Costumes, lights, pumpkins and endless rows in front of haunted houses: New York Halloween is a serious matter. In no other city, ghosts have such a busy agenda: here is a marathon of parades, shows and night tours that starts weeks before 31 October and involves every neighborhood, from Village to Bronx. Let’s find out the best, then.
The most recognizable event is the Village Halloween Parade, the night parade that every 31 October crosses Sixth Avenue, from Greenwich Village to 15th Street. Born in the 1970s as a district initiative, today it involves over 50 thousand people between costumes, puppets and marching band. Participating is free, but there is a rule: You need a costume. Without it, you’re just looking at the sidewalks.
A few kilometers south, in the Green-Wood Cemetery of Brooklyn, the celebration takes on a darker tone. There, between eighteenth century stone and mausoleums, night tours are held in the midst of artistic performances by candlelight. The main event is called “Nightfall”: the public walks in the dark, accompanied by sound installations and projections between the avenues of the cemetery. Surely one of the most special experiences of New York autumn.
For those who prefer shadow lights, the New York Botanical Garden proposes “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, an immersive route inspired by Tim Burton’s film. There are thousands of lights, projections and scenography dedicated to Jack Skellington and his city of living dead. The event remains open until the end of November, long enough to slip effortlessly from witches to reindeer, and tickets are available online.
Outside Manhattan, in the Hudson Valley, there is the “Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze”, a kind of theme park built with over seven thousand carved pumpkins. Some form bridges and tunnels, others reproduce the Statue of Liberty or Manhattan’s profile. It is one of the rare events that manages to agree with children, parents and Instagram fanatics.
In the city, the Bronx Zoo lights up for the “Harvest Glow” event, a journey of thousands of pumpkins shaped like animals, accompanied by music and visual effects. It is designed for families, but as often happens in New York, adults also end up staying more than expected.
Those looking for something more theatrical can enter the restaurant Carmine’s in Times Square, where it goes on stage “Spirits at Carmine’s”: an immersive experience that tells the story of a singer from the 1920s, Olive Thomas, in the cross between success and curse. After the interactive part, you really dinner — because in New York also shows end with a portion of chicken parmigiana.
In Brooklyn, the Black Lagoon Bar opens throughout October with a horror-themed cocktail menu. The ambition is deliberately exaggerated: candles, skeletons, dark music and names of drinks that seem to come out of a B series movie. It is one of the most photographed pop-ups of the year, and every evening it fills with people dressed in monsters that exchange selfies and fluorescent glasses.
There is also room for electronic music: Circular ibizenco brand returns for two nights, on 31 October and 1 November, at the Brooklyn Storehouse, with DJs like Marco Carola, &Me and Seth Troxler. Tickets have been sold out in a few days, but there is a waiting list for those who want to try anyway.
Those who want a more narrative approach can go up on the Madame Morbid’s Trolley Tour, an old Victorian tram that crosses Brooklyn telling four centuries of legends, murders and local superstitions. It is a way to see the city from a different angle — and to understand how the line between folklore and chronicle, in New York, has always been quite subtle.
The rest make it the houses and the streets, which already in mid-October begin to fill with fake webs, plastic skeletons and witches hanging on the balconies. Even without tickets or parades, just walk for a few blocks to understand that Halloween, here, is not an event: it is a state of mind.
Article Everything you can do for Halloween in New York comes from IlNewyorkese.
