Posts this past week included (with a bewitching scene from St. Mark's Place)
• DOT marks completion of Avenue B redesign (
Oct. 15)
• From bands to books, an East Village resident starts a new chapter (
Oct. 15)
• Parks to present 3 options for Tompkins Square recreation area (
Oct. 14)
• Todos Contentos y Yo También bringing Spanish-language books to 3rd Street (
Oct. 12)
• Benefit brings art and community together for families affected by ICE (
Oct. 16)
• Development team for 324 E. 5th St. affordable housing project to appear before CB3 (
Oct. 13)
• Report: Archdiocese says repairs are underway at Most Holy Redeemer (
Oct. 16)
• At the East Village Meat Market for Pierogi Day (
Oct. 13)
• At the Lower East Side Hispanic Heritage Festival (
Oct. 11)
• Kotobuki is back to full-service dining in the East Village (
Oct. 15)
• Justine Kurland's first retrospective continues at OSMOS on 1st Street (
Oct. 17)
• Scenes from the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade (
Oct. 17)
• The PEACE house loses a tree (
Oct. 14)
• 9-story hotel proposed for Allen Street (
Oct. 13)
• Openings: Table Mercato on 10th Street (
Oct. 13)
• Closings: Bake Culture on St. Mark's Place (
Oct. 15) … Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart on 2nd Avenue (
Oct. 12) … Fat Boys Burgers on 1st Avenue (
Oct. 12)
• A Sunday afternoon at Sushi-Con (
Oct. 14)
• ICYMI: E-bike battery sparks apartment fire on Avenue A (
Oct. 10)
5 comments:
Remember when Halloween used to be just one day, only on October 31st?
No. No one reading this site was alive when modest indoor and outdoor decorations were introduced in the US.
People began putting out Halloween decorations during the 1920s, which marked the birth of mass-produced, commercialized Halloween decor in North America.
The evolution occurred in three main phases:
• 1900s–1910s (Early Commercial Roots): Before full-scale manufacturing, people decorated for indoor Halloween parties using crepe paper, DIY instruction booklets (like Dennison’s Bogie Books, first published in 1909), and postcard displays.
• 1920s–1930s (Mass Production & Home Decorating): The 1920s saw companies like the Beistle Company start mass-producing iconic die-cut paper, cardboard, and honeycomb decorations (like jointed skeletons, black cats, and witches). This allowed everyday households to buy and hang Halloween decorations on doors and windows.
• 1950s–1960s (Outdoor Neighborhood Displays): Outdoor yard decorating as we know it today took off in the post-WWII suburban boom, fueled by the invention of durable plastic "blow mold" lighted figures (like glowing pumpkins and ghosts).
Large-scale lawn inflatables later followed in the early 2000s.
20 years ago it was one day holiday in NYC. Now, in years when 10/31 falls on a midweek day, it's a 2 weekends carnival, where you can see a lot of people in costumes for 10-11 days. It's a bit ridiculous, and obstructing the beauty of the day itself. Might be another ploy by the alcohol industry (see: Cinco de Mayo).
Fact check; What you’ve researched on Google may be
True but it doesn’t match my real world experience growing up working class
In the
60’s. We
Trick-or treated
On both Halloween and on the
Night before (“Devil’s Night”). At
Most,
You’d see a
Carved
Pumpkin or paper cutout decoration
on a door a week before. There would be a couple houses in the neighborhood that put out a homemade dummy or two, usually tasted by older teenage boys living there. Nothing gruesome though. Most kids in my neighborhood wore homemade
Costumes. Halloween
Candy certainly
Didn’t arrive in the
Stores
Before
October. Adults seldom dressed up. It was a day for the kids. But when the Holiday arrived, we were bursting with pent-up excitement, second only to Christmas. It was pretty much the only day kids wore costumes, aside from school plays.
You could pretend you were somebody or something
Else for a night or two, which was a big part of the fun. We’d go door to door in groups and make pit stops at the homes of friends or relatives
.for donuts and cider and such. Their homes were not decorated. Who had the time or money? The season did not drag on for weeks and that made Halloween so much more special.
As for big outdoor decorations in the ‘burbs, one might see a few homes festooned in that way for Christmas but seldom Halloween. And that was usually at the homes that were showing off for their social climbing neighbors. A free bag of Halloween candy is still a free bag of
Candy, but I do feel sorry for today’s kids who have to deal with holiday fatigue that must drain so much of the excitement.
I meant to write that the dummies were “crafted” by teenage boys.
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