How to get wicked this weekend
Need Halloween help? Here’s a guide to celebrating at MIT
Yuanyu Chen (LEft), Sam Range (Right)—The Tech
It’s that spooky time of the year again for people to don costumes, party-hop, gorge on candy, or watch pumpkins fall from the Green Building. This year, Halloween lands on a Sunday, meaning festivities are popping up as early as Friday and will carry through the weekend. Here’s how you can get the most out of Halloween on and around campus.
Need a last minute costume?
Costume store iParty has opened temporary Halloween shops in the Boston and Cambridge areas that do not already have iParty stores. The Central Square store at the corner of Mass. Ave and Prospect St. opened right after Labor Day and will stay open until November 1 to supply MIT students with a selection of prepackaged costumes, wigs, makeup, and accessories. Costume choices range from the classic Grim Reaper to risqué nurses. Most prepackaged costumes prices fall between $20 to $50 dollars. Costumers can also buy hats, colorful wigs, and masks to put together their own costumes.
For those who won’t get a chance to check out the store, the Central Square store manager says that these iParty Halloween pop-up stores will return the same time next year around the Cambridge and Boston areas.
Another option is the Garment District on Broadway Street. Since 1986, the two-story retail store has offered thousands of articles of vintage clothing and, of course, Halloween costumes.
The first floor is home to Boston Costume, Boston’s biggest costume store, which provides a large selection of rental and retail costumes. Aside from the popular Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man, and Lady Gaga outfits, the store also offers everything from parade animals, mascots, historical costumes, and movie characters. People can spend from $25 to $300 dollars to rent anything from feathered Indian Chieftain hats to a full body Darth Vader suit that comes with a sound enabled breathing device.
Furthermore, the second floor offers a variety of retailed vintage clothing and shoes from the sixties to the nineties. Garment District also offers costumes for rent.
On-Campus Public Events
SaveTFP will be holding the annual Spooky Skate on Saturday night from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m at the Johnson Ice Rink.
A campus Halloween tradition, Spooky Skate offers MIT students hours of ice skating with free skate rentals, along with pumpkin carving, food, and a costume contest. This year, the event will have live music DJ’ed by Horizon Music Club, a Halloween themed photo booth run by the Technique Yearbook and Copytech, and a limited edition Spooky Skate Love Your Beaver T-shirts raffle.
“For people who want to have fun on campus other than attending parties, Spooky Skate is a great option for them to relax on a Saturday night,” says Craig Broady ’12, a member of SaveTFP. “We had 530 people show up last year, and we are hoping for a even bigger turn out this year.”
The “(n+1)th Annual Pumpkin Drop” will happen on the dot below Building 54, the Green Building, at 11:59 pm on the 30th. Organized by First West of East Campus, also known as “Pi-e-stickmen,” the event involves two dozen pumpkins being dropped from the tallest building in Cambridge. There will be a live DJ from First West playing his mixed tracks during the drop.
Off-Campus Events
Many of the MIT off-campus fraternities will host parties on Friday or Saturday night. Most of these parties are invitation-only. The first party to kick off the weekend is on Friday night at 10 p.m. at the Zeta Beta Tau house on Manchester Road in Brookline.
Saturday night is packed with parties hosted by Zeta Psi, Skull House, Pi Lambda Phi, Chi Phi, Phi Kappa Theta, Sigma Nu, etc, all of which are private, invitation–only parties.
Alpha Delta Phi, located on 351 Massachusetts Ave, is one of the few fraternities offering a public party.
“The theme this year is a Post Apocalyptic gathering at the safe house that is ADP,” said Bryan Mejia–Sosa ’14, an ADP brother. “We will set up a Rubens’ tube, which will coordinate a row of small flames to the sound waves from the party music.”
“The parties are all close together,” says Julian Gonzelas ’14. “You can see your friends dress up ridiculously. It’s hilarious. Greatest part of Halloween is seeing the weird stuff people will do.”
Aside from fraternity parties, student can look forward to the Halloween Rave at Boston Common on Friday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Harvard Square stores will be offering Halloween-themed giveaways throughout the weekend. Details on the Harvard Square Scare Events are at http://
www.harvardsquare.com/Home/Articles/Harvard-Scare!.aspx.