‘Haunted house’ earns ‘best’ rating

Posted

By Nicole Gubelli

Although the ghosts and goblins have gone into hiding for the winter, Halloween is still around for Joe Allocco of Franklin Square. After 18 years of transforming his home into an annual one-night Halloween spectacle, Allocco has been awarded first place in the Best of Long Island’s Haunted House Competition for last year’s haunted house display.

“It’s a big accomplishment,” Allocco said, “It’s been a long road coming, and I’m very proud of where it is now.”

Known as “Franklin Square Horror,” the haunted house display is on the dead end of Norbay Street in Franklin Square. It attracted about 2,800 visitors last year.

“These people look forward to it,” Allocco explained, “It’s a tradition for a lot of people.”

The one-night attraction takes months of preparation, starting the last week of August and often running until the last week of October.

The attraction is filled with props, smoke machines, ghost displays and even a physical structure for the children to walk through. Friends and family of Allocco participate and dress up as characters from scary movies. Allocco chases the kids around with his signature chainless chainsaw.

The haunted house is a community event, attracting many local Long Islanders. Allocco does not charge for anyone to attend, but

he does accept donations.

“Whatever I make, I don’t take anything out,” explained Allocco, “whatever [funds] I raise, I then donate.”

Allocco likes to keep the donations within Long Island. 100 percent of the donations are contributed to three Long Island organizations: Camp Anchor at Lido Beach, United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) in Roosevelt and the Center of Developmental Disabilities (CDD) in Woodbury, where Allocco’s 16-year-old son attends school.

Allocco plans to expand and improve the haunted house in years to come. Loving what he does, Allocco said he would like to “continue as long as [he] can.”