The Newtown Pentacle

Halloween sights from the Times Square of Astoria, 2015.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As has become our holiday tradition – Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself, along with a small group of people who can tolerate my presence for short intervals, headed over to the local corner pub and sat down with a few buckets of candy on Halloween. Our Lady and the others distribute the sweet stuff to the mobs of costumed “yutes” and after I check with and get the permission of parent or guardian to do so, I take some photos.

The ones in today’s post were my favorites, but if you want to check out the whole set – here’s the link to them on flickr.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Sugar skulls and “Dias de Los muertes” iconography is a growing theme for Astoria costumers, as you’d suspect, given our growing and welcome population of Mexican and Central Americans. I love the visual style of this particular folk tradition.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The superhero costumes available in shops these days are light years beyond what was available when I was a kid, back in the ’70’s, when the Don Post company offered plastic smocks with the characters name on them and weird PVC face masks that always seemed to have sharp edges on mouth and eye holes.

Check out that kid in the lion costume.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A lot of Jokers were out and about, but this young lady was clearly the most “all in.”

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Our Lady had many, many customers for her candy. There were times when it felt like a relentless horde of zombies were attacking her.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A bunch of the very young kids had literally no idea what was happening, but knew something involving candy was afoot. The toddler pictured above came very close to winning Halloween.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Astoria is all about family, and as you can see in the shot above, in some units – every member of the clan was done up in holiday dress for Halloween.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Yep, adorable.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As it grew dark, the crowds continued to throb about. A weird thing about Astoria, or my section of it at least, is that the kids don’t trick or treat on the side streets at private homes.

They mainly stick to the avenues (like Broadway), and trick or treat at the mom and pop shops. I’m told that it’s part of the modern day fear of “stranger danger” and the parent’s assumption that every adult male whom the child encounters is likely a pervert or child molester.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As the night moved on, the grown ups began to exhibit. This group of happy footed Penguins seemed to be on the way to a party. The chill of the night air, and the fact that we had spent something like six hours at the Doyle’s Corner Bar, contributed to a general agreement amongst my group that it was time to cut things off and head back to HQ to order a pizza.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Last call, and it was time to head on home with camera and Our Lady in tow. That’s Hank the Elevator Guy in the shot above, incidentally, an oft mentioned but seldom pictured resident of this – your Newtown Pentacle.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle