairly simple changing area for some of the acts," McCurdy said. "Then we could really tap into the potential of this facility." ••
For more information about the Pennypack Music Festival, write to 2132 Borbeck Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19152, or call 215-632-9920.
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com