Sure, haunted police precincts and creepy subway stations are surefire bets to freak out kids. But real New Yorkers know the most spooktacular sights in the city are the haunted vestiges of book stores and local businesses that have been driven out by gentrification and rent increases. One apartment building in Clinton Hill has created a giant homage to the phenomenon with a scary Starbucks display.
Hannah Smothers spotted the giant Halloween display on Greene Avenue near Washington Avenue this week. She also took the photo below of the "Skarbucks Menu," which features a wonderful array of Halloween puns, including "De-Capputations," "Cranium Macchiatos," and "Hairy Pumpkin Spider Spice."
"There's a lot of complaining and community groveling about the new Starbucks they opened on Lafayette in the neighborhood, so I assume it's related to that," Smothers noted. "Which is funny and feels extremely Clinton Hill."
A Redditor also spotted the 'Skarbucks' yesterday, and in the thread that followed, several people weighed in on it being a nod to the community strife: "In case anyone [is] missing the joke here," one person wrote, "a Starbucks just opened on Lafayette and Grand, underneath a controversial housing development that replaced [an] important neighborhood supermarket and laundromat. This is a horrible decision and I cant imagine what the neighborhood board was thinking allowing this. The only chain restaurant or business from Nostrand to Flatbush, or Fulton Street [to] The Navy Yard. Its [sic] fucked."
So if you're trying to think of a last minute costume idea, take a page from these people and just look around your own neighborhood at what's been happening in the last 12 months, and voila, you might find that you are the ghost of Dojo's carrot-ginger dressing past.
