Halloween falls on a Saturday this year making it a 2 day event on the Upper East Side!
The Two-Day Schedule at a Glance
When | What | Where | Cost and entry |
|---|---|---|---|
Fri., Oct. 30, 1–8 p.m. | DOT-listed Halloween street closure, organized by The Allen-Stevenson School | East 78th Street, Lexington to Park | Not specified |
Fri., Oct. 30, 2:30–6:30 p.m. | Asphalt Screams | Litwin Field, 555 E. 90th St. | Free, advance ticket required |
Sat., Oct. 31, from 11 a.m. | Spooky City: Faces and Places of NYC | Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. at 103rd St. | Included with museum admission |
Sat., Oct. 31, 12–1 p.m. | Trick-or-Treat Tote, ages 6–12 | Yorkville Library | See listing |
Sat., Oct. 31, 4–5:30 p.m. | Carnegie Hill Spooktacular | East 92nd Street, Fifth to Park | Free, no RSVP |
Most of the organized activity falls on Friday. Saturday is spread over the day, and the last organized block party ends before many families on other blocks have finished dinner.
Friday Belongs to Asphalt Green
Asphalt Screams is presented by Asphalt Green and City Council Speaker Julie Menin, and the organizers call it "the biggest Halloween event on the Upper East Side." It runs Friday, October 30, on Litwin Field at Asphalt Green's campus at 555 East 90th Street. It is free, but you need a ticket in advance, so it is worth claiming one this week instead of on Friday morning.
The afternoon is split into blocks of time, and each line closes before its event ends:
- Sensory-friendly hour, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Music volume rises gradually starting at 3:15 to ease the shift into the main event.
- Street fair, 2:30 to 6 p.m. The line closes at 5:45.
- Main event, 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. The line closes at 6:15.
- Haunted maze, 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. The line closes at 5:30, a full hour before the maze stops running.
If you arrive at 5:45 expecting the maze to run until 6:30, you will find its line already closed. If the maze is the reason you're going, plan to be on the field well before 5:30.
Two practical notes from the organizers: bring clear or small bags for faster entry, and outside food and drinks are not allowed on the field.
Across the neighborhood that same Friday, NYC DOT's Trick-or-Streets list shows East 78th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues set aside for a Halloween event from 1 to 8 p.m., with The Allen-Stevenson School as organizer. This is the fifth year DOT has turned Open Streets, plazas and other corridors into car-free space through October, and the program notes that events are subject to delay or cancellation. Keep that block in mind, because it comes back on Saturday evening.
Saturday Runs on Daylight
On Halloween itself, the organized options start in the late morning and are finished by sundown.
Just north of the neighborhood, the Museum of the City of New York opens its family festival, Spooky City: Faces and Places of NYC, at 11 a.m. It includes artmaking, storytelling, activities and Halloween treats. The festival is included with museum admission, and the museum asks that every participating guest, children included, be counted when you buy tickets online. The museum is at 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, a short trip up Fifth from Carnegie Hill.
At noon, the Yorkville Library hosts Trick-or-Treat Tote, an hour in the branch's Meeting Room where children ages 6 to 12 decorate a tote for collecting candy later in the day. It runs from 12 to 1 p.m., so the bag is ready well before the afternoon block party starts.
Then the main Saturday event. Carnegie Hill Neighbors' Annual Spooktacular takes over East 92nd Street from Fifth Avenue to Park Avenue, 4 to 5:30 p.m. It is free and needs no RSVP, and it brings music, dancing, games, trick-or-treating and candy. The DOT list confirms the same corridor and time window for October 31.
The organizers split the block into two zones, which helps when one child wants the dance floor and another needs a break:
- High-Energy Block, Madison to Park: games, dancing, music and upbeat Halloween fun.
- Chill Zone, Fifth to Madison: a calmer, low-sensory stretch for festive fun.
Both Saturday's block party and Friday's event at Asphalt Green set aside space for children who do better with less noise, Carnegie Hill by geography and Asphalt Green by the clock. A family can choose the format that suits their child instead of skipping the day.
After 5:30, the Evening Moves to the Stoops
When East 92nd Street reopens at 5:30, the Upper East Side has no other street closure on the DOT list for Halloween night. The West Side list for the same evening includes West 78th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, 4 to 9 p.m.; West 87th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West, 4 to 9 p.m.; West 87th Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.; and West 69th Street between Broadway and Central Park West, 6 to 8 p.m. On the Upper East Side, Saturday evening is not run by organizers. It depends on whoever has decorated their stoop.
Some neighbors do decorate. In a New York Post roundup of free Halloween outings, Rebeka Getty said her favorite creepy corners are on the Upper East Side, where "you can find more than 15 spooky houses in a 10- to 20-block radius." In the same Post piece, a Yorkville resident named Gibson suggested two blocks to walk at dusk: East 87th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue, and East 78th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues.
That second block is the same one closed for Friday's Allen-Stevenson event. East 78th between Lexington and Park gets two nights in a row, an organized event on Friday and a stroll past the decorations on Saturday.
Put together, the Saturday evening walk follows the timing:
- Leave East 92nd Street when the Spooktacular wraps at 5:30.
- Head east to East 87th Street between York and East End as the light fades.
- Finish on East 78th Street between Park and Lexington.
In the Post, Gibson recommends going out around twilight for the "best light and the most spooky atmosphere," and adds that a stroll through costs nothing. A late-afternoon block party followed by a dusk walk fits the hours the neighborhood has to offer.
The Pumpkins Are Not Floating North of 96th This Year
Families who used to finish Halloween weekend at the top of Central Park will need a different plan. Secret NYC reported in September that the Central Park Conservancy will not hold the Halloween on the Harlem Meer Pumpkin Flotilla in 2026. The Conservancy has presented the event since the early 1990s. It began at the Pool and moved to the Harlem Meer in 1993, and lit, hand-carved pumpkins drifted across the water at twilight behind a costumed kayaker.
A Conservancy spokesperson told Secret NYC that as the event grew to thousands of participants, "its original format and footprint could no longer accommodate the community's enthusiasm." No replacement event is planned for this year. The Conservancy is using 2026 to rethink what a future Halloween celebration in the north end of the park could look like.
With the Meer dark, the Museum of the City of New York's Saturday festival is the closest organized north-end option on the list above, and it runs in the morning instead of at twilight.
