Every New Yorker knows about the annual Village Halloween Parade. If you’re truly one of us then you’ve participated at least once either as a costumed ghoul or scared spectator. Something equally great but less well known is the spooktacular Horseman’s Hollow, just a little over a half-hour away from Manhattan in the Village of Tarrytown.

Known to many from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a short story by Washington Irving about the Headless Horseman, the area is considered by some to be one of the most haunted places in the world. Irving lived in Tarrytown and is buried in nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

My girlfriend and I celebrated our All Hallows’ Eve this year by attending the last Horseman’s Hollow fright of the 2016 season.  We were delightfully scared by all the creepy creatures and hidden frights along the haunted trail at Philipsburg Manor. The usual quaint and charming Manor is transformed into a terrifying landscape ruled by the undead, the evil, and the insane.

You begin walking a haunted trail, stumbling upon scary scenes of a town driven mad by the Headless Horseman. The Hollow’s unfortunate inhabitants are all too ready to keep visitors from ever leaving. Creatures, human and otherwise, lurk in the shadows, ready to terrify the unsuspecting.

Those who survive the trail enter the terrifying ruins of Ichabod’s Schoolhouse, where they must endure a twisted maze of horrors too terrible to describe, only to end up in the lair of the Horseman. We were one of the lucky few to survive!

Their 2016 season ended on Halloween, but they’ll be back early next fall!

– Michael Riegelman

Horseman’s Hollow at Philipsburg Manor
100 Continental Street
Sleepy Hollow, NY  10591