Halloween

Witness the evolution of Halloween in New York City with this nostalgic and charming collection of photographs. 

Larry Racioppo’s street photos of trick or treaters in his South Brooklyn neighborhood not only landed him a gallery show and a feature in The Village Voice but also a children's book deal with Charles Scribner's Sons in 1980. In Halloween, his collection of vintage photos gets a comprehensive reboot, featuring:

• Over 200 enchanting photos of Halloween fun and its evolution in NYC, especially Brooklyn, from the 1970s and beyond
• Never-before-seen black-and-white and color photos
• New prints of Racioppo’s most popular images included in the New York Public Library collections
• A unique look at the changing streets and neighborhoods of NYC
• A fascinating view of Halloween celebrations through the decades

Racioppo’s life and career are rooted in New York City. Born and raised in South Brooklyn, Racioppo began his career photographing his neighborhood, later becoming the official photographer for New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The recipient of several prestigious grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, his work is in the collections of the Museum of the City of New York, The Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Public Library, El Museo del Barrio, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Celebrate Halloween and NYC over the years with this stunningly designed book.

Larry Racioppo was born and raised in South Brooklyn. After two years as a VISTA volunteer in California, he returned home in December 1970 intending to become a photographer. Racioppo photographed his neighborhood, working in black-and-white 35mm and later in 120mm film, and had his first solo exhibition in 1977 at Brooklyn’s f-stop gallery. In 1980, Scribner’s published his first book of photographs, Halloween.

In 1989, Racioppo became the official photographer for New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, hired to document the city’s rebuilding of its distressed neighborhoods, from Bedford Stuyvesant to Harlem to the South Bronx. He coordinated Landscapes of Hope, an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York documenting the agency’s work. In 1997, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography and created a series of panoramic urban landscapes. While continuing to photograph for HPD until 2011, Racioppo had solo exhibits of two in-depth personal projects: Forgotten Gateway: The Abandoned Buildings of Ellis Island at the National Building Museum and The Word on the Street at the Museum of Biblical Art.

Racioppo has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Queens Council on the Arts, and the Graham Foundation. In 2006, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Chairman’s Extraordinary Action Grant for his exhibit The Word on the Street at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York. Racioppo’s work is in the collections of the Museum of the City of New York, The Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Public Library, El Museo del Barrio, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Kevin Baker is a novelist, historian, and journalist who lives in New York City, with his wife, the playwright Ellen Abrams. His most recent book is The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City (Knopf).