Maspeth Horror Story

Giggling couples picnicked in the graveyard last summer.  Now ominous winds snap dead leaves from the trees, as Halloween descends on Maspeth, Queens.

The lonely weekend streets of Maspeth are lined with sleeping semi trucks.  I've lived and worked near truck yards, so I'm comfortable around them; I just wish I hadn't remembered that article about serial killer truck drivers as I walked through [map].

Then there's the DSNY garbage garage (left, at 47th St. & 58th Rd.) with all those bags full of who-knows-what.

Sanitation man: It ain't the stink -- a couple-ten beers will take care of that.  What bothers me is when I wake up sweatin' like a pig and the bed is full of garbage bags with zombie arms stickin' out, tryin' to get me!

Then the hyper-bright plant where they make concrete boots (right, on 49th St.).

Made man: Now listen Jimmy, they been doin' things this way since Columbus was bangin' Cleopatra.  How we gonna make this statue if you won't stand still in the garbage can?


Then the creepy ad at the deserted bus stop across from the Duane Reade warehouse (left, at 50th St. & 55th Ave.).

"There's Something Wrong with Esther."  For one thing, she hasn't got bus fare, and you do!

Then the graveyard right behind it (top, New Calvary Cemetery).

Where they buried all the people who died waiting for the bus, or waiting for a friend who's waiting for them at 55th St. & 50th Ave., not 50th St. & 55th Ave!

Then (right, at 48th St. & 54th Ave.) the huge billboards that reach for  freeway commuter eyeballs like sunflowers reaching for the sun...

...to escape the scattered bones at their feet, remnants of failed salesmen who couldn't return home empty handed, to face the wife and poor baby Esther, wailing in her misery, knotted like a scared snake around the bars of her crib.

Then finally, the campground for crazy people (below, on 47th St.).

In better lit parts of the city, people stay up all night, abuse substances and play at Crazy.  But the crew here quit playing long ago.  They sit circled around the fire, strumming broken guitars, roasting odd bits of meat, licking Bowie knives, and necking like reptiles in heat.  Screams from the hills -- the weed covered trash mounds that shelter the camp -- make their dogs whimper and move closer to the fire.

The crew bides its time, waiting for something to happen.  They won't know what until some stranger -- maybe you, when your car breaks down and your cellphone goes dead -- wanders up to the fire and asks something silly like "Hey guys, do you know where we are?"

[ Map of Maspeth for Trick-or-Treaters ]
[ Middle of Nowhere, Queens ]