Weird Montclair - 7-16-2026 Episode of The Montclair Pod

Getting Weird in Montclair, The Bloomfield Ave Banners and the MC Hotel’s Wild World Cup

July 16, 2026

Weird NJ founder Mark Sceurman stops by to talk all things weird in the garden state, not to mention the story of a Montclair poet obsessed with writing letters to the police, and three decades of chasing New Jersey’s strangest stories — plus a visit from local zine 86’d. We track down who actually owns the giant Bastille Day banner flapping over Bloomfield Avenue (spoiler: nobody pulled a permit), sit down with MC Hotel owner Jeff Sica ahead of the World Cup Final, and dig into New Jersey’s rough new business-friendliness ranking. Plus: the BID’s last-minute World Cup watch party lands directly across the street from Lackawanna Plaza’s, the Planning Board kicks off its Master Plan meetings, and we head to Church Street for a car-free weekend showdown.

In this episode:

  • Weird NJ founder Mark Sceurman joins to talk the origins of the magazine, the Jersey Devil, the Overbrook and Essex asylums, and Montclair poet Alfred Starr Hamilton, who wrote letters to the police. Plus a Weird NJ excerpt is live on montclairpod.com
  • April Acerno and Kyle Seagraves of local zine 86’d talk starting the publication, the story behind the name, and their favorite features to date. 
  • MC Hotel owner Jeff Sica, CEO of Circle Squared Alternative Investments, previews which World Cup teams are bunking at the hotel ahead of the Final
  • The Whodunit: we chase down who’s responsible for the giant Bastille Day banner flapping over Bloomfield Avenue 
  • New Jersey slides to 31st in CNBC’s 2026 Top States for Business — dead last for business friendliness even while ranking in the top 3 for quality of life — and we connect it to everything we’ve covered locally this year, from “Montclair Math” to the sidewalk ordinance fight
  • The Montclair Center BID’s last-minute World Cup Final watch party at Wellmont Arts Plaza lands basically across the street from the one already scheduled at Lackawanna Plaza — coincidence, or did we do that?
  • The Planning Board kicks off four ward-by-ward community meetings on the 2026 Master Plan Reexamination Report, the town’s first since 2016
  • This weekend, Church Street goes fully car-free as part of the town’s monthly pedestrianization pilot — we’re partnering with Montclair-based feedback app Twocents to get real reactions from visitors and small businesses on the spot

Resources & Links

Follow us