Huge CT Halloween Display Depicts Current True Life Horrors
This Halloween display focuses on 2020's real-life nightmares.
Matthew Warshauer, a celebrated history professor at Central Connecticut University, features 'death' this year in his yearly outsized Halloween display. According to an article at courant.com, this is not about your typical monsters and vampires.
Two large panels of photos face out at North Main Street in West Hartford. This display is all about real-life tragic deaths. One panel shows 20 Americans who've died of COVID-19, and the other shows Black Americans killed by police.
Every Halloween for the last 17 years, Warshauer has made his home into a must-see seasonal event with his enormous displays. In 2003, he became so outraged by the American-led invasion of Iraq; he featured life-sized effigies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in suits with their pants going up in flames. He received international attention for his 2017 display for his massive Donald Trump-themed pirate ship. He told Hartford Courant,
I received threatening emails and phone calls from that pirate ship. I'm expressing my political views, sometimes in an admittedly provocative way, but always peaceful.
He also told the Courant that most of his neighbors are OK with the displays except for the one that complained they should be shut down over zoning rules. Part of this year's display shows newspaper ads from the late 1700s seeking to track down runaway slaves.
If you're ever in the West Hartford area and are interested in taking a look, you'll find Matthew Warshauer's real-life Halloween displays at 115 North Main Street until the end of October.