Garden Place: Brooklyn’s best block for Halloween trick-or-treating

November 1, 2023 Mary Frost

Beautiful mayhem on Garden Place as the kids just kept coming. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Share this:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Garden Place, a tiny little corner of Brooklyn Heights, hardly ever gets news coverage, because, quite frankly, it’s a quiet place — normally. But every Halloween this one-block street somehow becomes a destination for trick-or-treaters from every corner of, well, somewhere. Police come to help supervise the crowds and to ensure things remain peaceful, and they always do remain peaceful because it’s a festive holiday featuring dress-up and free sugar treats.

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Maybe it was post-COVID-euphoria (or maybe a bit of end-times mania), but the Halloween scene on Garden Place in Brooklyn Heights felt even more mind-blowing than ever this year.

Thousands of costumed kids (and many exotically-decorated or historically-accurate adults) made a beeline to the one-block-long street, which was barricaded at both ends by police. First-timers (some pushing more than one baby stroller, ha!) could be excused for standing, mouths agape, as they prepared to enter the fray.

Experienced homeowners had the drill down, however.

It was standing room only on Garden Place in Brooklyn Heights on Halloween. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

“Hold on, I’m going for another shipment,” one man told a throng of expectant trick-or-treaters mushed in front of the steps to his brownstone, as his smiling wife sat with an empty cauldron. The man climbed into the front garden where commercial-sized cartons of candy were stacked six high, and lugged one back for the next round.

Throughout this maneuver, the family’s two costumed dogs stood frozen at the top of the stoop, wearing actual expressions of shock.

Another homeowner, dressed in a garishly colorful lounge-lizard jacket, stood in the street sipping a glass of wine with an equally relaxed friend.

“I’ve been through this before,” he said. “It’s the only way to handle it.”