Instead of shopping on “black Friday,” I’ll be taking in the sights and sounds of the season right here in Brooklyn. Come along with me to the neighborhood of Dyker Heights. Bet your neighbors don’t do Christmas like this…
If Rockefeller Center is the dignified grand dame of Christmas in New York City, then Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, is the ostentatious Uncle Luigi who pinches all the girls’ cheeks and drinks too much mulled wine at dinner. That’s the way we roll in Brooklyn.
It started twenty-five years ago with this house. Lucy Spata and her family decorate every inch of their home with nutcrackers, toy soldiers and a Santa so big there is no way he’s fitting down the chimney. There are about 30,000 lights keeping Santa aglow. Lucy’s mother was a “fanatic” about Christmas, and “so some of it is her stuff to keep her memory alive.” For the neighbors who think it’s too much? “Move,” says Lucy.
Most of the neighbors seem to have cultivated an attitude of ‘if you can’t beat `em, join `em.’ Florence Polizzotto’s display includes a motorized quartet of ten-foot tall dancers that pirouette to the music of the Nutcracker Suite.
In fact, some folks take the whole decorating business so seriously that they hire professionals to make sure they are keeping up with the Spatas.
Over the course of the season, an estimated 150,000 visitors file by the houses, all located within about three blocks. This neighborhood of Dyker Heights, originally settled by the Dutch, was developed in the late 1800s as Brooklyn’s first exclusive planned community. Walter Johnson, the developer, required that each plot of land be no smaller than 60 ft. by 100 ft. and each home had to cost a minimum of $4,000. (Today these homes are worth millions.) Dyker Heights had two things going for it:  the area has panoramic sea views and it is close to lower Manhattan. The Wall Street Journal recommended it for “the busy man of Wall Street.”
Dyker Heights now and then. Image via Wikipedia
Travel Channel host Samantha Brown takes a tour of Dyker Heights, Christmas 2009. (First two minutes of the clip.)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1JiAZPiPBg&w=420&h=315]
How do your neighbors decorate for Christmas?Â
Have a great weekend, everyone!Â
This post was inspired by the Weekly Photo Challenge: Let There Be Light.
Whoa! So far, we are the only house on our street that has any lights at all. We have a string of them along our roof and a few trees decorated. Pretty mild compared to the above photos. I love lights so much, it’s my favorite thing to see decorations. L.L. Bean’s flagship store in Freeport has a gigantic tree and all these amazing lights all over the town, I can’t wait to go see them next week.
The Dyker Heights neighborhood is pretty unusual as most homes around here keep it simple with wreaths or a few strands of lights around the windows.
I bet the LL Bean tree is wonderful!
Should’ve put my sunglasses on…!
I wear my sunglasses at night… (Corey Hart, anyone? I think I’ve just dated myself…) 🙂
OMG, I remember that track…!
Oh my god, I’m blind! How does anyone sleep there!?? Hideous, horrible, tacky, ugh! And really, Dyker ‘Lights’ – that’s the best they could do?? 😉
I think they hand out those sleeping eye masks to all residents as part of the “welcome to the neighborhood” package. 🙂
They probably all have clashing music playing as well – add some ear plugs to that package!
Ha! They do! Most of the houses have some kind of Christmas music piped in. I think that would drive me the craziest of all.
I think I’d go insane after around an hour. 🙂
Wow, Jackie, that’s pretty amazing! I’m wondering about the electric bills! Now that we’ve seen this holiday extravaganza, I want to know how YOU are decorating by comparison.
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, my friend.
Hugs from Ecuador,
Kathy
I couldn’t help but think of the electric bills myself. Some of these displays must cost thousands of dollars for the month of December.
Thanksgiving was wonderful. Hope Ralph and Lucy got a turkey snack! 🙂
Wow – those are BRIGHT! Agree with Kathryn McCullough about the electricity bills…
Indeed! Sometimes I wonder if they can be seen from space. 🙂
Yule is back
In a big way! 🙂
Wow! We have an expression in our family at the holiday time for houses with a lot of lights: “overboard house,” and these take the meaning to a whole new level. I am trying to imagine living next door (or worse, across the street) from such a house. Too much light to sleep, too much traffic for a peaceful evening. Amazing to see, though! I think I’ll stick with the icicle lights we hang from our porch. Maybe others call ours “the underboard house.” (p.s. I love the mailbox, very cute, and maybe I’ll do that!)
Ha! This is an “overboard neighborhood!” I’m glad I don’t live in this neighborhood, but I can stop by and appreciate the creativity. You should see the Nutcracker Suite display where the characters pirouette to the ballet. On ice. 🙂
Wow! What an awesome post! I loved the pictures and your description of this very interesting neighborhood!
Thank you very much and thanks for stopping by! This neighborhood is known for this Christmas display. People come from all around the city to get in the spirit.
Cool post! I LOVE when cities get all lit up for Christmas, it makes everything so much fun, and these look absolutely amazing. There’s a neighborhood like that near my house in California but I don’t remember the name right now, I’m afraid.
Strolling through this neighborhood really does get you in the spirit of the season. These folks definitely don’t know the meaning of less is more. 🙂
Love amazing lights! I don’t think we do it right in England. There’s a house near me that has Santa doing something different each year, like the year David Blaine was suspended in a glass box above London, so was Santa. Poor effort compared to these pictures though!
Ooh, I wonder what Santa will be up to this year? Maybe something to do with new prince George? 🙂
Great fun, Jackie! I’ve got my WordPress snow switched on most appropriately.
Really do need a letterbox like that 🙂
Isn’t that fun? It certainly sheds a lot of light on your mail. 🙂
I live in the very Jewish Upper West Side so the predominant lights in my neighborhood are traffic lights. When I visit my family in California for Christmas, there are houses in San Rafael (the North Bay Area) where the home owners go decorating wild. One of those houses happened to be my sister’s former next door neighbor. She is SO THANKFUL that she sold her house before he drank the Kool-Aid that brings on decorating lunacy and as Kathy has pointed out, sky high electric bills. Excellent post and great pictures!
Here’s what a curmudgeon I am: I think, how many hours upon hours does it take them to put all those decorations up, only to take it all down a few weeks later!?!
Ha ha, great pictures. Is it really boring that I like the simple sign best?? But good luck to anyone who can put the time, effort and money into lighting up their house like that!
Simplicity is best, isn’t it?
It’s a lot of fun to look at all the decorations, but I’m sure glad I’m not the one doing the decorating. 🙂
Um I feel like a Scrooge with just my little snowman decoration on my mantel. Holy cow, how much are their electric bills?
Your paltry little snowman would be crushed like a bug by the 35-ft Santa in front of the Spata house. Where’s your Christmas spirit? 😉
Man I thought I was in the spirit this year. My snowman, baked sugar cookies, went to a Christmas festival. But not up to NY standards!
You know what they say in NY: More is more.
(Sigh)
I grew up in Southern California. At least they are putting lights on palm trees.