Halloween Pumpkin Flotilla (10/28/18)

I promise you that I have been going to concerts, and I have a backlog of posts to write, but this was such a timely event that I didn’t want to sit on it.

It took place in the northern end of Central Park—Harlem Meer to be precise. The entire event ran from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. Here’s a snippet from Central Park’s website: “Enjoy pumpkin carving, Halloween crafts, spooky stories, a costume parade, and most of all the Conservancy’s signature Pumpkin Flotilla, which sets sail across the Harlem Meer at twilight! This event is free and open to all ages. Tickets are not required.”

I did not partake of all of the events; I did, however, see the flotilla. More to the point, I saw one half of the flotilla. Here’s the deal. People create jack-o’-lanterns and donate them to the park, knowing full well that they will not get them back. I arrived and entered the park at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, getting there around 6:25pm or so, when dusk was pretty much full upon us, and I found a convenient spot at the water’s edge. Suddenly a kayaker appeared traveling from west to east, towing—well, a flotilla (multiple platforms strung together?) of about two dozen jack-o’-lanterns (in two rows, not one long string of pumpkins). It was quite eerie yet intriguing. Then I saw in the distance, a second double-row flotilla along the south end of the meer.

I thought to myself, “How cool. They’ll probably pass each other so we can see the south flotilla and they can see the north flotilla.” Alas, that was not to be. We only got to see our half of the pumpkins. As I was leaving, I saw them unloading our flotilla and asked what would happen to the carved pumpkins now? They were going directly to be composted. I was a little disheartened by that, since I thought it would be cool if they could all be on display on terra firma at least until Halloween. I guess there was no easy way to display forty to fifty jack-o’-lanterns. Hey, at least they composted them.

I won’t exactly call this a ‘bucket list’ event but I’m glad I went (nice weather was definitely a deciding factor). It’s doubtful, though, that I’ll make a return visit to the flotilla in the future—this was pretty much a one-and-done.

PumpkinMeister