Editorial: Halloween is in the house

Halloween is right around the corner – and the borough does the holiday proud.

From Brooklyn Heights to Coney Island, Bay Ridge to Crown Heights, mischief is afoot – with Haunted Walks, parades and parties a-plenty to delight the young and the young-at-heart.

Among the seasonal highlights are the Haunted Walks in Prospect Park (October 25) and Bay Ridge’s Owl’s Head Park (October 31), and parades big and small in Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Ditmas Park, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (October 31), Coney Island and Greenpoint (October 25), and Carroll Gardens (October 26).

The family pooch even has his own special events – costume contests held annually in Bay Ridge’s Narrows Botanical Garden (already past), as well as Fort Greene Park (October 25) and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (October 26).

Local educational institutions also get in on the action. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden hosts its annual Ghouls & Gourds on October 25 and 26, the same days as the Prospect Park Zoo holds Boo at the Zoo. The Brooklyn Children’s Museum gets started a day early, holding its two-day Monster Mash on October 24 and 25. And City Tech offers up an extended scare – its high-tech haunted house, Gravesend Inn, which beckons the brave from October 23 through November 1.

And, there’s even more to do in Coney Island, thanks to Coney Island USA, which is presenting “Dead End Dummy” (now through November 2) and Luna Park, which has been celebrating Halloween Harvest all month (culminating on October 25 and 26).

It all adds up to an autumn to remember, for youngsters celebrating their first Halloween as well as for holiday veterans.

SPORTS BOOM

It was just about a decade and a half ago that Brooklynites – bereft of professional sports — were still mourning the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957.

How times have changed. Since the arrival of the Cyclones minor league baseball team in Coney Island in 2001, the borough has gained a pro basketball team, the Nets, who make their home at Barclays Center; prepared to welcome a pro hockey team, the Islanders, whose first season in the borough will be 2015-2016; and now has acquired a minor league football team, the Bolts, who just played their debut game at MCU Park.

The excitement is palpable. As teams have discovered Brooklyn, the borough’s passionate sports fans are quickly discovering the wide range of options they can enjoy without crossing the river – a selection that has grown with the borough’s burgeoning popularity.

The teams moving into Brooklyn in our opinion show good sense. This is a great place to live, to work, to shop, to dine and to enjoy team sports – something we believe that Walter O’Malley himself would recognize if he came back to Brooklyn today.