Are you looking for some thrill and chill in this scary season? Take a walk! These habitats feature some of NYC’s most imaginative and spookiest Halloween decorations, from frightening animatronic displays to bizarre light-filled flying saucers. If you have courage then take a look.
terror in motion
43 St. James, Clinton Hill
The Spruills can’t remember when they started decking out their brownstone for Halloween. WEDNESDAY — A 58-year-old retired English teacher who now runs an after-school program — thinks it was around the time of the COVID pandemic. Her husband Mike, 54, insists it was before that.
But they agree on the item that started it all: a talking tombstone from Target.
“I came home and said, ‘You have to put it on!’” Wednesday told The Post.
Mike, a music teacher, was skeptical. But he made fun of his wife.
“I started adding stuff… this zombie guy, and then eventually some spiders, some rats,” he said. “And then I started losing my mind.”
Their decorations now include an animatronic vampire that pounces on innocent passersby, a shivering demon with long hair and no eyes, a glow-in-the-dark tarantula with a pumpkin body, neon signs and an assortment of painted skulls and skeletons – some of their own. Holding flowers between teeth.
“We have a big basement,” Mike said of storing it all.
He spends from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year on their display, and he begins looking for new items as early as February.
This year alone, they’ve added three new features: a 10-foot-tall Grim Reaper, an equally giant talking witch riding a broom, and a spooky singing puppet on a swing.
“He’s my new boyfriend,” Wednesday joked of the latter. “Bobby Strings!”
alien invasion
106 Gates Avenue, Clinton Hill
Linda Grafakos may not have the most extravagant Halloween display in town, but she certainly has the most imaginative one.
“The theme is that ET is having a party and the Men in Black are security,” the 67-year-old retiree told The Post. “I like ‘E.T.’, I like ‘Men in Black,’ so I combined the two together.”
On its slope, five figures wearing ET masks, two aliens and an astronaut sit among autumnal arrangements of pumpkins, corn stalks and leaves. Above, two life-size dummies wearing oversized suits and sunglasses survey the scene.
Grafakos has spent the past 10 years dreaming up quirky Halloween tableaux for his home, inspired by movies like “Jurassic Park,” “Black Panther” and “The Pirates of the Caribbean.” She makes most of her displays herself and has a strict budget: about $100.
“My family thinks I’m crazy,” she said, except for her “beautiful grandson,” who sits with her and makes her crafts. “He’s not afraid of them at all.”
Childhood Dreams – and Nightmares
158 Marlborough Road, Prospect Park South
As a child, Donna DiDonato wished her parents would decorate more for Halloween. Now, she’s an adult, owning a home in Prospect Park South. It has a big veranda, and she can decorate as much as she wants.
“I’m counting about 30,” she said. “And I add more every year.”
DiDonato – who works in sales and marketing and is in her 50s – started collecting ghostly ghosts and skeletons about 10 years ago, when she came across a haunted Victorian woman, dressed in a bizarre dress and glowing red eyes. Was in.
“I felt like women were underrepresented in Halloween decorations,” she said. So he “searched high and low” for others and eventually found a quartet of wild-eyed Miss Havishams hanging from his veranda. He also has the grim reaper, ghosts, skeleton dogs, a tree monster and a 10-foot talking corpse.
“I added a two-headed dog this year that barks and unfortunately scares other dogs when they walk by,” he said. The decorations extend to the inside of her home, which she fills with trick mirrors and fake crows from eBay.
“I like aesthetics, I like interior design,” she said. “But the underlying thing is community. I talk to people I don’t usually talk to. They stop in front of your house. You smile, you join the conversation. This is absolutely unique.”
out of this world
123 East 61st St., Upper East Side
Amid tasteful autumn decorations on the Upper East Side, a townhouse on 61st Street features a purple inflatable flying saucer, spacesuit-clad skeletons and a light-up display worthy of Dyker Heights at Christmas.
“I wanted to do something different,” said Michael, an investor who did not want to give his last name. “200 to 300 people a day stop outside our house to take photographs,” he said.
Michael began shopping for various space props online in mid-September and spent over $1,000 on decorations.
He, his wife, their 7-year-old son, and their household staff built the entire thing in just “a few hours” while listening to the “Ghostbusters” theme.
“New York City is a very fast-paced city,” he said. “It’s nice to give people a reason to stop and smile.”
creepy stalkers
161 East 82nd St.
A sign on the front of 161 East 82nd Street reads, “Upper East Died”: one of the neighborhood’s scariest and most magical houses during Halloween.
For the past eight years its residents – a couple in their 50s who wished to remain anonymous – have bound their feet with piles of corn stalks, pumpkins, gourds, gravestones, severed hands, skulls and spider webs . The hooded grim reaper is hanging from the windows, and chained spirits adorn the front gate of the property.
This year, they’ve added a new figure: a seven-foot-tall pumpkin man with a monstrous jack-o’-lantern head purchased at Costco. “It does move, but the sensor is too far away,” the husband told The Post. “But maybe on Halloween we’ll take it down here [so it will work],
all dolls up
353 President St., Carroll Gardens
Lucas Santiago doesn’t usually play with dolls. But the 22-year-old ABC News PA has a collection of Barbies, old-time baby dolls and Victorian-style figurines that he arranges outside his family’s Carroll Gardens home every Halloween.
“We have about 20 dolls,” said Santiago. “We found most of them online, but walking around Brooklyn, people are always leaving things they don’t want to give away, so I found some baby dolls that way.”
Santiago dresses the dolls in “spooky” white outfits, which he buys from Amazon, and arranges them in a vertical line, as if they are parading out of the house. This year, they are carrying an idol wrapped in a black body bag.
“Everyone is afraid of dolls,” said a surprisingly pleased Santiago. “And lining them up like this makes them all the more terrifying.”
