'Alarming' (sic) Crowd Takes Over Quiet Village During "Witchingtonville" Happening

Yup -And then, in the background came the Headless Horsemen on stunning black horses - heads turned, and gasped "Wait, WHAT?"

The usually quiet Village of Washingtonville has another side to it. Do they love to party! And Witchingtonville has long been one of their favorite events. There were weeks of preparation, decorating the Village's Center Square as a festival, placing scarecrows and pumpkins, and of course huge monsters here and there to oversee the coming carnage (well actually everyone agreed it was amazingly ordered chaos).

Afternoon at Vern Allen Park for the little ones

There were two separate events. In the afternoon of October the 15, Vern Allen's Park's sprawling grounds were packed solid. Craft booths covered every available spot. There were pockets of pretty little dancing witches, a giant blow-up chicken, lots of princesses and superheroes, a young girl working hard in an effort to reassemble the bones of a lost ghost, and an Alice in Wonderland look-alike so real looking you had to wonder if she was either a live ghost or the real Alice reincarnated.

The Witchingtonville After-Dark events turned the center of the village into crowds that can only be compared to Broadway on New Years Eve. Highlights included an actual Drive-in Movie at Fulton Square, a terrifying tent of horrors at the Lot, and the hit of the evening for many, a large spinning mechanical bull. A long line waited for their chance to go spinning off of it within a few turns. But a half dozen or so riders lasted about a minute, and all wore pumped up chests and grins that said "Well, at least I tried". You can check our website for more photos (www.courierjournalocny) and some very wild and funny bull rides.

The coordination and work put into this event by officials, the Community Event Committee and the small businesses that participated created incredible fun that will be remembered for many lifetimes. The Blooming Grove Chamber of Commerce and all of its members (and especially Guilty Pleasures, Mamba's Creations, Amada's Kitchen and Anytime Electric) showed their commitment to networking and growing the village's small business community and making its center appealing to visiting shoppers and tourists.

See this week's Orange County Courier Journal for more pics.