As night fell on Jersey City Tuesday, hordes of small, bag-wielding humans emerged from their homes. These beings, in search of Snickers, Tootsie Roll Pops, and Gummi bears, trudged from door to door throughout the city.
Still others found refuge in, of all places, the Journal Square PATH station, where the city-sponsored seventh annual “Halloween at the Square” offered a “safe and sane” alternative to the door-to-door sugar handout.
Hundreds of Pokemons, Little Mermaids, and the occasional Darth Maul packed in the concourse at the station Tuesday afternoon. They were treated to a magician, coloring, a live band, and McGruff the Crime Dog.
Costumes were judged by a floating panel, and businesses like Laico’s Restaurant and SBS Bicycle awarded gift certificates to young customers.
Two-foot tall Alex Sequeira, a 4-year-old Journal Square resident, was all in brown. Brown shirt, brown hat. His mother, Julie, said it was the easiest costume she could design for getting around, plus it made sense from an emotional standpoint.
“He loves the UPS man,” she said, “because his grandma always sends packages.”
True to the costume, Alex carried with him a hollow box filled with, among other things, Reese’s Pieces. Also at the bash was 6-year-old Norielys Batista, a P.S. 27 student with Mary, her mother. Her mother had heard about the event through the school.
Norielys, dressed as Raggedy Ann, carted with her a plastic pumpkin filled with lollipops and Skittles. The costume that made the most noise likely took the least time to make. As Israel Arce, 46, escorted his nieces around the concourse, he was inundated.
“I got mobbed on the way down,” he said, “with children asking for autographs”
He posed for pictures with little fans, but not because he was Israel Arce.
Arce really, truly looked like professional wrestler, and former WWF “People’s Champion,” The Rock. With his jutting, chiseled chin, tapered sideburns and close-cropped dark hair, Arce, a professional musician who lives on Sherman Place in Journal Square, had been advised by friends to make impersonation his profession.
He’s still mulling the possibility, but Tuesday night’s reaction might give him a compelling argument to put down the drum sticks and slip into the squared circle.