Halloween Happenings in Brooklyn Heights and Beyond

By on October 28, 2015 2:12 pm in DUMBO, Fun, Halloween, Kids, Parents

Hot patootie, bless my soul! The leaves have turned, there’s a chill in the air and pumpkins and spider webs adorn the stoops (and oh the horror, the horror; pumpkin spice-flavored everything is at Trader Joe’s).  Halloween is officially upon us.  What’s that, you are haunted by the ghosts of failed-costumes past? Need some divine inspiration? According to Google Frightgeist, “Superhero” is the number one search term for costumes in NYC but there’s also a “frighteningly high chance of seeing another Elsa.” It’s a pretty safe bet you’ll be overrun by Minions, Batmans or Harley Quinns too.  With no shortage of spooky fun to be had in our corner of Brooklyn there is no escape.  It’s time to get your sweet tooth on.  So cut eye holes in an old bed sheet if you have to, grab your little monsters and get out there! Here’s what’s happening in and around our humble hamlet for All Hallow’s Eve.

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS:

  • Fri, Oct 30th, 3:30 – 5:00 pm: Brooklyn Heights Library will screen a Halloween-themed movie.  Kids who attend in costume receive a “freebie.” FREE
  • Fri, Oct 30th, 5:00 – 6:00 pm: Chocolate Works is hosting a Spooky Halloween workshop.  Kids and parents can mold chocolate lollipops and decorate spooky treats. 110 Montague Street.  $25 per person.
  • Fri, Oct 30th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm: NY Kids Club “Trick or Treat & Something Sweet” PJ Party.  Children will participate in a mummy relay, play Pass-the-Pumpkin, fly like witches and hunt for ghosts in the gym. Dinner will be served.  $36 for the 1st child, $24 for each sibling. This event is drop-off.
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 10:00 am: The Brooklyn Heights Association is once again holding their annual Halloween Parade at Pierrepont Playground. Come one, come all! FREE
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 3:30 – TBD: The residents of Garden Place and Grace Court Alley take their Trick or Treating seriously.  For a safe, festive place to fill your candy bucket to the brim, this is where it’s at in Brooklyn Heights on Halloween.  You’ll begin to see littlest goblins trolling for treats beginning in the late afternoon (3:30 ish) but the festivities often run late into the evening.  Garden Place (between Joralemon and State Streets) and Grace Court Alley (Hicks Street just South of Remsen).  FREE

DUMBO:

  • Fri, Oct 30th, 5:30 to 6:00 pm drop off with 9:00 pm pick up: It’s Halloween at Recess! Dumbo’s newest playspace celebrates Halloween with a costume contest, bobbing for treats and pumpkin decorating.  81 Washington Street $40 child/$30 each additional child.  Pizza and art project included with every event.
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 4:00 – 7:00 pm: The Dumbo Improvement District sponsors Trick or Treating at Dumbo businesses from 4:00 – 7:00 pm.
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 4:00 – 5:30: Brooklyn Roasting Company Halloween Family Bash.  Storytelling, live music and costume contest culminating in a live music parade around the neighborhood. 25 Jay Street. FREE
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 5:00 – 7:00 pm: Free kids activities in the Archway with costume contest, hands on fun with Creatively WILD Art Studio, photo booth, music and of course, candy.
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 8:00 pm: Bargemusic’s Masterworks Series: Special Halloween Program—works by Haydn, Zorn, Schumann, William Bolcom, and Beethoven. Brooklyn Bridge Park at Fulton Landing.  $35 ($30 Senior, $15 Student)

NEARBY BROOKLYN:

