I don’t decorate my house or my yard for Halloween. I figure that all of the falling leaves are autumn-y enough. Plus, I’m super-lazy about that sort of thing. As much as I’d like to be the kind of person who arranges gourds on my front steps, I’m not made of gourd money, and plus I just don’t want to take the time and effort. But imagine that you have the time, the money, the desire and the kind of judgy neighbors who expect you to decorate for Halloween with all manner of tasteful gourdification. Imagine you are Sarah Jessica Parker and you decorate the steps of your West Village brownstone with elegant pumpkins. Now imagine that The Great Pumpkin Thief of the West Village terrorizes your neighborhood in the dead of night. That’s just what happened:
I completely love how solemn she sounds as she recites the details of the crime. I half-expected to hear the Law & Order “DU-DUN” sound. She says thieves stole her “beautiful” pumpkins and all of her neighbors’ pumpkins the night before Halloween: “…All of our pumpkins were stolen, as were all the other pumpkins on our block. It is officially the Halloween heist of 2019. My husband stated, ‘Decency is dead.’ But we will salvage the intended carving. We will find last-minute pumpkins and we will hope this case does not remain cold.” They were apparently Berkshires pumpkins, as if there’s a difference between Berkshires pumpkins and New York pumpkins. But then a happy addendum: some people saw SJP’s Instagram and they dropped off some replacement pumpkins for the fam:
This is very cute. This is the kind of thing social media is for. Lamenting petty pumpkin thefts and thanking strangers for dropping off replacement pumpkins.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I would have been creeped out that the general pubic knows where I live, but I guess Halloween brings out the best in some people.
This is the first year we didn’t buy pumpkins bc we grew our own!
That’s so cool. A co-worker of mine did the same and someone stole them off the vine just before they were going to pick them. City living, sigh.
My husband was growing watermelon and beautiful tomatoes, all from seedlings, two years ago. Once they had ripened someone came into the yard in the dead of night and stole all of his hard work so he won’t grow them anymore. We also live in a city but it’s small, Bryan, Texas which isn’t big. But we know that must have been watching the growth of his fruit since they were snatched just at the right moment. Also, someone dumped a small 5 week old puppy on our back porch 2 years ago on 1/31 on a cold night. She has a happy home with us!
Hung a dozen second-hand trick-or-treat pumpkins from our tree with fishing line. Pumpkin tree – easy growing, minimally invasive, super cheap. Now if someone would just steal them so I don’t have to cut them down!
Other than a drunken prank, I really don’t get stealing someone’s decorations. A few years ago, someone in my town had a haybale stolen from their front yard! Why?
That might be the most likable I have found SJP in quite some time.
I think that’s exactly why they get taken. It happens sometimes around here and usually smashed pumpkins are found not far from the scene.
Does she have cameras outside of her house door?
The entire block is camera free? The cost of the theft really adds up when it is many houses hit.
In our neighborhood this year, tons of people had their decorations stolen, everything from very large blow-up decorations to carved and ceramic pumpkins. At least 20 different incidents in an area of about 5 square miles. In some instances, an entire yard full of decorations and pumpkins gone. It was incredibly mean-spirited. It’s a very safe neighborhood in general, but so many petty thefts this year, and it broke a bunch of kids’ hearts.
The big inflatables get stolen around here a lot too – they’re expensive, and I bet most of them end up on Craig’s List the morning after.
Some people are real jerks.
This is one of the reasons I don’t put out my decorations until the day of. Then I take them down later that night, after Trick-or-treating. And I decorate quite a bit. I even got a fog machine this year! I think it’s kinda cool to have nothing, then lots of decorations (I play music too) then the next morning…back to normal.
The other reason is the weather. It’s usually raining or windy around Halloween and I don’t think my styrofoam grave markers and skeletons would last!
What is the deal with security at her place? Isn’t she worried about people stalking her?!
My son used to decorate our front yard like an elaborate graveyard but now that he’s not home I keep the decorations to a single pumpkin face hanging on my front door.
I still love seeing the gourds and decorative pumpkins and mums but I don’t feel compelled to spend money on them myself. My new neighbors, who just built a huge mansion kitty corner from my bungalow, must have spent thousands on mums and ornamental cabbage and pumpkins. I was shocked at how they completely transformed their extensive garden beds. It looks pretty — or it did before our blizzard yesterday — but holy hell that’s so much money for such a temporary display.
I actually would not have been surprised to see some stolen. Although I’m guessing they also probably have surveillance cameras. I’m surprised SJP doesn’t have cameras. Not that they’d bother tracking down a pumpkin thief.
Every pumpkin on a NYC block! That’s a lot of pumpkin thievery. Those things are heavy.
A squirrel decimated my pumpkin, also from the Berkshires, this year and taunted me and our cat by sitting on the light pole across outside my porch and chomping on bits of it for me to see while I was reading the Sunday paper. A neighbor, who speaks not a word of English and probably doesn’t understand why I decorate my steps with squashes and gourds every autumn, very kindly waved me into his yard where he directed me to select a beautiful large replacement pumpkin, a lovely green cinderella pumpkin, and some weird Asian squash thing, which now adorn my top steps.
That’s so sweet of him! <3
He’s a sweet man. He shovels snow for me too. But, as I said, not a word of English and I speak not a word of whatever Chinese dialect he speaks. So we communicate by smiling, waving, and pointing.
That squirrel is so mean! Why eat it right in your face like that?! 🙁
Your post made me laugh. After having no squirrels in my courtyard for years I saw one hanging on a branch upside down eating from my bird feeder. I didn’t really mind until he chewed through the feeder and made it useless for the birds. Replaced it and the little jerk came back and did it again.
Squirrels are the devil. They like to rip the bark off our beautiful oak tress and they leave it shredded on the ground, so clearly it’s just for fun. I won’t poison them as that kills the coyotes and hawks where we live but I do a silent cheer every time our neighbor’s Jack Russel takes one down.
….. it was Rebekah vardys account
You win.
Maybe the Pizza Rat has gone vegan.
Seriously, though, eviscerated pumpkins out on the street is not great for cities with critter issues.
I think it’s kind of gross: hi, here’s some rotting compost on my front porch. Also the food waste angle is upsetting.
That’s why I didn’t buy pumpkins this year. I don’t know of anyone that has farm animals that would enjoy eating them as I hate to think that they end up in landfills. We don’t decorate our pumpkins, just for display. Though when the kids were little we would carve 2 each year.
I’m surprised she didn’t blame Kim…
I don’t decorate much for any holidays.
I do enjoy seeing other yards decorated tho.
We go walking at night to see the neighborhood lit up fir Xmas and it is always pretty.
I guess I’m just lazy.
And, a big old Boo…ooo to the folks who steal from others. Let people enjoy themselves, it is getting tougher every day just to make it to the end of the week.
The pumpkins were stolen! Carefully picked and all. As much as I can relate to kids losing their pumpkins I couldn’t help but laugh. There are so many horrible things happening around the world so I find it comforting that someone’s troubles revolve around stolen pumpkins.