Horror fans only have to turn on the news these days to get a fright. For some good, clean slasher-movie style scaries, to take our minds off the horrors going on in the real world this year, Halloween can’t come soon enough.
Trick or treat yourself to a Halloween break in New York City and you can expect the entire city to put on a show. Whether you’re a total skeptic or ready to start the pumpkin carving as soon as fall hits, it is always interesting to see the scarier side of this much-loved city. With paranormal parades, bloodthirsty Broadway hits and spirited bar crawls, there’s plenty to keep you up all night in the city that never sleeps, too. Flashlights and clown costumes at the ready, here are the best things to do in New York this Halloween if you dare…
Supernatural shows
Anyone who has spent Thanksgiving in New York knows that the city can put on a show. And one of the biggest New York CIty Halloween events for 2022 is the city’s annual Village Halloween Parade. Every October, more than 50,000 ghosts, witches, monsters and superheroes follow the route through Greenwich Village from Canal Street up 6th Avenue to 14th Street in Manhattan. They’re joined by hundreds of giant puppets, more than 50 bands, and dancers, representing music and styles from all over the world. It is completely free to join in as long as you’re dressed to kill—wearing a costume is compulsory.
The 2022 Village Halloween Parade, the 49th, will start at 7 p.m. and be led by The Brooklyn United Marching Band. The theme is “Freedom,” so you can let your imagination run wild and layer on the glitter, too. To watch the New York City Halloween Parade for 2022 from a safe distance instead, the streets towards the end of the parade are likely to be the least busy, and where you’ll find the best view.
Seeing a Broadway show is a must whatever time of year you visit New York. If you’re looking for something a little more sinister among the bright lights and show tunes, you could check out The Phantom of the Opera this Halloween. The creepy classic by Andrew Lloyd Webber is now the longest-running show in Broadway history, and has bagged seven Tony Awards since it debuted in 1988. Other classics that will be covering murder, witchcraft and wizardry this All Hallows’ Eve include Chicago with the villainous Roxie Hart, Wicked, the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, and everyone’s favorite bespectacled wizard in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The weird and wonderful musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 1988 film Beetlejuice has also recently celebrated its 500th Broadway performance and is probably unlike anything you’ve seen before.
Grave decisions
For a supernatural show of a different kind, where better to look for a bit of paranormal activity than New York’s many cemeteries? The final resting place of many leaders and legends, Woodlawn Cemetery, located in the Bronx, is one of the largest cemeteries in New York and attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year. Come Halloween, it offers a number of twilight walking tours that share the stories of its most-famous residents including Ruth Snyder, who was the first woman to be executed in the electric chair for the murder of her husband. You’ll also find many of its extravagant mausoleums—one even has its own sphinxes—lit up in a variety of colors for the Halloween weekend.
As well as offering views of the Manhattan skyline and being the final resting place of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Bernstein and F.A.O. Schwarz, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn offers a diverse program of eerie Halloween events, too. Broadway star Gelsey Bell curates a series of concerts with some of New York’s more adventurous musicians in the cemetery’s historic and rarely open-to-the-public catacombs. Once the gates have closed for the day, you can also weave your way through American history with an after-hours tour of the historic grounds and graves. There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so choose your comfiest shoes. In honor of the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, a family-friendly activity-filled day will also take place on November 1, from 3.30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
If it is famous ghosts you’re interested in, you can also search for jazz legends Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie at Flushing Cemetery in Queens, or notorious mafiosos John Gotti, Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese at Queens’ St John cemetery. Sleepy Hollow cemetery, which is just a 35-minute train ride from Grand Central station, is another Halloween mecca. It’s the final resting place for a roster of VIPs including Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, Elizabeth Arden and Washington Irving, the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which made this small town and the Headless Horseman famous. Throughout October and November, it also offers lantern-lit tours of the grounds.
Wicked walks
If you like your ghost stories with a side of exercise, you can explore New York’s darker side on foot with a macabre guided walking tour. Popular New York City ghost tours will take you to the sites of ghost sightings and murder scenes in the East Village, share the stories of body snatchers and spectral founding fathers such as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr around Greenwich Village, or explore the shadowy streets of Lower Manhattan, the oldest part of the city. You can also sip spirits while searching for local spirits on a haunted pub crawl to some of the city’s most historic haunts and paranormal pubs around Greenwich Village.
