Happy Halloween from Scouting NY!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


For those in New York this weekend, you have no excuse not to go to the Village Halloween Parade, one of the best New York City events of the year. The parade marches up Sixth Ave, beginning at Canal St and ending at 21st Street.  The festivities begin at 7pm, though an accurate schedule is the last thing you should expect.

ANYONE CAN MARCH IN THE PARADE, WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE A COSTUME (though you should really have a costume!). All you have to do is enter Sixth Ave between Canal & Spring Street coming from the east side. If you just want to watch, I still recommend joining in the parade. You can take much better pictures, see the costumes up close, and enjoy the parade at your own pace. That said, be forewarned: because Halloween is on a Saturday night, Sixth Ave is going to be packed.

The Village Halloween Parade began 35 years ago, started by a Ralph Lee, a Greenwich Village mask maker and puppeteer in 1973. The following year, it was expanded as a theatrical event of sorts, with the intention of creating a mile-long line of masked performers, puppeteers, and musicians on the streets. People noticed and wanted to join in, and the parade grew. Today, over 2,000,000 people attend.

To this day, the parade features hundreds of incredible puppets, operated by dozens of volunteers.

A brilliant T-Rex puppet:

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The Best of New York City Horror Movies

Just in time for Halloween, we’ve put together our list of the best horror movies that take place in New York City! If you think we’ve overlooked a film, or disagree with our choices, battle it out in the comments!

Without further ado…

EVIL BREWING IN THE CITY

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Double Feature: Ghostbusters . . .

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Halloween in NY: Bleecker Street

Halloween is the only time of the year that I actually pay attention to store window displays, and I’m always impressed by the offerings on Bleecker Street in the West Village. I took a bike ride down Bleecker today to take some pictures (I’m convinced there’s some sort of secret neighborhood association that spreads extra leaves on the ground to make the . . .

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The Film Locations of Rosemary’s Baby (NY, You’ve Changed)

“New York, You’ve Changed” is a new Scouting NY feature in which the New York depicted in movies is compared with the city of today. Not just the usual list of shooting locations, this is a full shot-by-shot dissection to see what New York once was and what it has become,  for better or worse.

We’ll be running Halloween-themed posts this week in honor of the holiday, and there seemed no better way to start than to take a New York, You’ve Changed look at one of the best New York City horror films ever made, Rosemary’s Baby.

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As the credits roll, the film begins with a panoramic aerial view of north-east New York, taken from the roof of The Majestic apartment building across the street from the Dakota (if anyone has a contact at The Majestic, I’d love to go up and shoot how the cityscape has changed). We finally come to settle on a very low angle view of the beautiful Dakota at 72nd St & Central Park West (called The Bramford in the film):

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The Dakota was constructed between 1880 and 1884 and originally had 65 apartments consisting of 4 to 20 rooms, with no two alike.

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A picture of the Dakota circa 1890, when the Upper West Side was a bit less crowded:

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One of my favorite building ornamentations in New York can be found lining the iron fence surrounding the Dakota:

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It’s even on the entrance to the 72nd Street subway station:

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In addition, the subway has a great antique sign above the stairwell entrance:

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As the movie opens, we meet Rosemary and her husband Guy as they visit the Dakota to see a vacant apartment (how they can afford anything in the Dakota, with Guy depicted as a struggling actor, is a bit of witchcraft in itself).

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As they’re touring their new apartment, they notice a bureau curiously pushed up against a closet door.

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They move it aside and indeed find a closet.

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We later find out that this hallway originally connected to the neighboring apartment (owned by the devil-worshiping Castevets). Breaking up apartments into smaller units by dividing the hallways is not uncommon. In the Apthorp, a building similar in idea to the Dakota, for example…

RB - 004c - Closet

…apartments that used to span an entire floor have been broken up into smaller units by dividing the hallways with closets. If you were to punch through the back of this closet, you’d find yourself in the neighboring apartment (when I was scouting this, all I could think about was Rosemary’s Baby):

RB - 004d - Closet

This closet, also in the Apthorp, still has a door to the kitchen as its back wall:

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>>>Continue reading “The Film Locations of Rosemary’s Baby (NY, You’ve Changed)”

A Very Important Reminder

Important reminder: you’ve got just 8 days to put together a Halloween costume for next Saturday!

For New Yorkers, if you’ve never been to the Village Halloween parade, you’re missing out on one of the hands-down best city events of the year. There is NOTHING like marching down Sixth Ave and seeing literally millions of New Yorkers exhibiting their creativity in the most horrifying . . .

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A Visit to Castle Rock

Nothing beats asking what you’re supposed to be scouting for, and being told: “Castles.”

Castle Rock 01

If you’ve ever driven along Route 9D in Garrison, New York, you may have seen it from the road: a fairy tale-like castle poking out from the trees at the top of a mountain:

. . .

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