Halloween- NYC style

The train came to a halt and the doors slid open. The smell of Penn Station hit my nose. A mix of subway, coffee and my dads half eaten breakfast sandwich. 

We were in NYC not just to see the sights, but to find a last minute costume, as it was Halloween and I was costume-less! My mom normally makes me something amazing to wear, but due to the preparation for our trip, there wasn’t much time for homemade creations. So we set off downtown to find a simple costume. We arrived at Abracadabra but had to wait in line for 40 minutes just to get in! There were professional makeup artists in the windows doing highly creative and interesting face prosthetics and visual effects. It was amazing! The inside was smelly (in a strange, but not bad way), cluttered and elaborate. We browsed around for a little bit but quickly realized there was not much left for us last minute shoppers. Our path took us to the back of the store where we found a bunch of masks. Some were wildly elaborate and expensive. Others were basic and more affordable. I settled for a simple, yet classic Scream mask. They didn’t have a black robe, but thankfully my friends mom had a black wool robe/coat thing that I wore to complete the look. After costume shopping we had some sushi on the West Side and took the subway up to our friends apartment. 

I went to Kindergarten in NYC and I am still friends with one of my classmates, Coco. We went trick-or-treating with Coco and her brother Oliver and some of their friends (one was also Scream). The street was PACKED and the costumes were amazing. The brownstones were elaborately decorated. As we were walking past, one building started to put out giant inflatable tentacles from the top floor windows. If large tentacles out of your windows wasn't enough, they upped their game and had three actors repel out of the windows and recreate a scene as if it was a set from Batman. Joker and Cat Woman repelled down first, doing lots of acrobatic stunts on the way down. Batman followed in hot pursuit. It was obvious that Halloween on 69th street isn’t your average Halloween!

After filling our bags with loot, we headed back to Coco’s house for Pizza and some candy trading. It’s nice to still have friends in the city because it makes it still feel like home. 

We hopped on the subway to Penn Station and then got on the train to Port Washington. We took an Uber from Port Washington station to the town dock and hopped into our red dingy for an extremely rough and exciting ride back to Nanook. After having an extremely fun and exciting day I was ready to pass out into my bunk.

Thanks for reading! 

-Ben