"Party every day" - Dyker Heights Christmas attraction

New York - "Party every day" - Dyker Heights Christmas attraction

No tourists get lost in Dyker Heights for eleven months of the year. The residential area, characterized by single-family homes, is located in the southwest of the New York borough of Brooklyn and can be reached by public transport from Manhattan in about an hour. Notable sights: none.

However, as the days get shorter and Christmas approaches, it's that time of year again for the neighborhood - and Dyker Heights becomes "Dyker Lights". Almost every house in the area is decorated extensively - with artificial snow, inflatable snowmen, Santas and reindeer, toy soldiers, presents, but above all with twinkling lights in all colors.

There's always a Grinch

The spectacle was once started by Lucy Spata, who moved to Dyker Heights in the mid-1980s after the death of her mother, with whom she had previously lived in another part of the city. "Decorating was always very important to my mother, and we always decorated together," Spata told the German Press Agency. "For the first Christmas in Dyker Heights, I didn't see any lights anywhere. There was something morbid about it and it was something I wasn't used to. So I said to my husband: "There are two options. Either we decorate and go all out, or we move, because I can't do it like this."

So Spata and her husband decorated their small detached house on a quiet, tree-lined street block - but didn't make any friends at first. "People were shocked and complained. There's always a Grinch. But the more they complained, the more stuff I put up, and then they got used to it and after a few years they all started."

People immerse themselves in a different world

Spata has long since become a kind of unofficial mayor of Dyker Heights. "Everyone who moves here comes to me and introduces themselves. And the first thing I tell them is: 'You have to decorate for Christmas'." There is still "every now and then a Grinch" who doesn't fancy the spectacle and the hustle and bustle, says Spata, "but they can either go on vacation for 30 days or move. Because when you move here, you have to know what you're getting into."

There are now dozens of gigantically decorated houses in Dyker Heights, more every year, and every year the neighbors try to outdo each other in even more over-the-top ways. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists come by night after night in the run-up to Christmas to take a look. There are already dozens of tour providers and whole busloads of people are carted into the neighborhood.

"I didn't expect this," says inventor Spata. "It's a party here every day now." But she can understand why the decorations attract people. "I think it gives people a chance to forget their problems - they immerse themselves in a kind of other world." She used to go to the famous Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Center in Manhattan every year, says Spata, "but now I have Rockefeller Center here."

It's not about the electricity bills

His company "My Trip to New York" alone will bring up to 8,000 visitors to Dyker Heights this year, says tour guide Sanel Huskanovic, who was born in Bosnia and grew up in Germany. "We did the first tour eight years ago in the pouring rain - and people were thrilled. That's when I realized the potential behind it."

People are fascinated by the Christmas decorations, "because they associate these houses with films, because some of it really does look almost unreal, because the exaggeration fascinates them, but also because it really puts them in the Christmas spirit," says Huskanovic. German tourists in particular always ask him with concern what the electricity bills of the homeowners of Dyker Heights look like. "My answer is that Americans, especially New Yorkers, have a different mindset and are happy when the masses visit them and appreciate their decorations, and that they will find a way to turn this into money at some point."

In the meantime, there are already several houses whose residents sell food, cocoa or souvenirs - and a whole industry of street vendors has sprung up around the spectacle, offering ice cream, food or flashing toys for children.

Inventor Spata says she is mainly concerned with remembrance - of her decoration-loving mother and her husband, who also died a few years ago. "I'm a baby at heart." Thanks to LED lights, her electricity bill isn't as bad as some might think - but it's definitely worth it.

January and February are the worst months

From April to October, the 67-year-old sells sausages from a cart at the festivals in the metropolis of millions, then it's time to decorate. Once again this year, she has put up and hung around 25,000 lights and around 50 figures with the help of her employees. Spata also decorates the inside of her house - including five Christmas trees. "My toy soldiers are my favorites, because they were also my husband's favorites. He always filled the house with toy soldiers." She takes everything down again at the beginning of January.

The hustle and bustle of the pre-Christmas period in Dyker Heights doesn't bother her at all, says Spata. "But when it's over, it makes me so depressed. All these people are there and then all of a sudden - no one. It makes me depressed, January and February are the worst months."