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Photos: Check Out The Creepy Clowns Of The 78th Precinct's Haunted House
By
Scott Heins
Published Oct 28, 2017
Modified Oct 28, 2017
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By
Scott Heins
Published Oct 28, 2017
Modified Oct 28, 2017
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As they have for the past two years, officers with the NYPD's 78th Precinct have turned their station house into a terrifying haunted house that's open to the public through October 30th.
Deputy Inspector Frank DiGiacomo, the Commanding Officer of the 78th Precinct told Gothamist that the whole production took two and a half months to build.
"We've expanded it for our third year, made more rooms. It's much larger. We have a lot more community interest in it—every year we need to get better and this year we've topped ourselves."
Continuing something of a theme with the NYPD and Halloween, this year's edition of the 78th Precinct haunted house features a smiling Pennywise the clown, to go along with a number of creepy clown decorations.
"Each room has a theme," DiGiacomo told Gothamist. "A hospital, morgue, Frankenstein, a well, clown room, butcher room—everybody loves that one because we have hanging bodies in there. I really care about the production. I don't like when you go to a haunted house and they just turn off the lights to scare you."
While DiGiacomo told us that he's aware of other precincts, like Brooklyn North and the 42nd Precinct in the Bronx putting together their own haunted houses, he noted those aren't "even a quarter of the size of what we have."
And of course, the 78th has a secret weapon in DiGiacomo himself, who according to Detective Brian Laffey "really has a knack for this. He's a big horror movie fan."
The free haunted house, which DiGiacomo said is a good family activity, will be open until 9 p.m. tonight and from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. through October 30th.
"It's all about the community," DiGiacomo told us. "It's about getting people to come to the police precinct for good things, not negative things."
78th NYPD Precinct station house, 65 6th Avenue, Brooklyn // Free
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78th precinct
community relations
halloween
haunted house
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Scott Heins
Scott Heins is a freelance photo and video journalist based in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Gothamist + WNYC. His work often centers around labor rights, housing, and policing. In 2018-2019 he traveled to four states while covering a wave of public school teachers strikes, with work featured in The New York Times, The Intercept, Getty Images, Splinter, and Bloomberg Photos. Scott is a dues-paying member of the National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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