  • Thurs, Oct 29 – Sat, Oct 31st, (check schedule for show times): “Theatreworks’ high-tech haunted hotel, The Gravesend Inn, returns again this year. Produced by Theatreworks, City Tech’s resident theatrical troupe with design, construction, and operating support provided by students and faculty of the College’s nationally unique Entertainment Technology Department, this theme-park-quality Halloween attraction has been thrilling children and adults alike since 1999.” Voorhees Building on the New York City College of Technology campus, 186 Jay Street (north of Tillary)$8/$5 students (with ID) and groups.
  • Thurs, Oct 29th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm: The New York Transit Museum invites you to “get all dressed up for an evening of imaginative, subway-themed family fun in the Museum with face painting, a ‘glow zone,’ and shadow puppet play” at their Halloween Central Station.  Corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street, $7 adults/$5 child/FREE for museum members.
  • Fri, Oct 30th, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm: Downtown Brooklyn Family Halloween Day-A “fun-filled Halloween celebration, sponsored by MetroPlus Health Plan. Festivities will include face painting and balloon art (10am-12pm), performances of “Dr. Finklestein’s Zombie Show” courtesy of the Big Apple Circus (10am and 11:30am), live music by DJ Mikey Palms + MC Alphabet (10:30am), and more. Treats courtesy of Duane Reade will be given to all party attendees in costume.” Albee Square, Corner of Fulton and Bond Streets.  FREE
  • Fri, Oct 30th, 4:00 – 5:00 pm: Jam with our favorite funky Music Together teacher, Nikolai Moderbacher and his band at the NikosKids Jam.  Norman & Jules, 158 7th Avenue, Brooklyn.  $12 for first child, $3 for each additional child.
  • Sat, Oct 31st, Noon: Carroll Park Halloween Kids Parade.  Meet at 11:30am in the park, and then kick off the parade at Noon. Return to the park for treats afterwards.  Carroll Park President and Smith Streets.  FREE
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 4:00 pm: The Cobble Hill Halloween Parade.  Out come the cob webs, phantoms, and ghouls. Cobble Hill Park, Clinton Street between Verandah Place and Congress Street.  FREE
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 4:00 pm: Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 13th Annual outdoor Halloween block party, BamBOO! Featuring Brooklyn teen DJ: DJ Kakez, candy giveaways, bounce house, carnival games, costume contest and Arts & Crafts.  Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Avenue. FREE
  • Sat, Oct 31st, 5:00 – 9:30 pm: Every year the Society for Clinton Hill organizes a Halloween Walk in Fort Greene.  A must see along the route is the annual original Halloween-themed production held at 313 Clinton Avenue, aka “The Halloween House.”  Per the group’s website, “2015 marks the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In tribute to that classic children’s fantasy, we’ve created our own diabolical version that sends Alice into a fantastic new world, populated with a new cast of magical characters, who sing, dance, and fight off all manner of nasty beasts.”  313 Clinton Avenue (bet. Lafayette & Dekalb Avenues). Tip: Arrive early to grab a good viewing spot. FREE

This post has been edited and reflects additional events including Chocolate Works’ workshop, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens Halloween parades.

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  • Hickster

    There’s also the Cobble Hill Children’s Halloween Parade. Starts at 4pm at the Cobble Hill Park on Clinton St.

  • SongBirdNYC

    Yes, thank you. I was planning on adding that shortly along with the Carroll Park Halloween Parade.

  • Willow Street Watch

    Yes but the average Heights hobgoblin and witch when polled last year responded that the halloween figures they met at the cobble hill/Carroll park events were NOCD.

  • CookieGuggleman

    NOCD?

  • StudioBrooklyn

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=NOCD

    WSW has an extraordinary ability to send me running to google

  • Parent

    Ergh. Did anyone else feel that there was WAY more children trick-or-treating around the neighborhood than actually live here? I especially don’t like the ones that are clearly coming from poorer areas and come here just to collect as much candy as possible – they’re all grabby hands, rude, and aggressive.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    I suspect you and WSW could have a wonderful friendship.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Although I’m sure many of us observed the same thing as Parent, I think the real illumination is in the reaction. I also saw a lot of Elsas of course…what’s the phrase…Let It Go? So some poorer kids come into BK Hts with a certain sense of entitlement to a taste of a better safer trick or treating atmosphere…I hope Parent showed them the same courtesy and friendliness that makes this neighborhood so desirable.

    Meanwhile, Claude, I hope you’re working on a photo-saturated post op!

  • FoodArtforKids.com

    Parent – You and your family are fortunate enough to live in a lovely neighborhood in which the streets are safe and the residents are generous. Some people are not that lucky; their days to day life is hard so on a holiday like this they come to your neighborhood to enjoy all the bounty. Please let them, and count your own blessings.

  • Concerned

    This is poorly stated. So much so that I have to believe that you may be attempting to elicit a reaction, or what the kids call “trolling”. Nevertheless, I did experience teenagers I have never seen before in the neighborhood that were cursing, rude, littering and throwing things at each other with no regard for the families that were merely trying to have a good time. It was similar to some of the troublemakers I’ve seen in the new park.
    Foodartforkids.com is right. However, I have to agree with you that it angers me any time outsiders come to our neighborhood and don’t act with any decorum. Our neighborhood, where apartments sell for between $1,000 and $2,000 a square foot, is walking distance from some of the toughest public housing in the country. I wish there weren’t tough places like that where children have to grow up. I do feel for the families and their plight. But I must admit that I do get frustrated with the way some of those teenagers act around me and my family. I feel threatened and very protective of my family. This is probably a product of ignorance and racism and there is very little threat to my family. But I think this blog is a place where we should be able to honestly express ourselves about issues we experience in the neighborhood.

