NW Philly This Week: October 22–28

Your week in Northwest Philadelphia, Thursday October 22 through Wednesday October 28.

Here is the thing about this particular week: it is the last normal one before Halloween lands on a Saturday. Next weekend is going to be a circus (the good kind), and the week after that everybody collapses. So this week is the sweet spot, the one where you can get into the big fundraiser without elbowing anybody, walk a trail in actual peak color, and still have your costume ready by Saturday the 31st.

The big one is Halloween Hikes and Hayrides at the Schuylkill Center, Friday and Saturday night, and there is a deadline attached to it that you need to know about right now. More on that below, because it is the single most useful piece of information in this issue and it expires at five o’clock today.

Two other things before the lists. Autumn on the Avenue is this afternoon in Mt. Airy, 3:30 to 6pm, and it is free. And if you drive Kelly Drive, read the service section at the bottom before Friday, because the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta takes the road for three days.

Halloween Hikes and Hayrides, and the ticket window that closes at 5pm today

The Schuylkill Center’s biggest annual fundraiser runs two nights this week, Friday October 23 from 5:30 to 8:30pm and Saturday October 24 from 3:30 to 8:30pm (Saturday starts two hours earlier, which is the move if you have small kids who turn into gremlins after seven). You get a hayride out to look for nocturnal animals, a guided evening hike where staff introduce you to woodland creatures, the Pumpkin Path lined with jack-o’-lanterns, crafts, a fire with s’mores (a kit comes with every ticket), and an outdoor movie on a big screen. Food and drink are for sale. Bring a flashlight.

Now the part that matters. Online sales close today, Thursday October 22, at 5:00pm. Buy before then and it is $20 for members, $28 for everybody else. Show up at the gate without a ticket and it is $25 and $35. Kids three and under are free either way, and nothing is refundable. So if you already know you are going, go buy them before dinner and save yourself fourteen dollars.

Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128.

Thursday, October 22

• Autumn on the Avenue, the 6600 through 6900 blocks of Germantown Avenue, Mt. Airy, 3:30 to 6pm. Free. Trick-or-treating at participating businesses, hands-on crafts with local artists, spooky story time in the St. Michael’s graveyard (yes, really), fire trucks from the PFD, a book sale and nature bracelet-making with the Friends of Lovett, and the Philly Rhythm Youth Drum Line. Note the Avenue is not closed, so traffic runs as normal. Go Mt. Airy’s table is outside the post office at 6711 Germantown Ave.
• Thursday Volunteer Service Day, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet at the Wigard Avenue Trailhead, 726 Wigard Avenue, 19128, 9am to noon. Registration required. Site prep for native plantings along a reroute of the Yellow Trail. Gloves, tools and instruction provided, no experience needed, no restrooms on site. Cancelled in steady rain.
• Native Planters, Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128, 10am to noon. Free, walk-ins welcome. Tending the Courtyard and Front Entrance gardens. This is the second-to-last session of the season (the run ends Oct 29), so if you have been meaning to get to one, you have two left.
• Sprouts, Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128, 9:30 to 11am. $20 members, $25 non-members, pre-registration required, space limited. Sensory nature class for ages 18 months to 3 with a grown-up, run on the Nature Preschool’s emergent-learning approach.
• Baby and Toddler Storytime, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 10:30am. Free. Mr. Nate does stories, movement and songs for ages 0 to 3 with a caregiver.
• Build It Club, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 3pm. Free. Open build session with pre-Duplo blocks, LEGO, Magna Tiles, Bionicles and wooden blocks. Preschool through school age.
• LEAP Literacy, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 4pm. Free. After-school storytime or literacy game, depending on the day.
• Sippin and Stitchin, Eagles Edition, Attic Brewing, 137 Berkley Street, 19144, 7 to 9pm. $65, tickets through sippinandstitchin.com, marked limited availability. Stitching and drinks, Birds theme.
• Girl Dinner, Manayunk Brewery, 4100 Main Street, 19127, 4 to 9pm. $25 gets you a Caesar, your choice of pasta or truffle fries, and a martini. Runs Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Friday, October 23

Friday is the week’s deepest day, so here is the shape of it before the list: mornings belong to Wyck and the libraries, late afternoon is happy hours and the Weavers Way Farm Market in Roxborough, and from six o’clock on you have a genuine choice to make between a book launch in Chestnut Hill, jazz at Woodmere, Boris Karloff at Allens Lane, Sleepy Hollow in a Victorian parlor in Germantown, and a twilight hike to a hermit’s cave. That last one is our pick.

