How much is that goblin in the window?
Smiling pumpkins, flying witches and ghoulish ghosts now adorn many of the store windows along Johnson and Riverdale Avenues.
The artwork, courtesy of children who participated in the 54th annual Kiwanis Club of Riverdale Halloween window-painting contest, appeared this weekend, after the wildly successful Oct. 23 activity.
“This is the best year we’ve ever had,” said Robert Rubinstein, who’s been organizing the event for over 35 years.
The weather was perfect — 65 degrees and sunny — and according to Mr. Rubinstein, nearly 100 kids participated.
Young and older children alike, gathered with their parents, paintbrushes in hand, around restaurants, drugstores and banks to partake in this Riverdale tradition.
“I’ve never done something this hard before,” Emma Schreibstein, 9, said of the two witches on broomsticks she painted on Chase Bank’s windows with her older brother Luke, 11. “I always do pumpkins, which are easy. Witches are harder but also more fun.”
Coincidentally, Emma’s father, Scott Schreibstein, who is a Riverdale native, painted the same Chase windows more than 30 years ago.
“It’s a great tradition,” he said. “My kids are growing up in the same neighborhood I did, go to the same school, and now they’re painting the same windows.”
Eliana Chiovetta, 11, of The David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141 said she enjoys participating in the event every year with her triplet siblings, Gianni and Lauren, because it provides an opportunity to look at herself as a growing artist.
“I like to see how my work improves from each year to the next,” she said, while mapping out a plan to paint a graveyard on Halloween night.
Others simply came for the fun of it.
“We get to paint on windows and it’s not illegal,” said Brandi Cruger, 10, of PS 24, who was meticulously working on a collage of Halloween-themed spooks, including spiders, vampires and ghosts.
Unlike graffiti, the childrens’ art was painted in washable colors mixed with Bon Ami cleanser to make washing easy.
Along with spooky Halloween paintings, social commentary was on display this year. Gillian DeBard, 9, who attends St. Gabriel School, decided to use her artwork to draw attention to the issue of bullying. On the window of HSBC, she painted three monsters wearing purple and holding hands in a graveyard to memorialize recent suicide victims tormented by bullies. The tombstone that the monsters stood next to read “R.I.P. No Bullies Allowed!”
“I hope kids will look at this window and see that bullying is wrong,” she said.
The winners are:
BEST OVERALL:
Sommer Queally & Athena White,
St. Gabriel School, Riverdale Fish
MOST ARTISTIC:
Charlotte Blackman, Ethical Cultural Fieldston School, Nonno Tony’s
ORIGINALITY:
Meaghan Donohue, St. Gabriel’s
Law Office of Robert J. Rubinstein
HUMOR:
Milo Brown, PS 24
Sheer Bliss
BEST HALLOWEEN:
Rachel Ilardi, PS 24
Riverdale Laundry
