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Going Places: Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Old Bethpage Village Restoration is a Long Island Halloween Treat!

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The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze takes over Old Bethpage Village Restoration, Long Island, for Halloween (c) Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Historic Hudson Valley has brought its enormously popular “The Great Jack o’ Lantern Pumpkin Blaze” extravaganza to Long Island to our most fabulous living history destination, Old Bethpage Restoration Village, for the fifth year. They have brought the extraordinary artistry, charm and delight, and kept Sleepy Hollow’s Headless Horseman, but have tailored the displays and story around Long Island’s history, heritage and culture.

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The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Old Bethpage Village Restoration pays tribute to Long Island’s maritime tradition: stroll the trail lined by pumpkin jelly fish © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

On view on select nights through November 3, this is a must-see attraction/experience that delights all ages, with more humor than horror.

Old Bethpage Village Restoration, a 209-acre living history museum with homes and buildings that date back to the 19th century, is the perfect setting – the stories marvelously weave a context of reality to the fantasy, which makes them even more spooky.

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Lots of scary monsters have taken up residence at the Hewlett House for the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, one of the Old Bethpage Village Restoration historic homes that are reportedly haunted in their own right © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Hewlett House is a stand-in for the Amityville Horror, with similar architecture, but has its own spectral story. The pumpkin cemetery is peopled by the Hewlett family, a prominent farming family who remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution whose farm was built in 1794, near Pequot Lane in Woodbury (the house was moved to a hilltop at Old Bethpage in the 1970s). Their actual house is one of several historic houses in Old Bethpage said to be haunted.

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For the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, the historic Hewlett House from a far built in 1794 by a wealthy farming family, plays the part of the Amityville Horror © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Doomsday Clock outside the house, is an enormous pendulum clock made of pumpkins such as would have been popular in the 19th century and wealthy Long Island families like the Hewletts and Laytons might well have had one. But this one, standing 12 feet tall, features a single hand, ominously counting back the hour.

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Witches come to Old Bethpage Village Restoration for the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze; an actual witch trial took place in East Hampton in 1658, 35 years before the Salem witch trials © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

And in 1658, some 35 years before the Salem witch trials, 16-year old Elizabeth Gardiner Howell of East Hampton was accused of witchcraft – but she was acquitted in her trial.

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The Hewlett family cemetery re-created out of carved pumpkins! © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

 

And the Blaze Long Island Hall of Fame inside the Visitors Center, before you start your walk on the trail, features intricate pumpkin sculptures of famous Long Islanders (Natalie Portman and Jerry Seinfeld are the newest, joining Billy Joel, Joan Jett, Sue Bird, and Dr. J).

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Jerry Seinfeld is immortalized in the Blaze Long Island Hall of Fame © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

You walk the pumpkin trail through this 19th century village and see more than 7,000 hand-carved jack o’lanterns, all carved by its team of artisans, each one unique.

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Blaze Long Island’s homage to the Statue of Liberty © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The structures – all built with carved and lighted pumpkins – are absolutely incredible: a display featuring a police car, ambulance, firetruck, firefighter spraying a hose and a firefighter climbing a ladder;  a windmill; a Statue of Liberty as tall as a tree, a lighthouse with a working light (Montauk is Long Island’s most famous but this pays tribute to the lighthouse commissioned by President George Washington himself), an 80-foot long circus train with animal skeletons as passengers (a nod to Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey bringing its circus train to Long Island in 1972 to the newly opened Nassau Coliseum), a working carousel with horse skeletons.

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The Montauk Point Light , the first public works project in America, commissioned in 1792 by the 2nd US Congress under president George Washington and completed four years later. Blaze Long Island offers this version, which features a blazing beacon of illuminated pumpkins © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The displays pay homage to Long Island’s farming heritage, its maritime heritage (a whaling center!), and its cultural contributions, from the inventor of one of the first computer games, to the factoid that “Jaws” was inspired by the capture of a 4500 lb white shark off Long Island.

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The movie ‘Jaws” Jaws” was inspired by the capture of a 4500 lb white shark off Long Island© Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

There are also a series of displays that trace Long Island’s history, from the Native American tribes who first inhabited, to Long Island’s role in aviation history (Lindbergh took off on his historic flight in his Spirit of St. Louis to Paris in 1927 from Roosevelt Field, and nuclear physicist William Higinbotham’s of the Brookhaven National lab who in 1958 arguably developed the first video game, Tennis for Two, a primitive version of Pong and precursor to Pac-Man and Mario Bros.

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The pumpkin Circus Train, harkening to the Ringling Bros & Barnum & Bailey train that came to the newly opened Nassau Coliseum in 1972, is 80 feet long © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Among the new displays this year is a stunning tribute to the Day of the Dead and a moving ferris wheel.

The sound effects, original musical soundtrack, lights, colors, motion of some of the larger exhibits, even smoke effects and bubbles, are pure delight. The ambiance in such a historic, rural setting is just phenomenal.

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Nicole demonstrates pumping carving at Blaze Long Island © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

You also get to see actual pumpkin carving and get to talk with the carvers and see the 100+-pound carved winners, a marvelous Blaze Boo-tique featuring seasonal gifts and merchandise, while Café Blaze, features fall treats like cider donuts and pumpkin beer.

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We encounter Rocco, a pumpkin carver, starting his “Bona Lisa” at Blaze Long Island © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The photo ops are precious.

Advance online purchase of timed tickets is required; no tickets are sold at the venue; capacity is limited and prices increase if you purchase on the same day.There are also FLEX tickets that allow you to visit at any time, even when it is sold out. (For a small fee, you can exchange a ticket up to 24 hours in advance.) New this year is a $10 flat rate children’s tickets (ages 3-17), valid for every date and every time slot.

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One of the new Blaze Long Island displays is this magnificent tribute to the Day of the Dead © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze is open select evenings Oct. 4-Nov. 3 including Halloween.

It’s a pleasant walk along a dirt trail (about half the size of the Village), suitable for strollers – allocate 45-90 minutes to enjoy. (I suggest families try to come as early as possible so the kids aren’t too tired; others come later when it may be less busy, like 8:30 pm – last entry at 9 pm.

Proceeds support the education and preservation efforts of Old Bethpage Village Restoration and Historic Hudson Valley.

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The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Old Bethpage Village Restoration features some 7,000 carved pumpkins © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

The original Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, celebrating 20 “gourd-eous years” this year, is already underway at Historic Hudson Valley’s Van Cortlandt Manor, Croton-on-Hudson through Nov. 17 (advance purchase tickets necessary, https://pumpkinblaze.org/blaze-hudson-valley.html). And other special Halloween events are underway at Philipsburg Manor and Sunnywide (historichudsonvalley.org)

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The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Old Bethpage Village Restoration features some 7,000 carved pumpkins © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com

Sponsored by Catholic Health, the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze is presented through a partnership of Historic Hudson Valley, Old Bethpage Village Restoration and Nassau County which owns and operates OBVR, with support of the NYS Council of the Arts, NYS Economic Development, and I Love NY.

Old Bethpage Village Restoration, 1303 Round Swamp Rd, Old Bethpage, NY 11804, https://pumpkinblaze.org/blaze-long-island.html.

See also:

HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS: SPIRITS OF THE SEASON TAKE OVER AREA ATTRACTIONS

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