• Twilight Hike to the Hermit’s Cave, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet on the Hermitage Mansion porch, 700 Hermit Lane, 19128, 5:30 to 7:30pm. Registration required, ages 12 and up. Led by the Wild Women of the Wissahickon, on the lore of the “Woman in the Wilderness” and Johannes Kelpius’ doomsday cult, which was America’s first. One mile on a steep, rooted, rocky path, so bring a flashlight and real shoes. Costumes encouraged. FOW specifically asks you to park on Barnes Street rather than Hermit Lane because of car break-ins, which is the kind of detail we appreciate them printing.
• Halloween Hikes and Hayrides, night one, Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128, 5:30 to 8:30pm. See above, and note the online window shuts at 5pm Thursday.
• Release Night Reading and Signing, Kristin Tracy Porter, After the Shatter, Chestnut Hill Coffee Company, 8640 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 6 to 8pm. Free, with coffee and hors d’oeuvres. She does a second event Saturday at Booked., so you can catch whichever fits.
• Future Moments, The Music of Ornette Coleman, Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, 6pm. Part of Woodmere’s Friday evening jazz series. Ticketing was not published on the page we could reach, so check before you go.
• Secret Cinema, The Man They Could Not Hang plus spooky shorts, Allens Lane Art Center, 601 W Allens Lane, 19119, 8 to 10pm. $15. Jay Schwartz screens the 1939 Boris Karloff feature and a curated reel of shorts in the art center’s theater.
• Victorian Theatre, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, 200 W Tulpehocken Street, 19144, 7:30 to 8:30pm. Also Saturday and Sunday at 7:30. Irving’s story staged inside an actual Victorian mansion, which is roughly the most on-theme thing available to you this month. Ticket price was not published anywhere we could reach, so call ahead.
• Home Farm Club at Wyck, 6026 Germantown Avenue, 19144, 10am to noon. Free, drop in. Volunteer gardening in Wyck’s working home farm.
• Flax Processing with the PA Flax Project, Wyck, 6026 Germantown Avenue, 19144, 10am to 1pm. Registration required, no fee marked. Hands-on, turning flax into fiber. There is a second session Nov 20 if you miss it.
• Howe Sharp Knife Sharpening, Weavers Way Farm Market, 7095 Henry Avenue, 19128, 11am to 4pm. Drop your knives off. You will immediately understand how dull they were.
• Making Marigold Garlands, Weavers Way Farm Market, 7095 Henry Avenue, 19128, 3 to 5pm. $35, tickets at the Farm Market register.
• $5 Fridays, Attic Brewing, 137 Berkley Street, 19144, 3 to 6pm. Free to enter, $5 select drafts and cocktails. The page does not say which ones, which is part of the fun.
• Fall Family Weekend opens, Attic Brewing, 137 Berkley Street, 19144, from 3pm Friday through 10pm Sunday. Spooky decor, games, treats, drink specials, and Bad Nina’s Hot Dog Truck. One of the last beer-garden weekends of the season, so take the hint.
• Friday Night Quizzo, Manayunk Brewery, 4100 Main Street, 19127, 8:30 to 10:30pm. Drink and food specials, weekly prizes.
• Infant and Toddler Playgroup, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 10:30am. Free. Play, books, toys and music. Drop in once or make it a habit.
• English Conversation Group, intermediate and up, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 3:30 to 4:30pm. Free, no registration. Led by library volunteer Erica.
• Social Services at the Library, Lovett Memorial Library, 6945 Germantown Avenue, 19119, 10am to noon and again 2 to 5pm. Free. Drop-in time with a social worker, two blocks the same day.
• PA CareerLink Job Search Assistance, Lovett Memorial Library, 6945 Germantown Avenue, 19119, 2 to 4:30pm. Free. One-on-one help from CareerLink staff.
• LEAP Game Day, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 3:30pm. Free. Board games and video games.
• DIY Bag Charms for Teens, Dwight Evans Library of West Oak Lane, 2000 E Washington Lane, 19138, 3:30 to 4:30pm. Free. Beaded, rope or letter charms, and this session ends with a charm swap.

Saturday, October 24

Big day, so again, the shape first. The river goes first: the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta starts racing at eight. Mornings otherwise are markets and volunteer work (Chestnut Hill, Pretzel Park and Pastorius Park all run 9 or 10am), the middle of the day is Manayunk’s trick-or-treat on Main Street and a book launch in Chestnut Hill, mid-afternoon is a 2.3-mile hike through the Lavender Trail, and the evening splits between a gallery opening in Mt. Airy, Sleepy Hollow in Germantown, and a three-band bill in East Falls.

• Head of the Schuylkill Regatta, day one, the Schuylkill River below East Falls, racing from 8am. Free to watch. Thousands of rowers come up the river toward Boathouse Row across two days, and the stretch of Kelly Drive you would normally watch it from is closed to you unless you have an access pass. Read the service section at the bottom before you plan anything around it. Race times are tentative, so check hosr.org the morning of.
• Halloween Hikes and Hayrides, night two, Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128, 3:30 to 8:30pm. The longer window of the two nights.
• Manayunk Trick-or-Treating, Main Street, Manayunk, 11am to 2pm. Free. Kids, pets and families going door to door at participating Main Street businesses. The most straightforwardly delightful thing on the calendar this week.
• Chestnut Hill Farmers Market, Germantown Avenue at Mermaid Lane in front of The Mermaid Inn, 19118, 9am to noon. Free to browse. Two Saturdays left this month, this one and the 31st.
• Pretzel Park Farmers Market, 4300 Silverwood Street, 19127, 10am to 2pm. Free to browse, rain or shine. Fourteenth season, running through December 12. The music and food lineup for this particular Saturday was not posted, which means it is unannounced rather than cancelled. Show up anyway.
• Saturday Planting on the Yellow Trail, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet at the Wigard Avenue Trailhead, 726 Wigard Avenue, 19128, 9am to noon. Registration required. Native planting plus litter pickup. Expect bending, crouching, carrying up to 20 pounds, and long-handled digging tools. Long pants and sturdy shoes, bring water, no restrooms. Cancelled in steady precipitation.
• Friends of Pastorius Park Volunteer Event, Pastorius Park, 19118, check in at the warming hut, 9am to noon. Free. Park maintenance and fall planting. Rain date is Sunday the 25th.
• Discover the Wissahickon, Lavender Loop Hike, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet at the Crefeld Street Trailhead, 8900 Crefeld Street, 19118, 3 to 5pm. Registration required. 2.3 miles, starting at Bells Mill Road, up and down the Lavender Trail, back along Forbidden Drive and across the Thomas Mill red covered bridge, past one of the park’s largest restoration sites. Trail Ambassadors Kathryn Rapp, Dan Hyman and Autumn Zellers lead. Plenty of parking, with overflow up W Bells Mill Road, and porta-potties on Forbidden Drive.
• Oaks of the Mid-Atlantic Tour, Morris Arboretum, 100 E Northwestern Avenue, 19118, 11am, meet at the Widener Welcome Center. Free with admission ($22 adults, $20 seniors, $12 ages 3 to 17, under 2 free, and tickets are $2 less online). A guided walk through the oak collection at peak color, which is a better use of an hour than it sounds.
• Book Launch and Signing, Kristin Tracy Porter, After the Shatter, Booked., 8511 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 2 to 4pm. Free. The second of her two Chestnut Hill events this week.
• Knowing Joy, Remembering Moe Brooker, Woodmere Art Museum, Smith Hall, 2 to 3:30pm. Free, pre-registration encouraged. A panel on the Philadelphia abstract painter, who was a giant and is worth your afternoon.
• Jimmy Clark and Angela Klaerner Clark, Attracted Opposites, opening reception and artists’ talk, Allens Lane Art Center, 601 W Allens Lane, 19119, 6 to 8pm. Price was not published, so check when you arrive.
• Naked Sun, with Brother Starling and Evil Twin, The Fallser Club, East Falls, doors 7pm. From $25 through Humanitix. Three-band bill with Naked Sun headlining. The club’s street address is not printed on any page we could reach, so look it up before you set off.
• City of Paws Pet Costume Contest, Manayunk. On Manayunk’s official Halloween page for Saturday, but no start time is published. If you have a dog with dignity to lose, call ahead.
• Pumpkin Painting, Lovett Memorial Library, 6945 Germantown Avenue, 19119, 10am. Free, drop in.
• Film Classics of the Silent Era, Sunrise (1927), Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 1pm. Free. Third of four late-1920s silents, introduced by local film historian Andrew Gilmore. Sunrise is a genuinely great film and this is a genuinely free screening.
• Saturday Textile Arts Workshop, Macrame Leaf Decor, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 2pm. Free. Basic knots, leaf-shaped wall piece, no needles or hooks required.
• SAT Prep Workshop, Practice Test, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 10am. Free. A full practice SAT run with Tarrina Tutors. Worth knowing about if you have a junior in the house.
• Victorian Theatre, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, 200 W Tulpehocken Street, 19144, 7:30 to 8:30pm.

