Spooky new events mark halloween season in Sleepy Hollow Country
Staff | October 3, 2010 | CommentMore than 4,000 hand-carved pumpkins on display at Blaze;
‘Horseman’s Hollow’ makes its terrifying debut
Historic Hudson Valley, creator of the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, is expanding its portfolio of Halloween inspired experiences to include a professionally produced haunted attraction: Horseman’s Hollow. It joins another new experience, Jonathan Kruk’s ‘Legend,’ and two returning classics: Blaze and Legend Celebration, to round out a full complement of classic fall events in Sleepy Hollow Country.
Washington Irving’s macabre tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow inspires the Horseman’s Hollow. A brand new haunted experience right in the heart of Sleepy Hollow, takes the tale of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to its darkest extremes. For eight October evenings, historic Philipsburg Manor will transform into a terrifying landscape ruled by vampires, witches, undead soldiers, ghouls, and ghosts, all serving the Headless Horseman himself.
Historic Hudson Valley is working with haunted house professional Lance Hallowell to create an immersive, interactive, pleasantly terrifying experience stocked with professional actors and state-of-the-art special effects. Visitors begin walking a haunted trail, stumbling upon scary scenes of a town driven mad by the Headless Horseman. The Hollow’s unfortunate inhabitants are all too ready to keep visitors from ever leaving.
Creatures, some human and some not, lurk in the shadows, ready to terrify the unsuspecting, while state-of-the-art special effects disorient and unsettle. Lighting is by Emmy award-winning designer Deke Hazirjian of New York City Lites.
Custom built set pieces and period-correct costumes help orient the experience in Philipsburg Manor’s traditional time period of the mid-1700s. Philipsburg Manor is at 381 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow.
Jonathan Kruk’s ‘Legend’ – Master storyteller Jonathan Kruk offers a dramatic re-telling of Washington Irving’s classic tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, featuring the Headless Horseman, Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, and Katrina Van Tassel. Flavored with live spooky organ music by Jim Keyes, Kruk’s storytelling will take place in the historic, candlelit setting of the Old Dutch Church. The 1685 stone church is across the street from Philipsburg Manor, where visitors will park.
By popular demand, the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, the tri-state area’s biggest Halloween extravaganza, is expanding to 20 evenings, including the first weekend in November. An Egyptian scene with mummies and giant pyramid, shrunken heads, and a pumpkin “cornfield” with crows are some of the new jack o’lantern installations included in this massive display of Halloween-inspired creativity. A team of artists come together to carve more than 4,000 jacks, many of them fused together in enormous and elaborate constructions, all lit up throughout the wooded walkways, orchards, and gardens of historic Van Cortlandt Manor at 525 South Riverside Avenue, just off Route 9 in Croton-on-Hudson.
Also returning is Legend Celebration at Washington Irving’s Sunnyside, a daytime event perennially popular with young children, where visitors are encouraged to come in costume. Ideal for the youngest Halloween fans, Legend Celebration offers kids and their families a chance to come in costume to Washington Irving’s Sunnyside for Halloween fun. Visitors can get their head examined by a phrenologist and enjoy a Punch Van Winkle puppet show as well as games, magic, sing-a-longs, Irish ghost stories, and other kid friendly Halloween experiences. Sunnyside also offers spooky woodland walks complete with ghost stories, which require online advance reservations. Sunnyside is at 89 West Sunnyside Lane, off Route 9 in Tarrytown.
All events are held rain or shine. All proceeds support Historic Hudson Valley, the Tarrytown-based non-profit educational organization which owns and operates the historic sites that host these events.
Ticket and date information visit www.hudsonvalley.org or by calling 914-631-8200