A wooden fortress of horror rises above the sidewalk, where creepy figures dangle from beams, ghoulish faces peer from every corner, and purple lights illuminate a spooky scene straight out of a Halloween nightmare. At 919 Kings Parkway, Pat Galardi has transformed his Baldwin home into a towering, haunted spectacle, complete with life-size figures, skeletons and haunting signage warning of the frights ahead.
This year’s display is extra special for Galardi, 70. After raccoons destroyed his entire collection during the Covid-19 pandemic, Galardi has rebuilt every dummy from scratch, bringing a beloved tradition back from the dead for the first time in six years.
A Baldwin native, Galardi attended Brookside Elementary School and graduated from Baldwin High School in 1975. He left his childhood home at 28 and spent the next 20 years in Rockville Centre, where an elaborate neighborhood Halloween display inspired him to create his own. He eventually returned to Baldwin in 2012, purchasing his parents’ house, where he has lived ever since.
An avid collector, Galardi started with a handful of homemade figures, gradually building a collection of about 30 dummies, each crafted by hand.
Drawing on his experience constructing custom vans, Galardi builds each figure using scrap wood, stuffing and other materials. Each wooden frame takes about 20 minutes to assemble before he adds masks, hands and clothing purchased from garage sales, thrift stores and online.
Building the figures himself allows Galardi to pose them however he likes, giving each its own personality and an eerily lifelike appearance.
Galardi continued adding figures to his Baldwin display each year until the pandemic forced him to a put the tradition on hold in 2020. He stored his collection in a backyard shed, intending to bring it out the following year. However, in 2021, he discovered that raccoons had broken into the shed, leaving all 30 dummies beyond repair.
Galardi went several years without putting up the display, but neighbors kept asking when it would return. Their enthusiasm eventually encouraged him to rebuild the entire collection.
“I really like it, and haven’t done it since Covid,” Galardi said. “I wanted to see if I still had it in me.”
Galardi also built the wooden structure anchoring this year’s display, spending two or three days framing it before a neighbor, a contractor Galardi had only spoken to once before, offered to help. The duo finished the display in roughly two hours.
The tradition has become a multigenerational family project. Galardi’s four daughters helped create the displays growing up, and now his grandchildren, Parker and Ella, are carrying on the tradition. Other family members dress up and hide among the figures to scare trick-or-treaters, with Galardi’s son-in-law particularly enthusiastic about getting into character. Even after decades of building creepy creations, Galardi admits that his own figures sometimes still startle him.
Galardi is putting the finishing touches on the display, including covering exposed wires. He also plans to set out a bowl of candy to lure trick-or-treaters inside the spooky structure. On Halloween night, he plans to switch on the spotlights and fire up a smoke machine. After rebuilding decades’ worth of Halloween fun one figure at a time, Galardi is ready to give Baldwin another Halloween to remember, provided visitors can make it to the candy without getting spooked first.