Sunday, October 25

Sunday is the Wissahickon’s day, with three different Friends of the Wissahickon walks pitched at three different kinds of people, plus the regatta’s second and bigger day on the river and a pet parade in Chestnut Hill. (Libraries are closed Sundays, as always, so an empty slot there is not a gap.)

• Head of the Schuylkill Regatta, day two, the Schuylkill River below East Falls, racing from 7:45am. Free to watch. The bigger of the two days. Kelly Drive stays restricted until 6pm, so see the service section.
• Discover the Wissahickon, White Trail Wander, meet at the Mt. Airy Avenue Trailhead (street parking on W Mt. Airy Avenue and Mt. Airy Terrace), 19119, 9am to noon. Registration required. Moderately difficult with steep sections, so sure-footedness matters. Past the Valley Green Inn and Livezey Dam, including a rocky crossing over a Cresheim Creek tributary. Outdoor restroom at Valley Green about a third of the way in. The 53 bus is a 10 to 15 minute walk.
• Frogs, Frolic, and Fun, a kid-centered family hike, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet at W Mt. Airy Avenue and Mt. Airy Terrace, 19119, 10am to 12:30pm. Registration required, ages 5 and up with an adult. Two leisurely miles with real inclines, starting at Frog Pond (stormwater management, and how frogs get through a winter), along the White Trail to Kitchen’s Lane with stops on mill and bridge history, then through the Monastery grounds. There is a scavenger hunt for the kids and stops to look at moss and fungi. No dogs except service animals. Rain date is November 1.
• Creepy Cryptids in the Cresheim, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet at St. Martin’s Lane and Huron Street, 19118, 1 to 3:30pm. Registration required, ages 12 and up. Two and a half to three miles along Cresheim Creek with Trail Ambassador Jon McCabe and FOW’s Shawn Green, covering Bigfoot, Nessie, the Jersey Devil and some lesser-known local monsters, past ruins and a shaded pine grove. The group invents a new Wissahickon creature together, which is the best sentence in this issue. Rocky stream crossing, sturdy shoes, costumes encouraged, well-behaved leashed dogs welcome.
• Halloween Pet Costume Parade, meet in the parking lot at 150 E Evergreen Avenue, 19118, parading to Buckley Park at Germantown Avenue and E Hartwell Lane. Show up by noon and you won’t miss it.
• Botanical Mixology, Sunset Horticulture Happy Hour, Morris Arboretum, 100 E Northwestern Avenue, 19118, 5pm. $60 members, $65 non-members, registration required. Cocktail-making built around botanicals from the garden, timed to sunset. A nice thing to do on the last Sunday before the clocks and the cold catch up with us.
• Victorian Theatre, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, 200 W Tulpehocken Street, 19144, 7:30 to 8:30pm. Final night of three.
• Sunday Football Specials, Manayunk Brewery, 4100 Main Street, 19127, 1 to 8pm. $10 food specials, $5 select drafts, $6 White Claws, $7 Bird Gang Breeze. (The Birds do not play Sunday this week. They play Monday, see below.)

