With Halloween just around the corner, people all around the country are decorating their front steps and porches with Jack-o-Lanterns, their lamp posts wrapped with cornstalks and scarecrows. You might see little white handkerchief ghosts swinging from the branches of front yard bushes. Moms are stashing bags of candy on top shelves. And costumes? Oh there’s hand-wringing, attic-scavenging and ideas offered and discarded as quickly as you can say, “Trick or Treat”. Kids are gearing up for the visit of the Great Pumpkin and highest of high sugar highs.
So what do they do in Manhattan? Well there are carved pumpkins in apartments, candy is bought in hopes some kids from your building will be trick or treating that night and if not, there’s always LOTS of adults ( young and not so young) dressed up and out in the bars. Actually Halloween night is really for adults in Manhattan. The kids seem to start trick or treating when it’s still light out, like 5:00 even!!! REALLY?? And if we work, how is it possible to be home to answer the door at 5:00? No candy for those kids! And in an apartment building, the kids can’t come to your door begging for candy UNLESS there is a sign or symbol (as provided by the building) posted on your door. That makes it very easy to diss the kid portion of Halloween evening. You don’t have to turn off all your lights, lock your door and pretend you’re not home…you just don’t put that symbol on your door! Instead, you don a crazy costume and go out to eat and drink in Macabre Manhattan and Halloween becomes a night alive with grown-up kids( like me) unwilling to give up one of their favorite holidays!
BATMAN???
BEWARE
ZOMBIES WELCOME
THE NANNY
DOORMEN
A SHUT-IN
All photos taken on East 61st and 62nd St between 2nd and 3rd Avenue – Thanks to Helen for sharing!!
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
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