Hidden in Plain View

This month’s Lansdale Historical Society presentation is about history hidden in plain view.

It does something else – it looks to the history of one man’s work that parallels the meaning behind “Sights Unseen” on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

At the building, LHS will present “Sights Unseen” in all its unpredictability.

Go look at the circular window at borough hall that’s been there since the 1930s. Drive past the old Hammer’s Moving building on West Main Street (now a furniture store, across from the old West Coast Video) and I bet you, at least subconsciously, recognize those two explorer ships on it.

“Sights Unseen” doesn’t stop at buildings in plain view; it also goes underground.

You know where Schwenkfelder Cemetery is on Hunter Hill Drive off Valley Forge Road near Morris Road in Towamencin. Do you know what’s in the cemetery? The presentation will show the makeup of the burial grounds created in the late 1600s by the Schwenkfelders.

“Sights Unseen” has its origins in the brain (and eye) of Willard Krieble, former photographer for “The Reporter.”

“(In the early- to mid-1960s), he took a small feature of a building, a sign, a fence, something that people probably looked at frequently, but paid little attention to it,” said Dick Shearer, LHS president. “When you separate it from the whole, you can’t place where it is.”
Krieble would almost cause people to make a mental note of such gems.

“When Willard did it,” Shearer said, “he’d run the close-up one week and follow up the next week with the wider view.”

Half the fun in the presentation is trying to figure out where the location is in town.

The other half is discovering why that feature is what it is.

Like the ships on the former Hammer’s Moving building: the place was built in 1928 as Butler Buick, and the ships accent the Spanish architecture of the structure.

“Exciting might be the wrong word,” Shearer said of the heart of the presentation. “Unpredictable is more like it. Our hope is that people will come away from the program with a greater awareness of some of the ordinary things around us every day. These are things that played a part in our history.”

With the recent revival of art and architecture in downtown Lansdale, Lansdale Historical Society stands with it as an important cultural aspect of the borough.

“In some respects, we have a difficult mission because we want to preserve as much of the region's history as possible whether it be newspapers, photographs, memorabilia or structures like the Jenkins Homestead,” Shearer said. “But we also believe that we have a responsibility to inform and educate the public about the area's past so that it won't be lost on future generations. This is particularly important, since very little local history is taught in our schools these days.”

What: “Sights Unseen” by Lansdale Historical Society

How much?: Free, and donations accepted

Where: Lansdale Borough Parks and Recreation Building, at Seventh Street and Lansdale Avenue.

When: Tuesday, March 13, 7:30 p.m.