While a lot of people dress up and decorate their homes for Halloween, few can match the commitment of New Yorkers. From as early as late September, the city transforms one stoop at a time with creepy touches like gigantic spiders and intricate jack-o’-lanterns. We love nothing more than admiring the most extravagant displays across the city on foot.
Thanks to their local rivalry, the Upper West Side, particularly West 69th Street, and Upper East Side go all out with family-friendly over-the-top displays. Brooklyn Heights and Carroll Gardens are also well worth a scary stroll, as well as Prospect Park South, which is home to a serious contender for the most impressive Halloween house in all of New York. In Queens, Jackson Heights and Bayside really get into the spirit, too.
You can also find your own decorations with a walk around the grounds of The Queens County Farm Museum, a New York City landmark. Pumpkin picking is available here everyday throughout October in the run up to Halloween. Don’t forget to bring your own bag though if you do intend to take home a colorful souvenir. Decker Farm in Staten Island also offers pumpkin picking, a painting station and children’s hay maze within its 10 acres in October.
Haunted hangouts
In a city that’s nearly 400 years old, it’s not surprising that some of New York’s current bars, restaurants and hotels have had a checkered past. Some also have rumored long-term patrons. If you prefer to do your ghost hunting with a drink rather than a flashlight, we recommend starting at some of the oldest operating bars in New York in the West Village. The Ear Inn has been welcoming the living and dead since 1817 and is a popular haunt for ghost Mickey the Sailor, who has a penchant for prodding and flirting with female patrons. A few blocks away, The White Horse Tavern was not only a favorite of poet Dylan Thomas during his life, if you believe the stories (and we do!), Thomas still sits at his favorite table and is regularly blamed for spilled drinks here.
Thomas isn’t the only famous ghost to look out for during your time in New York. Edgar Allan Poe lived on the second floor of 47 Bond Street while he completed his most famous poem The Raven. Mediterranean restaurant Il Buco now occupies the same NoHo building and 200-year-old wine cellar, which is rumored to have inspired Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado. Enjoy its popular pasta dishes and award-winning wine list and you won’t be alone—apparently, Poe still helps himself to unopened bottles of wine in the cellar, too.
American restaurant One if by Land, Two if by Sea is also known as much for its food as it is its paranormal patrons. If you don’t catch Aaron Burr on your walking tour of Greenwich Village, you may spot him at dinner here. He’s said to haunt the restaurant along with his daughter, Theodosia, who has a reputation for swiping the earrings of female diners. They’re among 20 ghosts that are believed to be active in the building.
If you like your ghostly goings-on to be more guaranteed, Beetle House NYC is a Tim Burton-inspired bar and restaurant that celebrates Halloween all year round in the East Village. You can expect to be greeted by an array of characters from Burton’s imagination, a creative cocktail menu and goth bands on stage every night. A Taste of Magic also combines fine dining with a flair for the otherworldly. At restaurants around New York including Tout Va Bien bistro, Gossip Restaurant, Docks Oyster Bar, and Ben and Jack’s Steakhouse expect regular evenings of conjuring to complement the culinary experience. Between each course, you’ll be trying to get the better of (and failing) its team of entertainers that perform closeup magic right at your table.
Hotels to stay awake in
With more than 500 hotels around the city, it’s no surprise that New York has its fair share of haunted hotels. While many are long gone now—unlike the spirits that roam their corridors—you can still spend a night hiding under the cover this Halloween if you wish.
Located near Times Square, The Algonquin Hotel has hosted literary and cultural icons for over a century now, and some have chosen to stick around. Hotel guests and staff have reported seeing its former Round Table members, a group which included Dorothy Parker, Robert Sherwood, and Alexander Woollcott, roaming the lobby and dining room. Children have also claimed to have been shushed by Parker, so you may want to keep the noise down.
The Bowery Hotel in the East Village is the perfect base to explore Manhattan from, and a popular haunt of celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Blake Lively and Robert Pattinson. Spend a night here though and it won’t be the wild behavior of its fashionable clientele that will keep you awake, but its ghostly guests that ride the elevators at 1 a.m. “Guests” have also been reported to disappear mid-conversation.
Located next to Central Park and 5th Avenue, The Plaza has been a New York icon since it opened its doors back in 1907.
As well as being the setting of several Hollywood films, it has welcomed countless celebrities, dignitaries, and royals, and it appears some guests haven’t checked out when they were supposed to. Stay awake long enough here and you may encounter shadowy figures, jammed doors and disembodied voices, too.