SCARES WE CAN HANDLE
Qns. residentsidt won’tn lete COVID ruin Halloween, decorate
The real world might be scary enough this Halloween, but that’s not stopping some diehard New Yorkers from tricking out their front lawns, stoops and storefronts.
The over-the-top displays are a way to keep the holiday spirit alive during some draconian new pandemic health measures, the decorating devotees told the Daily News.
One house of horrors at the corner of 149 St. and 18th Ave. in Whitestone, Queens, has been up since mid-September.
By day, the macabre menagerie includes an army of skeletons and pumpkin-headed ghouls haunting a field of dried corn stalks. The real show starts when the sun goes down.
“I turn the lights on at night,” the owner, “Big Tom” told The News. “I’ll have the creatures on starting at 10:00 and the lights on until midnight with the smoke.”
Tom — who didn’t want to reveal his full name — said he’s spent the past 12 years gathering his menacing monsters, and he wasn’t about to let the coronavirus crisis spoil his fun.
“We do it for the kids,” he said. “My son loves it. The last couple of years he’ll even hide around the lawn and scare people.”
About a mile away at Utopia Parkway and 22nd Ave. in
Clearview, the outside of Dr. Michael Montalbano’s Community Chiropractic office was turned into the stuff of nightmares.
“It’s all for the kids. We all need some lightness in our lives, now more than ever,” Montalbano told The News, explaining why he pressed ahead with his tradition of terror.
“I remember when I was a kid, and you’d find a cool house. So I just wanted to be able to do something to give back to the neighborhood, for the kids. And the adults love it just as much,” he explained.
“It’s gotten to the point that people come from all neighborhoods to see this,” said
Montalbano, who will be dressed this year as Prof. Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series. “Last Halloween, we had 700 children here.”
He said his “coolest” decoration is a creepy life-sized doll swinging in a tree. He spent years finagling it to maximize its fright factor.
“It’s motion and sound activated. There’s a sensor up in the tree, so as you walk by, that thing turns on, and she starts jerking and screaming. There’s a loudspeaker up in the tree,” he said. “That’s the one people take to the most.”
The display was a hit with a neighbor who was walking through the yard with his toddler.
“She wants to come four times a day,” the dad shared. “She doesn’t really like it when everything is on at night, but she likes it now.”
A Bayside homeowner, Daniel Gale, 47, is bringing the heat this year by turning his front lawn into a den of dragons.
For more than a decade, he’s turned his corner of 214th St. and 56th Ave. into a must-see stop for trick-or-treaters.
“I go through $1,500 worth of lollipops every Halloween. Families block the street and you can’t even drive through,” he recalled.
“Last year, no exaggeration, we had a 1,000 kids,” he said. “It’s word of mouth. They hear
about it and the kids come.”
He personally designed the latest addition to his display, saying it took him days to build a dragon with a special fire feature he’ll unveil Halloween night.
His home is already known for its video projections showing zombies and ghosts in his windows and a horrifying Jack in the Box on his front lawn that springs open to scare visitors.
“I do it for the kids in the neighborhood and for my own kids,” he said, explaining one of his children is the perfect Halloween age of 6.
Gale, Big Tom and Montalbano all said they considered sitting on the sidelines this year, but then they doubled down on their decorating to give back.
“The kids have nothing this year. They had no social life. They lost their parties and graduation. So this brings some fun to them and some happiness,” Gale said.
“If the schools are open, why can’t the kids at least have this,” he said, adding that his 17-year-old daughter’s friends plan to check out their display Halloween night.
The detailed decorators said as long as revelers remember to wear proper face masks and keep a safe distance, they’re happy to put in the effort.
“Originally I wasn’t going to do it this year because of the expense and everything else, but everyone was asking, ‘Can you do it again?’ So I did it,” Tom explained. “I’m going to put up a sign asking everyone to please wear your mask and do your best to social distance.”
Montalbano said he figured his “nice large corner” offered more than enough room for visitors to safely enjoy his handiwork.
“I was hesitant in wanting to make sure I was doing the right thing, but my feeling was we need some levity,” he said. “I figured we’d let people be adults about it and make sure they are doing the same things, taking the same precautions, as they are doing everywhere else.”