Story and Photos by Kate Walter – read on publication’s website to view images

I love Halloween in the West Village, even though I stopped going to the Greenwich Village Halloween parade years ago. It had become too crowded. One time I got pushed up against a police horse and couldn’t move. That did it for me. I had gotten too old for the crowd scene.  So I created new Halloween rituals and embraced my memories.
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The founder of the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, puppeteer and mask maker, theater artist, Ralph Lee, was my neighbor in Westbeth Artists Housing. Lee died in 2023 at 87. In the inner courtyard, there is a permanent installation of his art work that changes every few months. 

When I was a graduate student in the early 1980s at the New School, I had an assignment to produce a short documentary film. My group decided to make our indie film about the Village Halloween parade. We went to Lee’s loft and interviewed him. We shot his giant creations. We captured Westbeth residents donning their costumes in the community room. We marched the entire route with the revelers and shot the ending in Washington Square Park. 

That was when the parade was a real neighborhood event and it traversed through the winding streets of the West Village. (It started in 1974 and moved to Sixth Avenue in 1985.) Little did I know then that I’d eventually move from the East Village into Westbeth in 1997. Now this spooky film I made in the 80s feels like a positive premonition of my future home. 

We called it “Spirit in the Streets.” I’d love to see it again, but even if I could find it, I doubt I could play it since it was shot on Betamax video. The professor loved it. We got a great grade but our group of four women nearly came to blows in the editing room. 

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Today the Greenwich Village Halloween parade attracts millions. But I get my thills from taking leisurely walks around the neighborhood and shooting the dazzling Halloween displays in the West Village. Ghosts and skeletons climb up steps and sway from balconies and fire escapes. Giant pumpkins and colorful mums line the stoops creating a festive harvest atmosphere. 

Residents here decorate for this holiday the same way people in the suburbs decorate for Christmas. Over the top. And the folks who live in these buildings put out new art work every year. They don’t repeat themselves. It’s creative. It’s original. It’s the Village.