Halloween at 80?

When I think of Halloween, a few pictures come to mind. Little kids in superhero outfits trick-or-treating. The smell of fresh fall leaves and candy corn. That scene in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan embarrasses herself by dressing up as the bride of Frankenstein.

Somehow, I cannot picture 80-year-olds dancing to Missy Elliot's "Get Ur Freak On" and dressed up in towels, with canes covered in gold lame. However, this is the picture that Susan Dominus portrays in her feature article: "Where 30 is Ancient, 80 is Youthful." Not only is this article a fun snapshot of 80-year-olds partying at Halloween, but it also captures the irony of the East Village--a place where people feel too old to live at the ripe age of 32 and yet the older population has no problem returning to their youth.

Additionally, Dominus touches on the more serious issues of neglect that the older population faces in the East Village, which is due to the fact that most of the elderly residents are living at or below the poverty level. Dominus strikingly criticizes, "The older crowd is not always seen; the elderly may be too frail to get out, or when they are out, they fade into the background, mentally photoshopped out."