Halloween is much more fun than Ebola. In fact Halloween was one big party this year by comparison to the many other scary scenarios in the city, where a cough on the subway can send straphangers into panic. Pop up costume stores were in full commercial swing, offering everything from ‘one size fits most’ beer bottle outfits to pirate hooks to creepy green appendages to Zorro costumes for your dog. It seemed perfectly normal to find Marie Antoinette suggesting fresh pastries at Maison Kayser and to see a doctor serving lunch at the local B rated cafe. Vampires strolled the streets with dark makeup and wild hair. Actually no, that was just the usual punters late for work.

The real celebration was in the street closures that occur in pockets of the city as regular gigs every year. Competition is fierce from house to house and street to street, not just in decorations but also in the bounty of candy collected. In the upper nineties on the east side arachnids were trending, keeping a lid on the undead and adding splashes of color to the still-green leaves. But there would be no Halloween without witches, and while most were perpetually airborne, there was one that didn’t see the wood for the trees…