Monday, October 26

• Eagles vs. Dallas, Monday Night Football watch party, Attic Brewing, 137 Berkley Street, 19144, 8:15pm kickoff. DJ Jus$ Fresh and DJ Knoxilla, food and drink specials, a fan chain raffled on every Eagles touchdown, and Bad Nina’s out front. The Eagles host the Cowboys on ESPN and ABC.
• Full Moon Hike, Hunter Moon, Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128, 7 to 8:30pm. $5 to $10, registration required. Trail hike under the autumn moon with talk of astronomy, astrology and nature. Cheapest good idea on the calendar.
• Musical Mondays, Jazz Night with Bill Schenk, Malelani Cafe, 6734 Germantown Avenue, 19119, 6pm. Cover charge is not published, so bring a few dollars. Guitarist Bill Schenk, weekly.
• WHYY Bridging Blocks, Mental Health, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 5:30pm. Free. A neighborhood conversation facilitated by WHYY’s community engagement team on whether enough is being done. Adults and seniors.
• Preschool Storytime, Halloween edition, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 2pm. Free. Mr. Nate again, caregiver required, older siblings welcome.
• Hair Flair Experience, Hair Diaries, Dwight Evans Library of West Oak Lane, 2000 E Washington Lane, 19138, 3:30pm. Free, ages 7 to 17. Hair, identity and storytelling, with hands-on activities.
• LEAP Mindful Monday, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 4pm. Free. Mindfulness and wellness for kids and teens.

Tuesday, October 27

• Autumn Alchemy, A Woodland Artist Wander, Friends of the Wissahickon, meet at Historic RittenhouseTown, 208 Lincoln Drive, 19144, 1:30 to 3:30pm. Registration required, ages 18 and up. A mile, easy to moderate, about slowing down and noticing things, with an optional introduction to nature journaling. Bring a tool of your choice (camera, pen and paper, a favorite medium) plus something hard to lean on and something to sit on. Beginners genuinely welcome. FOW advises against the Lincoln Drive lot because of break-ins; park near the meeting area or the bike cafe instead. Bus 65 and the Chestnut Hill West line at Chelten both work.
• Will Power Workshop, Dwight Evans Library of West Oak Lane, 2000 E Washington Lane, 19138, 5:30 to 6:45pm. Free. Wills and the other documents that protect a home and a family legacy, with AHCPA and Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. If you own a house in this city and have been putting this off, this is ninety free minutes that will save your kids a great deal of grief.
• Sprouts, Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagys Mill Road, 19128, 9:30 to 11am. $20 members, $25 non-members, pre-registration required.
• Home Farm Club at Wyck, 6026 Germantown Avenue, 19144, 4 to 6pm. Free, drop in. The Tuesday session, same as Friday’s.
• Hands-Only CPR with the American Red Cross, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 4pm. Free. Short, interactive, and the sort of thing you are glad you did.
• Live Performance, Patricio Acevedo, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 5:15pm. Free. Chilean traditional music drawing on the Andes highlands and the Patagonian plains. All ages from school age up.
• Philadelphia Department of Public Health Information Table, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 2 to 4pm. Free. Free COVID test kits, masks and fall health information.
• LEAP Literacy, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 4pm. Free.
• Board and Card Games, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 5pm. Free. Scrabble, Uno and the rest, all ages, and trading card players are welcome.
• Taco Tuesday, Attic Brewing, 137 Berkley Street, 19144, 4 to 10pm. Free to enter, $6 La Libertad Mexican Lagers, $6 margaritas, $6 tequila shots all day. A rotating Philly taco truck, and Attic does not say which one, so it is a surprise.
• Jazz Jam Sessions, Manayunk Brewery, 4100 Main Street, 19127, 7 to 10pm. Weekly open jam.
• Baby Storytime with Mr. Rich, Roxborough Library, 11:15am. Free. Stories, songs, rhymes and dances for infants and toddlers with caregivers, then free play with the baby-friendly toys and the climbing wall. Siblings welcome.
• Cliveden Conversation, Looking Glass Artist Talk, on Zoom, hosted by Cliveden, 7 to 8:30pm. Free, advance registration encouraged. An artist talk tied to Cliveden’s current exhibition. Virtual, so no drive involved.