  • SongBirdNYC

    Wow. Just wow. As a parent, resident of Brooklyn and human being I especially don’t like having mean-spirited neighbors who are all bigoted, closed-minded and ignorant.

  • Willow Street Watch

    You had to mention my name. I was sitting this one out and you had to mention me.

  • Willow Street Watch

    You mean makes this neighborhood so VULNERABLE.
    Your voice is exactly the voices we heard in the early 70’s which led to the violent crime and drugs flood which swept this neighborhood. Its also the platitudes we heard when many thoughtful Heights residents questioned the building of the BBP. Positions like yours are exactly what transmits the message that everything is OK to do here. And it isn’t that they’re looking for a safer holiday yes they are looking for a fatter calf, bit they are going away from their home bases, why? Because they can do things here they can’t get away with in their own neighborhoods.

    Kudos to parent for and honest…and accurate comment!

  • Willow Street Watch

    No, this isn’t any attempt to deprive anyone of a safe place or good time. No one is being hard hearted or mean sprited. I myself had a series of fun and good laughs with some groups of people from outside the Heights. Of course, I feel more comfortable with people I know. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is the sizable group of kids, and their escorts(!) who at times were way out of line and disrespected
    our neighborhood. Let’s say the kids disrespecting our area were from Beekman or Sutton or 50th and Park? What if they were MORE affluent kids spitting, yes spiting, and making way off color remarks at Heights women. What would you say to that?

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    I think they’re the same person.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    Hadn’t thought of that, but could be.

  • Willow Street Watch

    That wasn’t me, nor was it one of my supporters. Given some of the behavior this year I can understand the comment. On the other hand perhaps its a casino brat we all know attempting to spread more of his distortions and poison. Bet THAT’S what’s happening here…..

  • DecencyInBK

    WSW is a person who has lost [his?] damn mind. And really not worth responding to. “making off color remarks at our women?” How old and racist are you exactly? What were your parents like? (please don’t answer, I already know.)

    To the moderators: I think people would gladly pay $ for a feature that allowed WSW’s comments to be hidden. Please try to figure it out and raise a boatload of money for the site in the process.

  • Willow Street Watch

    The above is the level of debate critics have sunk to…
    What did I say to cause a vile outburst like this?
    Anyway, I stand by the very reasonable comments I made:
    Wrong behavior is wrong behavior no mater who does it or where.
    There has to be a basic standard measure for respecting someone else’s home or surroundings.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    FYI he “WSW” used to attempt to distribute Neo Nazi propaganda to High School students back in the early 80’s, No Joke, for real.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    “Nor was it one of my supporters”
    Don’t worry, no one thinks it was one of your elastic undergarments.

  • Willow Street Watch

    Are you back to that fabrication? Hey, for everybody’s information, that literature was actually distributed by one of the people you hung out with at the time! He would deliberately leave his literature near or in with our handouts. An investigation of his background discovered that he was half, well, you fill the blank.

    All this just “happened” when we started really crack down on the St Ann’s/casino kids and the growing drug scene at the court bldn.
    Now, one of the hangouts at that racid scene, 35 years later, is back to protest our actions Using the example of one of his crowd’s associates/ hangers on!!!

    Amazing….but really typical casino….Stanley Bosworth is looking up and smiling….

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Funny, I was talking to a friend of mine this past weekend about this, He also remembers you well and the whole story close to as I remember it. I’m sure others as well. So there are witnesses… I have to take a look in the attic, I may still have a piece or two of that propaganda that you were pushing, I saved for evidence!

  • Willow Street Watch

    I’m sure that you have dozens of your former associates who will agree and repeat your general line. You have already established that you and your friends were part of the drug scene at Monroe and Pierrepont. All of you were a part to varying degrees of the nightly disorders which your “associates” delivered to our doorstep. Your behavior showed no concern for the safety and feelings of others at the time and it remains inconsiderate and ugly now.

    Ive always found leopards don’t change their spots…..And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    Now lets see; people with all thier present concerns are supposed to listen to a group of people who were a part of what for many was a major degradation of our safety and quality of life?

    Or should people listen to the people who were making every effort to stop the drugs and violent crime which at the time was plaguing the Heights?

    Everyone reading this:…who do you think you should listen to?

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    LOL The truth is “we” the nabe’s young crowd did more to keep things safe around here then you ever did.
    So Jeff, you still got that Nazi armband you used to keep in your pocket?