Nova York celebra o Dia das Bruxas com caveiras e abóboras

Nova York celebra o Dia das Bruxas com caveiras e abóboras
 Caveiras que executam as posições do Kamasutra, o tradicional desfile no Village, visitas a casas e locais mal-assombrados, festas... A oferta de eventos para comemorar o Halloween a partir deste fim de semana, em Nova York, é variada e para todos os gostos.
A comemoração "oficial" da Noite das Bruxas será na segunda-feira, com a 39ª edição do desfile do Village, em Manhattan, e os organizadores esperam contar com 50 mil participantes, liderados por marionetes gigantes assustadoras e originais e apresentações especiais.
O tema deste ano é o "olho incorpóreo", sob o título "The i of the Beholder" ("O olho com o qual se vê", uma brincadeira com a pronúncia inglesa da letra "i", igual à da palavra "eye", olho).
Mas não será preciso aguardar até segunda-feira para comemorar, pois para os americanos em geral e os nova-iorquinos em particular, o Halloween é celebrado há dias nas ruas com fachadas decoradas com abóboras, teias de aranha gigantes e esqueletos.
Nova York tem suas próprias casas mal-assombradas, algumas delas abertas ao público, como a mansão Bartow-Pell, no Bronx, onde o especialista em assuntos paranormais Da Sturges dará uma palestra no sábado para falar de seu trabalho

WASHINGTON PARK

Segundo os entendidos, Washington Park, no Greenwich Village, é o centro da atividade fantasmagórica de Nova York, pois antes foi um cemitério e no começo do século XIX milhares de vítimas da febre amarela foram sepultadas ali.
Não muito longe ficam as casas onde viveram durante parte de suas vidas os escritores Edgar Allan Poe e Mark Twain. Segundo a lenda popular, seus fantasmas passeiam de vez em quando por ali.
As festas com temática do Dia das Bruxas são contadas às dezenas em toda a cidade e entre os shows de rock gótico para a ocasião estão The Misfits e Queensryche.

CEMITERY DE SLEEPY HOLLOW

Nos arredores de Nova York, uma das atividades mais originais para fazer é a visita noturna com lanternas ao cemitério de Sleepy Hollow, famoso pela lenda do cavaleiro sem cabeça, obra do escritor Washington Irving, adaptada para o cinema por Tim Burton em 1999, com Johnny Depp no papel principal.
Sleepy Hollow fica perto do rio Hudson, 40 km ao norte da cidade de Nova York, e os encarregados do cemitério oferecem na segunda-feira duas excursões noturnas com visitas à tumba de Irving e outros "ocupantes" famosos, como os empresários Andrew Carnegie e William Rockefeller.
O Halloween é uma festa de origem pagã que é comemorada principalmente nos Estados Unidos na véspera do Dia de Todos os Santos, data cristã celebrada em 1º de novembro



20 Interesting Facts About New York City

Think You Know New York?

Did you know that in New York City, more than 26,000 people live in each square mile? Or that the island of Manhattan was purchased from Native Americans for about $24? In fact, New York City is not only the largest city in the United States, but is made up of five separate boroughs: Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan. If you think you know everything about the Big Apple, think again. Here are My Top 20 Interesting Facts About New York City, some you might have heard and others I guarantee you haven't.  

My Top 20 Facts

1. Dutch explorer Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan (really its southern tip) from the Algonquin tribe for trinkets and tools worth about $24.
2. The first known name for Manhattan was New Amsterdam, which referred to the southern tip of Manhattan, a Dutch trading port.
3. New York City was the U.S. capital from 1789 to 1790  
4. New Yorkers travel an average of 40 minutes to work each day.
5. More than 47 percent of New York City's residents over the age of 5 speak a language other than English at home.

Photo via TripAdvisor

 

6. New York's Central Park is larger than the principality of Monaco.
7. The New York City Council consists of 51 members and is the legislative branch of city.
8. According to Crain's New York Business, the average sale price of an apartment in Manhattan during the 4th quarter of 2007 was a whopping $1.49 million.
9. New York's Yellow Cabs are yellow because John Hertz, the company's founder, learned from a study that yellow was the easiest color for the eye to spot. He was right.
10. The Federal Reserve Bank on New York's Wall Street contains vaults that are located 80 feet beneath the bank and hold about 25 percent of the world's gold bullion.
 11. In 2007, 46 million international and domestic visitors came to New York City. They spent approximately $28 billion while there.

12. The average daily room rate in New York hotels in 2006 (the most recent year surveyed) was $267.
13. More than 250 feature films are shot on location in New York City each year.
14. An average of 4.9 million people ride the New York City subway each weekday.
15. The New York City subway system runs 26 routes with 6,200 subway cars that stop at 468 different subway stations.
 The City That Doesn't Sleep

16. More than 12,700 licensed medallion taxis work the streets of New York City.
17. More than 18,600 restaurants and eating establishments do business in New York City, and the average cost of a dinner in 2006, according to the Zagat Survey, was $39.43. That includes a drink, tax and the tip.
18. As of the 2000 Census, 8,008,278 people live in New York City.
19. Approximately 790,000 companies operate in New York City.
20. Although many legends exist about the origin of New York City's nickname, the Big Apple, most historians agree that it can be traced back to a writer who covered horse racing in the 1920s. In The Morning Telegraph, he wrote that stable hands often referred to New York as the Big Apple, meaning that any thoroughbred that raced in New York had reached the pinnacle of racing