Wednesday, October 28

• Going Batty!, Morris Arboretum, 100 E Northwestern Avenue, 19118, 6 to 7:30pm. $25 members, $30 non-members, registration required, with a $55 bat box add-on. A Bat Week program with Brooke Ezzo of Penn Vet’s Wildlife Futures Program on what Pennsylvania’s bats actually do for us, then a night walk to watch them fly. One registration covers one adult plus one child. If you buy the add-on you take home a double-chambered cedar bat box, which is a strange and excellent souvenir.
• An Evening with Matthew Olivier, Exploring the Codex Algorithm, Woodmere Art Museum, Smith Hall, 5 to 7pm. $5, registration required, all ages. Artist talk, Q and A, book signing.
• Germantown Jazz Jam, Attic Brewing, 137 Berkley Street, 19144, 7 to 10pm. Free. Note this replaces Quizzo in the Wednesday slot this week. Quizzo is back November 4, so do not show up with your team.
• Empty Bowl Dinner, 3000 W School House Lane, 19144, 5 to 7:30pm. Pay what you can. The 25th annual dinner for Family Promise of Philadelphia, which works with families facing homelessness. Twenty-five years is a long time for a neighborhood to keep showing up for something.
• Big and Little Yogis!, Chestnut Hill Library, 8711 Germantown Avenue, 19118, 10:30am. Free. Yoga for toddlers and preschoolers with a grown-up, poses, breathwork and stories.
• Storytime Yoga, Dwight Evans Library of West Oak Lane, 2000 E Washington Lane, 19138, 11am. Free. A picture book plus beginner poses and mindfulness.
• LEAP Halloween BINGO, Wadsworth Library, 1500 Wadsworth Avenue, 19150, 3:30pm. Free.
• Burger and Brew, Manayunk Brewery, 4100 Main Street, 19127, noon to 9pm. A six-ounce burger and a twelve-ounce beer.

Open all week

• 19th Annual Scarecrow Walk, Morris Arboretum, 100 E Northwestern Avenue, 19118, on display daily. Free with admission. This one closes Sunday November 1, so this week and next weekend are what you have left. Contest voting shut on the 18th; winners take $300, $200 and $100.
• Garden Highlights Tour, Morris Arboretum, meet at the Welcome Center. Free with admission, daily through November 25, 10:30am on weekdays and 1pm on weekends.
• Halloween on the Hill, along Germantown Avenue and Bethlehem Pike in Chestnut Hill, October 24 through 31. It includes a Trick-or-Treat Stroll from 1 to 3pm and the Teal Pumpkin Project, with non-food treats at participating shops. Check the Business District’s site for the day before you go.
• Lincoln Mill Haunted House, 4100 Main Street, 19127. $38 general admission online, $55 VIP fast-pass, with add-ons at $20 to go through twice and $17 to skip the line. Running this week Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday, roughly 7 to 10pm with later closes Friday and Saturday and a 6:30 start on Saturday. Book a specific date and time online; the gate opens ten minutes before. Twenty-night season through November 7, with three new rooms this year.
• Cliveden house tour season, 6401 Germantown Avenue, 19144, Thursday through Sunday, noon to 4pm with the last tour at 3pm. $15 adults, $10 students, $7.50 National Trust members, free for Friends of Cliveden and kids 6 and under. Hour-long interpreter-led tour of the Chew House. Walk-ups taken at the Cliveden Barn.
• Historic Germantown Visitor Center, 5501 Germantown Avenue, 19144, Thursday through Saturday, noon to 4pm, with two exhibits on view. The published run goes through December 26.

