A haunting they will go
From left, Jeanne and Pickle Gutierrez came to the hamlet of Wassaic to celebrate Halloween by dressing up in costume and watching the Wassaic Haunted Parade on Saturday, Oct. 31. For another photo, see Wassaic gets ghoulish.
Photo by Kaitlin Lyle

A haunting they will go

WASSAIC — Not even the cold weather could halt the Halloween happenings taking place in the hamlet of Wassaic as The Wassaic Project and the Wassaic Fire Company co-hosted a COVID-19 safe Halloween parade on Saturday night, Oct. 31. 

In the moments leading up to the parade’s launch, the hamlet sidewalks were swarmed with families and children both in costume and bundled up in their warmest coats. Everyone was required to wear face masks and maintain social distancing as they observed the parade. 

After lining up at the Luther Barn, the Wassaic Haunted Parade wound its way through the center of the hamlet, starting at 5:30 p.m. and featuring a series of artist-made floats. Led by a grand marshal vehicle carrying a skeletal bride and groom on its rooftop, the parade featured a series of creative floats bearing inflatable ghosts, pythons, bats, skeletons and more as well as a few tractors and even a pair of butterflies on bicycles. 

From “Thriller” and “This is Halloween” to the ever-classic “Monster Mash,” music could be heard streaming out of some of the parade floats, while individually wrapped bags of Halloween candy were seen flying out of others, thanks to the generous donations of local businesses.

— Kaitlin Lyle

Latest News

Library on the ballot

Libraries have become the heart of many communities, serve to promote the health of the community through a growing number of varied programs and by offering communal space where people come together to work and play. On Nov. 5, three libraries in our region are asking for an increase in funding from voters to enable them to continue with a reliable source of funding — and remain cornerstones of social and intellectual life.

In Millbrook, it has been nine years since the Millbrook Library, which serves the Village of Millbrook and the Town of Washington, sought an increase. The Amenia Free Library is seeking an annual increase from the town to meet a continued demand for more services from those who use the library, not to mention pressure from operating expenses common to all institutions — utilities, salaries and supplies — to name a few. The NorthEast-Millerton Library is seeking a budget increase from taxpayers to secure additional funding that the Town of North East has been providing since 2007.

Keep ReadingShow less
Millerton Police receive $220,000 funding increase

MILLERTON — The Millerton Police Department has received $220,000 from New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services to update infrastructure and aid in supplying officers with uniforms and firearms.

In July, Millerton’s Police Department requested an increase in funding to support the officers on duty.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Creators:
Sam Guindon's artistic palette

Norfolk painter Sam Guindon.

Jennifer Almquist

Painter Sam Guindon is an earnest young man who paints light with the skill of John Singer Sargent. Guindon’s attention to technique harks back to an earlier time when artists studied under a master, learned anatomy, perspective, how to make their own pigment, and closely observed the work of great artists. Guindon has studied oil painting since he was nineteen. In a recent show of his paintings in his hometown of Norfolk, Connecticut, Guindon sold 40 of the 42 paintings he exhibited.

Guindon’s sketchbooks are windows into his creative mind and a well-traveled life, packed with vignettes, ink drawings, observations and thoughts written in the margins. His subjects range from sketches done in gouache at the National Gallery, to ink drawings of vine-covered trees in Costa Rica, to the interior of an airplane drawn with the perspective of a fisheye lens, to colorful bottles of hot sauce. Currently Guindon is teaching art at the Compass Atelier in Maryland.

Keep ReadingShow less