HARLEM, N.Y. (PIX11) — Since the early 1990s, kids have brought their Halloween jack-o’-lanterns to Central Park in October to watch them float on its northernmost lake, the Harlem Meer.
This year, though, the tradition has been ended by the Central Park Conservancy, and there’s no shortage of families who are disappointed and hoping that the conservancy has a change of heart.
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The event, called the Halloween Pumpkin Flotilla, features jack-o’-lanterns decorated by children at the event being placed onto tiny rafts. The rafts, more than two dozen of them, are connected by cables and are led out onto the surface of the Meer in floating trains led by a kayaker or canoeist in a Halloween costume.
It’s the culmination of games and other activities in the Dana Discovery Center building on the shore of the Meer that determine which children will be the lucky ones to have their jack-o’-lanterns be in the flotilla…