A note on the quiet days: all Free Library branches are closed Sundays, so an empty Sunday in the library listings is correct rather than a hole. Falls of Schuylkill is shut entirely for an HVAC upgrade until January 2027.

Service information: Kelly Drive is closed to you for three days

The Head of the Schuylkill Regatta is the biggest thing happening at the bottom of East Falls this week, and the part that will actually change your Friday is the road.

• Kelly Drive closes to through traffic at roughly 10am on Friday October 23.
• From noon Friday October 23 until 6pm Sunday October 25, the stretch between the Strawberry Mansion Bridge and the new traffic light at Fountain Green Drive is limited to vehicles carrying a 2026 regatta access pass. No pass, no entry, for three days.
• Pass holders travel southbound only, at no more than 10mph. The northbound lanes stay clear of all vehicles at all times for emergency access, and everything has to come off Kelly Drive each evening.
• Off-site parking runs $20 a day with free shuttle buses to the course stops.
• Racing starts 8am Saturday and 7:45am Sunday, and the organisers describe all race times as tentative, so check hosr.org the morning of.

If your normal route into Center City runs down Kelly Drive, plan on Ridge Avenue or Henry Avenue from Friday lunchtime through Sunday evening. And if you want to actually watch the thing, the free way is to walk in rather than drive in.

Two smaller things worth knowing:

• Autumn on the Avenue does not close Germantown Avenue. Traffic runs as normal through the 6600 to 6900 blocks Thursday afternoon, so give yourself extra time on that stretch between 3:30 and 6.
• Friends of the Wissahickon ask you to park on Barnes Street rather than Hermit Lane for Friday’s twilight hike, and to avoid the paved Lincoln Drive lot for Tuesday’s artist wander. Both because of car break-ins. Take them at their word. Every FOW hike also requires registration, and they cancel in heavy rain, extreme heat, or muddy and icy conditions, with a confirmation email a business day ahead.
• Main Street Manayunk between 11am and 2pm Saturday will be full of small children in costume. Park up the hill and walk down.

Coming up just past this window

Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, which makes next weekend the biggest one of the season. The Wissahickon’s Spooky Wissahickon Walk goes out Saturday October 31 at 10am from Historic RittenhouseTown, past Kelpius Cave and Lover’s Leap, and FOW has a Halloween planting at Hermitage Mansion the same morning at nine. Wadsworth Library runs a Halloween Scavenger Hunt noon to 3pm on the 31st, free, and the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion opens for trick-or-treat 5 to 8pm. Morris Arboretum’s Scarecrow Walk has its final weekend, and Thursday the 29th brings their carnivorous plants craft session at the Pumpkin Cottage at 11am. Woodmere closes the month with The Music of Billie Holiday on Friday the 30th at six. And the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market runs Halloween morning, 9 to noon, which is the correct way to start that particular Saturday.

Further out: The Stagecrafters open The Underpants on November 27, Cliveden has Music in the Drawing Room on Saturday November 7 from noon to 4pm (free, harpsichord), and Wyck’s last day for drop-in tours is November 14.

Know about something we missed? Send it to hello@nwphilly.com and we will put it in next week’s calendar. We would rather hear about your church fundraiser, your kid’s band’s first show, or your block’s chili cook-off than guess at what is happening in the eight neighborhoods.

And as always: confirm with the venue before you drive over. Times move, tickets sell out, and a few of the sources we rely on have been known to leave an old listing sitting on the homepage. We check what we can, but the venue always knows better than we do.