BY JADA CAMILLE
Another Boo-tastic Halloween
is creeping up, and Brooklyn’s
goblins and ghouls are
getting ready for a number of
spooky events all month long.
Here are six Halloween events
the whole family can enjoy enjoy
this ghostly season:
Halloween candy hunt
You can trick-or-treatyourself
at the Aviator Sports
and Event Center in southern
Brooklyn where, starting Oct.
23, Green Meadows Farm is
welcoming families to gather
for hayrides, photos in the
pumpkin patch and a candy
hunt.Attendees are encouraged
to dress in their Halloween
best, while they enjoy the
animal farm and playground.
Oct. 23-Oct. 31, 11 am to 5 pm
at Aviator Sports and Event
Center (3159 Flatbush Ave.).
Tickets $12 for ages 2 and up.
Masks for the unvaccinated
and social distancing are required.
COURIER L 50 IFE, OCTOBER 15-21, 2021
More info here.
BAMboo!
The Brooklyn Academy of
Music returns this year with
their free Halloween block
party. All are welcome to indulge
in the carnival games,
music and candy giveaway.
Kids will also have the opportunity
to trick-or-treat in a
safe, socially distanced environment.
Sunday, Oct. 31, 2 to 5 pm at
BAM (30 Lafayette Ave.). Free.
Proof of COVID-19 vaccination
and pre-registration required.
It’s the great PUPkin,
Charlie Brown!
Dog lovers, rejoice! Pooches
and their parents are welcome
to the 23rd annual Great PUPkin
Dog Costume Contest in
Fort Greene this Halloweekend.
The pup-tastic costume
contest will take place at Fort
Greene Park at noon on Saturday,
Oct. 30 (or on Halloween,
Oct. 31, if it rains). Festivities
will also be livestreamed for
anyone who chooses to stay at
home.
Saturday, Oct. 30 or Sunday,
Oct. 31 (weather depending).
Registration fee $12. Free
to watch. Sign up required.
More info here.
Cobble Hill Halloween
Parade
March on! Cobble Hill’s annual
Halloween Parade will
return, rain or shine, on Sunday,
Oct. 31. The parade — a
neighborhood favorite for 20
years, hosted by the Cobble
Hill Association — will kick
off in Cobble Hill Park at 4
pm, and a brass band (Brass
Queens!) will lead the precession
of families around town,
down Congress to Henry,
around to Warren Street and
back to the park. Guests can
expect to see festive costumes
and stop at some stoops along
the way for some candy.
Sunday, Oct. 31, 4 pm. Cobble
Hill Park. Registration not
required, but encouraged.
A spooky movie in the
moonlight
Brooklyn’s Runaway Roof
in Bushwick is hosting Halloween
movie screenings all
month long. Showings for
the rest of the month include
“Beetlejuice” on Wednesday,
Oct. 13, “The Nightmare Before
Christmas” on Wednesday,
Oct. 20 and “The Rocky
Horror Picture Show” on
Wednesday, Oct. 7.
All month long at Brooklyn’s
Runaway Roof (321 Starr
St.). On Oct. 13 and 20, doors
open at 6:30 pm and fi lm begins
at 7 pm. On Oct. 20, pre-show
starts at 7:30 pm, fi lm at 8 pm.
Tickets $10.
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
Brooklyn’s history buffs can
now take a walk down memory
lane, as the local Brooklyn
Heights Association has curated
a series of walking tours
for curious Kings Countians to
explore the lesser-known history
of the borough’s brownstones.
The series, which started on
Oct. 2, was inspired by the 60th
anniversary of the publication
of “Old Brooklyn Heights,” a
guidebook of sorts written by
Clay Lancaster as part of the
successful effort to establish a
landmark preservation law in
New York City. In 1965, Brooklyn
Heights became the city’s
fi rst historic district designated
by the brand-new Landmarks
Preservation Commission.
To educate his neighbors on
the historical richness of the
neighborhood, Lancaster lead
a series of walking tours in the
early 1960s, focusing primarily
on the concentration of century
old buildings he wanted to
preserve.
BHA wanted to commemorate
those tours, but not recreate
them.
“It’s pretty well known now,
even if it maybe wasn’t fi fty
years ago — a neighborhood
like Brooklyn Heights has lots
of beautiful houses, historic
houses,” said Jeremy Lechtzin,
BHA’s vice president and curator
of the tours. “That’s the beginning
and the end of the story
that was told in 1960. What we
want to talk about today is some
other aspects of history.”
Each of the four tours, running
Saturdays through Oct.
24, winds through a different
part of history, exploring women’s
suffrage, African American
abolition, overlooked architecture,
and queer history.
Lechtzin, a historian and
tour guide himself, worked
with his colleagues at the BHA
to brainstorm possible tour topics
— then went through and
thought about which guides
he knew who could bring each
walk to life.
“The people who are leading
the tours are all experts in
what they’re talking about, and
are great tour guides, and great
storytellers,” he said.
Lucie Levine, a writer, historian,
and founder of tour
company Archive on Parade,
started off the series with
“Brownstones and Ballot
Boxes,” a history of women’s
activism and suffrage in Brooklyn
Heights.
“For me, within the study
that I do, I’m always drawn to
those sort of untold stories,”
Levine said. “Because history
lives with us and is all around
us, and like, what do we know,
and what can we uncover and
share.”
Brooklyn Heights was the
home to early women’s suffrage
organizations, Levine
said, and the home to the fi rst
Black women’s suffrage organizations,
the Equal Suffrage
League, founded by Sarah Garnet.
“What’s cool about preservation
in Brooklyn Heights is
that because they were able
to preserve the streetscape so
well, you are literally standing
at the homes of the women
who have done this work, at the
building where they held their
meetings,” she said. “In front
of the auditoriums where they
gave rousing speeches. It’s this
really moving situation.”
Along the tour, Levine stops
at 64 Montague Street, the former
home of Cornelia Hood,
nicknamed “The Brooklyn Portia,”
an early graduate of New
York University’s law school
and one of the fi rst women in
the country to get a law degree.
“I always call her the plaqueless
pioneer, because there’s a
plaque on that building but it’s
not for her,” Levine said. “The
plaque is for Arthur Miller,
who also lived there.”
Leading the next tour,
“Brooklyn Heights: African
American Abolition and Self
Determination,” is writer
and local historian Suzanne
Spellen.
A Brooklyn resident from
the 80s until 2012, Spellen
started researching the history
of her neighborhood, Bedford-
Stuyvesant, as a hobby – not
much had been written about
the history of Brooklyn outside
of places like Coney Island, she
said.
When she lost her job because
of the recession, Spellen
found herself with much more
time to research and write
about Brooklyn — and an outlet
for that research, Brownstoner,
now Brooklyn Paper’s
sister publication.
Creep it real
Six spooky Halloween events
for Brooklynites to enjoy
Explore untold history of Brooklyn
Heights with new walking tours
BROOKLYN
Past judgment
SUPER-POWERED: Enid’s powers may only including sitting, eating, and
entertaining kids but she was still super-duper at a past Great PUPkin
Dog Costume Contest in Fort Greene. Photo by Stefano Giovannini
Lucie Levine focuses on the rich
history of women’s activism and
suffrage on her tour.
Photo by Jeremy Lechtzin