South Shore’s HallowHood Night aims to spread the spooky spirit and build lasting connections

SOUTH SHORE — Even as a collection of South Shore community groups prepare a night of horrors and hauntings, they are joining forces to tell their neighbors, “Don’t be afraid” to trick-or-treat in the neighborhood this Halloween.

HallowHood’s community crawl takes place on Thursdays from 3:00 PM to 9:00 PM along the 71st Street corridor in South Shore. More than a dozen neighborhood groups organize a day full of activities, including:

• A glow party and cool apple making station from 4 p.m., 1818 E. 71st St.
• A “house of horrors” for ages 10 and up from 5:30 p.m., also at 1818 E. 71st St. via the Constance Avenue entrance.
• An adults-only “horror hour” zone at 1735 E. 71st St. Taboo Productions will host a stepper set from 5 to 7 p.m., while community leaders will give presentations and meet with neighbors. Cocktails and beer are available, so visitors must be 21 years or older.
• Doctor Palmer’s Lab Zone with cookie decorating, crafts and movies for ages 3 to 7 at 1745 E. 71st St.
• Spooktacular Zone at the Don Nash Community Center, 1833 E. 71st St. The zone will feature a candy and costume giveaway, video games, crafts, snacks and a DJ set.
• Pumpkin painting for children ages 5 to 10 at the South Merrill Community Garden, 7032 S. Merrill Ave., which will be transformed into the “Merrill Magic Garden.”
• Scary lights at night at 7040 S. Jeffery Blvd. with food, drinks and music for adults.
• A “Goblins, Ghosts and Ghouls” party from 5 to 7 p.m. at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7051 S. South Shore Drive.

The event day is organized by Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th), Lost Boyz Inc., My CHI. My Future, South Shore Works, Lawrence Hall, the South Merrill Community Garden, the Second Chance Initiative, the Don Nash Community Center, Claretian Associates, the Neighborhood Network Alliance, Bryn Mawr Community Church, the city’s Community Safety Coordination Center, the Police Department of Chicago Department and the Chicago Park District.

“You know how you throw a little party, you tell a few friends about it, and then it suddenly becomes a blowout? It looks like that,” says LaVonté Stewart of Lost Boyz Inc. “The stupidest thing about it is that it’s (mostly) South Shore groups doing it.”

HallowHood is “organic to the community” as it builds on Lost Boyz and Lawrence Hall’s tradition in recent years of hosting the haunted house and other activities, Stewart said.

With few Halloween activities in South Shore, the neighborhood has lost years of trick-or-treat traffic to Hyde Park, Stewart said — a trend HallowHood wants to reverse.

The holiday crawl also comes on the heels of Hyde Park’s CollaBOOration initiative, which in recent years has aimed to discourage Halloween chaos by getting more residents out onto the streets to interact with neighbors.

After several years of fireworks, fights and material damage on HalloweenNo arrests have been made at the Hyde Park holiday since the first CollaBOOration in 2019, the Hyde Park Herald reported this month.

Community Halloween celebrations like the one on the lake’s south shore can be a model for neighbors in Chicago, Stewart said.

“We think it will be a good deterrent for young people if we offer them things to do on Halloween,” he said. “We hope that stakeholders in (other) communities can come together and do something similar.

“It doesn’t have to be the same scale, but everything to give young people the opportunity to enjoy the holidays as much as we did when we were their age.”

The partnerships that led to the creation of HallowHood don’t end with the spooky season, Stewart said.

The event is designed to show South Shore residents and visitors the types of long-term partnerships needed to create aspects of this partnership the South Shore Quality of Life Plan released in 2022he said.

“Our plan is to make this community safer for everyone,” Stewart said. “We want to create opportunities for people to reinvest in this community as the (Obama) Presidential Center continues its preparation for opening.”

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