November 10, 2007 / Williamsburg–Greenpoint–Bushwick / Perspective / Beside the Point

A man with the tricks & treats

By Tom Gilbert

for The Brooklyn Paper

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Greenpoint has always been the kind of place where people put a lot of effort into decorating their yards and houses for the holidays. So last Wednesday evening, I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and hold my own “Best Halloween Display” contest.

My walk started with the usually holiday-happy blocks east and north of McGolrick Park, which were a slight disappointment. I saw nothing special on Apollo Street. Hausman Street (between Nassau and Meeker avenues), the “American flag block,” was still flying the Stars and Stripes — along with one Irish flag — from every house, as it has since 9-11. However striking, all this red, white and blue left little room for scarecrows and jack-o-lanterns. Neither did I see anything to write home about on Sutton Street, Morgan Avenue or Kingsland Avenue.

Russell Street, between Driggs and Nassau, which always comes through on Christmas, had a few well-decorated yards. The best was at 97 Russell St., which earned points for effort — ghosts in trees! — wit and overall composition. In my opinion, however, the most important category in judging any holiday display is the number of disparate decorative themes. We are looking for entertainment here, not high art.

By this standard, 97 Russell won second place in my self-judged competition. I counted an impressive 17 different themes: snakes, eyeballs, ghosts, skeletons, rats, cats and bats, tomb stones, spiders, corn stalks, scarecrows, vultures, Frankenstein, zombies, dead pirates, witches and organ music.

The clear neighborhood winner was around the corner at 648 Humboldt St., which drew crowds of amazed onlookers for most of the month of October. On Halloween itself, the place was mobbed, as costumed kids explored the display and adults took flash pictures. Though a few in the crowd quibbled that last year’s model was better (“They had really scary actors”), this was a tremendous crowd pleaser, from the dozens of figures covering the roof and both stories of the house to the ghosts in nearby trees to the fake corpse jammed under the rear wheel of a tow truck parked nearby — a literal traffic stopper.

I enjoyed the unhealthy-looking ghoul vomiting a stream of blood into a garbage can, the decapitated heads, the severed limbs and the way the whole thing was brought together by the disembowelment motif. But it was in the sheer number of distinct themes that this display really shined, or screamed. There was Hollywood (Dracula, a shackled Frankenstein monster and his bride), classical mythology (Hell’s gatekeeper Cerberus, the three-headed dog), French history (a guillotine, sticky with blood), as well as phalanxes of skeleton swordsmen, dead pirates, ghosts, inchoate monsters, piles of entrails, scary clowns, bats, bones, gargoyles, snakes, crows, rats and — most frightening of all — a very realistic “Tow Away Zone” sign.

The madman behind all of this is Anthony Auriemma, who explained that he started building his display years ago and that “it just kept getting more and more.” It has now gotten to the point where it has cost him $8,000–10,000, even though he “buys new Halloween stuff for next year after this year’s holiday, when everything is on sale,” and stores it in the garage.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying Anthony’s way of celebrating Halloween, except for his wife, who “just hates it and can’t wait for it to be over.”

I can’t see why. My wife loves it when I fill up the house with expensive stuff she is not interested in.

Tom Gilbert is a historian and writer who lives in Greenpoint

The Kitchen Sink

A new fitness center, Soma Health Club, will open in January in a huge building (formerly a theater) at 107 South Sixth St., between Berry Street and Driggs Avenue. The club owners promise 16,000 square feet of personal training, a steam room, sauna, free weights, private yoga, aerobic classes, cardio theater, private atrium, “and much, much more.” …

Caught “American Gangster” over the weekend, and was surprised to see North Brooklyn playing the part of New Jersey. I can see some resemblance, but it would have helped if Ridley Scott had avoided filming landmarks like the Williamsburg Bridge, the Domino Sugar plant and McCarren Park. …

More top scores from our North Brooklyn quiz: John Rivetti 23 out of 25; Nancy Petrullo 20 out of 25.

©2007 Community Newspaper Group