Students paint Halloween scenes on store windows

Ghosts, witches, skeletons greet shoppers

October 28, 2014 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Fort Hamilton High School student Nardine Karam puts the finishing touches on her painting of a wicked witch on the window of American Greetings, a gift shop on Fifth Avenue.

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Customers doing their shopping at Bay Ridge stores on Tuesday were greeted by store windows containing scary scenes of witches, aliens, haunted houses, graveyards, Frankensteins and other frightening figures.

But they weren’t a bit scared. In fact, they loved it!

Dozens of students from local schools took part in the Bay Ridge Community Council’s 62nd Annual Fall Art Window and Poster Painting Contest, also known as the Halloween Art Contest. The contestants are required to paint interesting works of art on paper and then duplicate their work by painting the same scenes on store windows in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst.

Store owners agree to have their front windows decorated by the kids. Merchants on Third Avenue, 86th Street, Fifth Avenue, Fort Hamilton Parkway and 13th Avenue all participated in the fun.

The students can paint any type of scene associated with the fall. But since the contest traditionally takes place a few days before Halloween, most of the contestants use the holiday as their theme.

It’s not easy painting a store window, according to Rebecca Daniella, a Fort Hamilton High School student. It’s not like painting on a canvas, she said. She was painting a scene from the Tim Burton movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” on the window outside American Greetings, a card store-gift shop on Fifth Avenue near 86th Street. “I worry that the paint is going to peel off the glass,” she told the Brooklyn Eagle.

The contest is open to children from elementary school to high school. The community council sent out a panel of judges to review the paintings and select the winners. Gold, silver and bronze ribbons are awarded in each grade. At press time, the winners had not been announced.