Each Halloween, New York City is filled with frightening sights and ghoulish noises as the ghosts and witches come out in force to celebrate this popular American holiday.

New York’s Village Halloween Parade  (6th Avenue, 31 Oct at 19h) is the largest Halloween parade in the world and certainly one of the most extravagant, where members of the public can join in the fun with hundreds of spooky puppets, costumed dancers and musical bands. 

For children too small to join in the larger Parade, a smaller independent parade takes place earlier in the day in Washington Square Gardens.

Smaller visitors are also welcome to come in costume for the Halloween Festival at the Children’s Museum of the Arts and enjoy scary crafts as well as the annual SoHo children’s parade (Oct 28th 12h-17h)

For more family friendly fun, head for Central Park on Sunday October 27th for the annual Pumpkin Festival (11h-15h).  There will be a number of children’s activities and the chance to pick up your own carved lantern.

In fact, most of New York City’s Parks have something going on in the weeks leading up to Halloween.  Join in a Haunted Walk through Marine Park in Brooklyn on Sunday 20th October.  Designed with children in mind, this fun walk is followed by a popular puppet show.  Or there’s the Halloween Festival at Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn (Oct 27th).  As well as face painting, pumpkin decorating and costumed parade, there are also pony treks and hay rides.

For braver souls, a trip to the “Most Haunted House in Manhattan” may be more appropriate.  Join an eerie candlelit tour of the Merchant’s House Museum on the 29th or 30th October or enjoy the spine tingling stories on All Hallows Eve itself (19h-22h)

From the 29th - 31st October visitors can gather in the candlelit Upper Hall of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum for bone-chilling readings from the letters and tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

Or take a Halloween tour of the Greenwood cemetery (27-28th Oct).  Founded in 1838 this is the final resting place of many New York characters, including Leonard Bernstein (composer), Albert Anastasia (mobster), Henry Chadwick ("Father of Baseball"), Kate Claxton (actress on stage during the Brooklyn Theater fire), Frank Morgan (actor) and Henry Halleck (Union general during Civil War)

The more adventurous may prefer to join the Manhattan Kayak Company on a Halloween Night Paddle (31st Oct at 18h30).

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