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Stunning Dyker Heights Christmas Lights Will Renew Your Faith In Con Ed
By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 8, 2014
Modified Dec 8, 2014
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By
John Del Signore
Published Dec 8, 2014
Modified Dec 8, 2014
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After you've marveled at Baz Luhrmann's animatronic holiday window display at Barneys and gotten buzzed at the New York Botanical Garden's Holiday Train Show and ordered your costume for SantaCon, it's time to head to Dyker Heights to check off the next item on your Holiday Spirit checklist. The Brooklyn neighborhood is famous for its extravagant Christmas light display, and every year tourists from all over flock to bask in its astonishing luminescence. Eat your heart out, Clark Griswold.
We're told the breathtaking blue house seen here is the way it is because the owner's wife is Jewish "and that was the only way she'd allow him to decorate." Dyker Heights homeowners spend months preparing their houses for the elaborate electrical overdose, and in 2001 their obsessiveness was hilariously documented in the short film Dyker Lights, which PBS used to broadcast on Channel 13 every year. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be scheduled this month, and we don't know where to find it.
To experience the wonder and magic in person, take the D train to 79th Street and walk west. Most of the heavyweight displays are found in the area between 80th and 86th Streets and 10th and 13th Avenues; the main drag is 84th Street. Or make it easier on yourself and hop aboard the Christmas Lights & Cannoli Bus Tour, which departs from Union Square nightly through December 31st. The bus takes you to Dyker Heights and back, with additional stops in Bay Ridge, plus cannoli and hot chocolate from a local pastry shop.
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christmas
dyker heights
dyker lights
holidays
pretty things
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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