The uneven geography of Halloween sidewalks

It’s impossible to ponder Halloween without peering through a layer of​​ sugary nostalgia, but it sure seems to me that things were different when I was young. I don’t mean the usual complaints about commercialized costumes, too-protective parents, or candy that doesn’t taste the same. Instead, it seems to me that the trick-or-treat landscape has become unevenly distributed, more an all-or-nothing affair where some corners of the city go all out and others are left behind. 

The way I remember it, Halloween used to be relatively smooth. People gave out candy at a fairly regular intervals and frequencies. Sure wealthier neighborhoods and McMansion-laden nooks might have better sugar, but from a kid’s perspective the trick-or-treat landscape was consistent. 

These days, by contrast, some neighborhood streets seem to be Halloween hot spots while others are decidedly not. Families seem to flock to some parts of the city, and those places become “known” as destinations rich with Mars confections. Other parts of town, by contrast, remain trick-or-treat deserts. On my St. Paul street, for example, you can count the trick-or-treaters on one hand. 

“My blocks — Englewood between Dunlap and Syndicate — are awesome,” Zach told me, describing his favorite time of year. “It’s so fun to see all the neighbor kids in their costumes and have so many people out and about. It’s completely fantastic, and we basically bought a fire pit just for hanging out that night. We Invite friends and family over.”

Suburban streets

This is true in the suburbs, too, where certain spots develop Halloween-y reputations. Even the culs-de-sac have an boom-or-bust quality.

“We try and count every year how many kids come by — I lose track somewhere north of 700 or 800,” said John, who lives in New Brighton’s Wexford Heights. “It’s nuts. You wouldn’t believe it.”

This uneven geography becomes an invisible map laid over the streets of the city, known only to elementary school kids trading Nut Roll rumors in October lunch rooms. For some parents, it’s a mystery why leaving the lights on and a pumpkin carved on the porch accomplishes so little to lure the costumed young. Other homes bequeath a steady stream of costumed kids.

“Weirdly nobody trick or treats on my street,” said Adele, who lives in Northeast Minneapolis, describing this trend. “Yet just a few blocks up on Johnson the entire neighborhood turns out.”

Why the differences?

As a student of sidewalk patterns, I’ll offer an explanation. The Halloween landscape reveals an annual lesson in peer pressure agglomeration, where some blocks of cities gather sugary steam and others increasingly lie fallow. 

One block of Palace Avenue, an otherwise unexceptional street in St. Paul’s Mac-Groveland neighborhood, proves the point. For decades now, anyone in the area knows that this one specific block, between Albert Street and Hamline Avenue, is synonymous with Halloween. Sometime in the past — nobody I could find knew exactly when — a few eager celebrators staked their spooky claim in their front yards. 

The way I imagine it working, the peer pressure to conform to the hallow’s eve spirit grows with each passing turn of the calendar. All it takes is three or four folks who are a little “extra,” and one thing leads to another. Neighbors’ accumulations of pumpkins and cobweb material become silent condemnations of each empty stoop. One by one, bare houses conform to the orange-and-black, as the intensity grows until Halloween reaches critical mass. 

These days, the block of Palace Avenue is barricaded on the 31st and transforms into an annual party beckoning hollow plastic pumpkins from a mile around. It’s long been the capital of Halloween in the capitol city, an open community secret. But while plenty of folks enjoy the ritual, not everybody is a fan.

“I live right next to the Palace Halloween block and hate it,” said Kari, laughing. “My dog is afraid of the decorations, and we end up with few trick-or-treaters at our (boring) house despite giving out full-size candy.”

Such is life in an October hot spot. Just a few blocks away, Halloween scrooges can lurk in relatively blissful peace. These differences create a kind of social agglomeration, the tendency of like to attract like, a holiday micro geography.

Sometimes these patterns are social, held down by a few dogged stalwarts, and sometimes they’re more about urban design, where some city streets are simply suited to be on display. Sometimes houses are set up to be beheld from a distance, or to represent a pedestrian-friendly landscape. 

Minneapolis’ odd northwest border with Robbinsdale, Victory Memorial Drive, is one of these cases, a wide “Grand Road” avenue with the roy of homes facing each other across wide expanses of kid-friendly grass. The resulting landscape is fertile ground for Halloween magic. 

“People along the parkway go all out for Halloween,” explained Eric, a Victory resident. “The street itself and block next to it are where all the kids go in North. Some of the houses say if the weather is good they’ll get over 1,000 kids. Some of the homes grill for people, hand out adult beverages, and the whole area is closed off for pedestrians.”

Saint Paul’s Summit Avenue is another obvious case of chocolate grandeur, for a century a straight line of architectural wealth drawing families from all over the East Metro. The street’s attractions are anchored by the doorbell of the governor’s residence, where over the years its occupants have garnered political goodwill the old fashioned way: with handouts. 

(This year, with the residence under renovation, I’m not sure what Minnesota’s children should expect.) 

Don’t get me started on trunk-or-treat, I can’t handle even the thought of it. Not to judge too harshly, but the existence of this sidewalk bastardization is a condemnation of our auto-dependent landscape, where scarce walkability makes it all but impossible to create proper Halloween dynamics. I understand the convenience for parents, and this is not to say a parking lot inherently lacks community, but the replacement of front doors and stoops with tailgates and bumpers is an abomination.

Thus the uneven geography of Halloween sidewalks. This year, as always, I’ll leave my neighborhood behind and head to one of those hot spots with a 3-year-old witch in tow, in search of crowds of spooky kids. As they say, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Bill Lindeke

Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.

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