Caterpillars Take Over Williamsburg Museum

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Thousands of caterpillars have taken over a Williamsburg museum, forcing the venue's backyard to close and the owners to flee days before its highly anticipated psychic luau.

"It felt like a full plague," said City Reliquary assistant director Molly Cox, first discovered the furry fiends last Thursday. "There's nothing to be done."

The City Reliquary, a nonprofit event space and museum at 370 Metropolitan Ave., was forced to cancel a roller disco film screening and the King Pizza Music Festival this weekend when a swarm of Fall Webworms descended on its outdoor space, Cox said.

Not only have the squirming critters covered the grounds and the artwork in the outdoor space, they're literally falling from the skies.

"They appeared in the trees, eat everything in their path, and fall to the ground," Cox said. "You can't walk out here without one falling on you."

The situation grew so intense — Cox said she finds them all over her clothes when she comes home from work — that the museum was forced to postpone its screening of the films Get Rollin', the "World's Only Roller Boogie Documentary," and United Skates, a more modern roller disco doc.

The King Pizza Music Festival, an annual Psychic Luau that was slated to bring about 100 revelers to the space on Saturday, will be moved to the East Williamsburg Econo Lodge, but hopes to return to the Reliquary in 2019.

"It's definitely been worrisome because we were doing a fundraising event," said Cox, who had hoped to raise about $1,500 through the weekend's events. "We're nonprofit and rely on donations ... so the appearance of the caterpillar plague was especially devastating."

The Fall Webworms are in their caterpillar stage and only a few have begun the "metamorphosis process" that will transform them into moths, Cox said.

The pests are native to the east coast, enjoy shade trees and shrubs and typically appear between late summer and early fall, according to the Penn State Department of Entomology.

The best way to control them is to destroy their "conspicuous webs" of caterpillars, chewed-upon leaves, and droppings, according to the university.

But Cox is hoping they'll just turn into moths and fly away.

"When you're faced with a thousand of something," she said, "you can't really do anything at all."

Photos and Gif by Molly Cox, used with permission