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New Yorkers are total pros when it comes to Halloween. Apparently, even back in the '70s, the city's kids knew how to pull together a costume that would photograph well.
Between 1974 and 1978, New York-based photographer Larry Racioppo documented children dressed in their Halloween finest across Bay Ridge, Queens, and South Brooklyn, where he grew up. Over the course of those four years, Racioppo amassed hundreds of black and white images that provide a nostalgic look at old New York — and a little splash of All Hallow's Eve spookiness. (Just look at some of those masks...)
"When I was a young boy, my favorite holiday was Halloween," he writes in the introduction of his 1980 photo book, Halloween. "As I grew up, I stopped going trick-or-treating. I was too old for shaving cream fights and jack-o'-lanterns. At least, I thought so, until one day six years ago I decided to photograph on Halloween. I had a great time and liked the photographs, too. When I decided to do this each year, Halloween became a special day again. I photographed in the neighborhoods where I grew up. Once, someone covered my back in shaving cream as I photographed his friends. Things have not changed much."
Find yourself longing for the good ol' days? Click through to see what Halloween in New York was like in the 1970s.
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