Seddio builds Brooklyn’s “Santa Central”
On December 4, at 5 p.m., the lights will go on at Brooklyn’squintessential holiday house, with a grand display including morethan 50,000 lights and 100-plus animated figures, that its ownersays can be seen by passengers on planes flying overhead to land atKennedy Airport.
The borough’s version of Santa Central, at Flatlands Avenue andEast 92nd Street in Canarsie, has been nurtured to its currentglory by Frank Seddio, a former assemblymember and former judge, alongtime community and political activist and, at least aroundChristmas, something of a right jolly old elf, himself.
Seddio — who has been mounting the display for 24 years, havingtaken over the 46-year-young tradition from its originator, FrankGuarino — spends the weeks leading up to the holiday season in afrenzy of activity, helped by family members and friends, as hebrings together characters out of fantasy and fable in a holidaywonderland that has the young, and young-at-heart, wide-eyed withamazement, even when they think they’ve seen it all.