With Halloween fast approaching, the spooky season is already underway in West Hamilton Beach with “The Walking Dead Part Two,” a graveyard-like decoration display featuring elaborate figures and ghostly lights.
The man behind the eye-catching attraction, Michael Giglio, has decorated his house at 102-24 Rau Ct. in Howard Beach for the last 16 years as a labor of love for the people who travel from all over New York to check out his intricate, family-friendly display.
“I enjoy people coming by to see my hard work,” Giglio, 63, told QNS. “They call me ‘Holiday Mike.’”
Each year, Giglio, a retiree from the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, rotates between Halloween and Christmas due to the challenging task of putting up and maintaining the large-scale decorations on display.
This year, a year of Halloween lights for Giglio, “The Walking Dead Part Two” features gravesites for notorious serial killers Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. Other notable inclusions in the graveyard are the Crypt Keeper; The Creeper from “Jeepers Creepers;” Funzo the Clown; the Skeleton Dog; Frankenstein’s monster, which is Giglio’s personal favorite; and The Witch, a talking figure that is brand new for this year’s display.
In addition to the graveyard, Giglio’s house also features a Halloween store, as well as a new Pirates of the Caribbean-themed display with a group of skeletons dressed as pirates and a nearby speaker playing George Burns’ “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life For Me)” from the popular Disney ride.
Giglio first began setting up the graveyard decorations on Aug. 14, a hot day with a temperature that reached as high as 87 degrees.
“I was sweating.” Giglio recalled. “Many times I went down on my knees, I didn’t think I was actually going to get back up again,” he joked. “It was hard.”
Inspired by “The Walking Dead,” the popular AMC TV series, Giglio’s 2021 graveyard display…
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