A skeleton rides atop a gleaming red motorcycle outside Nick Colavito’s Howard Beach home. Anna Gustafson/The Forum Newsgroup
Come Halloween time, it is not uncommon to see vehicles driving down 84th Street screech to a halt and quickly reverse until they are in front of a house near 161st Avenue in Howard Beach.
Then, frequently, those in the car will hop out, scoop cell phones from pockets and immediately begin taking a barrage of photos – after all, the scene before them only lasts for so long.
And what is that scene? According to the house’s owner, Nick Colavito, as well as many neighbors living near him, it is one of the “scariest houses around.”
“I’ve been collecting Halloween decorations for 15 years, and each year I do this set up it keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Colavito said of the ghoulish extravaganza he creates in his front yard – everything from a skeleton on a bright red motorcycle to a gruesome body bag and a Frankenstein behind a cage built by the Howard Beach resident himself.
For about five years, Colavito has spent about a month each year turning his house from a normal, two-story building into an explosion of bloody monsters and gravestones. And, each Halloween, he and his friends dress up in costumes to the delight of many a shrieking trick-or-treater – only last year was he unable to go through with this because of Hurricane Sandy.
“I get thousands of kids coming by to see this house,” said Colavito – a self-professed Halloween buff who loves everything from a good scary movie to some chilling Halloween soundtracks. “It’s so much fun. I really enjoy seeing the expressions on the kids’ faces.”
For 15 years, Nick Colavito has been collecting decorations for one of his favorite times of the year – Halloween.
Thousands of people stop by Nick Colavito’s house every fall to witness the ghoulish explosion of decorations.
By Anna Gustafson
