Masked Revelers Hit Morningside, Village

Sugar-high skeletons, superheroes, and sorcerers pillaged local shops and restaurants on Broadway Tuesday night, as they searched for sucrose-laden booty and their parents struggled to keep up.

For many denizens of Morningside Heights, this kind of Halloween is an age-old custom. Christa Swenson, 29, who was giving out candy at the Broadway Presbyterian Church, described the occasion as another opportunity for the church to open its doors to the people of the community.

For others, Halloween in New York City was still a new experience.

"This is only my second Halloween," said Luis Castro, 26, a student from Argentina in the Columbia Graduate School of Business who dressed up as Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. "We don't have Halloween in Argentina."

Parisian Sandra Cariglio, CC '10, said she was "in shock" over the costumes and hype regarding the holiday. Charlotte Furet, BC '10, also from Paris, added, "Yeah, it's really weird."

Even though Halloween fell on a school night, many Columbia students were not deterred from journeying down to the East Village for the annual parade. When asked why she decided to spend her Tuesday night marching in a parade instead of doing school work, Yasmin Afsar, CC '10, dressed as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's, said, "Halloween is the best holiday of the year." Accompanying Afsar to the Village were her friends Dragos Velicanu, SEAS '10, and Raymond Garneau, CC '10, decked out as an Amish engineer and a Trojan horse, respectively.

AJ Pascua, Natalie Gossett, and Pierce Stanley, all CC '10, who traveled to the Village, had mixed feelings about Halloween. Stanley, a Spectator writer who was not in costume, said, "I feel like we shouldn't have to mask our true identities." Stanley said his animosity toward Halloween stemmed from an incident that occurred when he was six years old and dressed as an astronaut, and his costume caught on fire. "Houston, we have a problem," he said.

"This is my first year not trick-or-treating," said Gossett, who dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Eying fellow female students with scant clothing on, she said: "That's kind of dangerous. I miss the Halloween when you're 12 and you dress up as a bag of groceries."

Julie Raskin, CC '08, who also trekked to the Village, described Halloween as "kick-ass." This year, she taped numerous MetroCards to her clothes and proclaimed herself the "unlimited ride."