The theme of the annual Village Halloween parade this year was to have been a 2012 Mayan countdown. With the streets of downtown Manhattan already dark and apocalyptic in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, the parade was cancelled for the first time in its venerated 39-year history.

But on Wednesday night, more than a hundred determined revelers whooped and danced through the Village anyway, brightening the darkened streets with costumes fashioned out of blinking lights and glowsticks. More people joined as the parade wound a zigzagging route up from Prince Street, past 14^th and toward the brightly lit buildings uptown.

Photo by Emily Johnson

“Well apparently [the parade] is rescheduled, but the only time to come out for Halloween is Halloween night,” said Christopher Hardwick, whose white coattails and top hat were decked out with blue lights.

“You can’t come out the Saturday before or the night before, its always Halloween where it’s rocking,” Hardwick said. “And there were a lot of people in the neighborhood without power with cabin fever. I walked here from the East Village, which has absolutely no power, down fourteen flights of stairs.”

Hardwick, who belongs to a group of costume enthusiasts known as Kostume Kult, was one of the organizers of the informal event. He regularly emcees the group’s float in the annual parade.

Police accompanied the parade through the streets, and for much of the way, the flashing lights on the NYPD vehicles were the main source of visibility. On Christopher Street, the crowd spilled into the middle of the road and officers had to hem them in with megaphones. Some of the marchers pitched in to restore order.

“Onto the sidewalk, darlings, everybody onto the sidewalk,” trilled an imposing figure dressed as Eleanor Roosevelt.

Some people on the event’s Facebook page had expressed worry that even a small, unofficial parade would be an unnecessary distraction for the beleaguered city. Jim Glazer, another organizer dressed as a red dragon, acknowledged these concerns.

“We had a mixed reaction,” said Glazer, more commonly known as Costume Jim. “Some people didn’t like the idea because they thought it would take away resources. But the people who really get art, I think, understand that helping people’s morale is a very important aspect of aid for downtown.”

It seemed to be working. Smiling faces appeared at windows lit by candlelight, peering down at the street and beckoning more people to come and look. Motorists stopped their cars on the street to take pictures. “Halloween is not dead!” one man yelled from a passing cab, eliciting cheers from the marchers. And occasionally the parade came upon unsuspecting, delighted costume-wearing people who joined in, swelling the size of the crowd as it marched on.

A small band featuring a large tuba-like instrument, akin to something out of a Dr. Suess story, provided the soundtrack for the parade. Cyclists rode alongside, speakers blasting Lady Gaga songs and the theme from “Ghostbusters.”

For fashion designer Megan Bielli, 24, the mob of light and noise was a welcome relief after days of quiet darkness in her East Village apartment, where she and her boyfriend had been steadily working their way through all of their perishable food.

“It’s been really dark and dreary going outside, walking around my neighborhood,” she said, a pair of glowstick ears perched on top of her head. “It was nice to go to work today where there’s electricity and charge my phone, check the internet. That’s where I found out about this. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known about it.”

She said she intended to join the others in walking up to where the power was back on.

“The whole point is not to be a nuisance,” she said. “It’s Just to shine a little light on a dark time.”

The Village Halloween Parade, a 39-year tradition, is just another check on the list of Hurricane Sandy’s victims, which includes the destruction of much of Atlantic City, Long Island, Downtown Manhattan and the New York City mass transit system.

“For the first time in our 39 year history, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and the NYPD have CANCELLED the Parade,” read the official website of the Village Halloween Parade, which was scheduled for Halloween night.

Serra Hirsch started piecing together her costume Sunday evening, moving the tree and the bear around to see where she wanted them. Photo by Sophia Rosenbaum

Instead of intricate costumes and mobs of people taking over 6th Avenue in the Village, clean-up crews will be working to remove fallen trees and bring power back to the millions in the dark since Monday’s super storm.

Destruction around the metropolitan area evoked images of doomsday. A spooky coincidence, perhaps, but this year’s Halloween parade featured an end-of-the-world theme: “Tick! Tock!,” a poke at the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the end of the world in 2012.

Jeanne Fleming, the producing director of the parade, sent an email Tuesday evening to participants and media alerting them to the cancelation of the parade after Mayor Michael Bloomberg made it official on Tuesday afternoon.

Fleming is working diligently to reschedule the parade, but said it is only possible if the organization’s small budget allows for it.

“It seems at the moment as if we cannot afford to do it a week later,” she said.

Meanwhile, Serra Hirsch, a puppeteer who has been active in the parade since 1994, remained hopeful Tuesday evening that the parade will be rescheduled sometime next week.

Hirsch said the cancellation was a “huge bummer” for her, but said mass transit is crucial to the return of pre-Hurricane Sandy New York City.

“We can’t return to normal until the subway returns,” she said. “The city is crippled with no subway, and the police, sanitation, and other services aren’t really available to make the parade run smoothly and safely.”

Hirsch said she understands the decision to cancel the parade, as safety is an issue to begin with because people’s costumes cause obstructed views, and drunk audience members sometimes become aggressive.

“I don’t think they had a choice,” she said. “The light’s are out still throughout the parade route. It’s just not safe.”

Jennifer Weidenbaum, 34, has gone to the parade with Hirsch for five years and started working on her ski-costume in August. She attempted to get into the city Tuesday from her home in Jersey City, but said too many roads were closed. On her drive home, she was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

“I was actually happy when I was listening to the radio in the car when they said the parade was cancelled,” Weidenbaum said. “I don’t want any of the city’s resources to be directed towards a parade when there’s so many other important things going on.”

Sunday afternoon, Hirsch was busy at work on her elaborate campfire costume scene of two girl scouts at a campfire roasting marshmallows with a bear lurking behind them. Hirsch’s plan was to act as the head of one of the girls and said she planned on pretending she had no idea there was a bear behind her.

While Hirsch is working on her costume at a much more relaxed pace now, she is still set to appear on Kelly and Michael’s live Halloween show, which was moved to November 5 due to the storm. If she wins the costume contest, she could win a $10,000 gift card to Home Goods.

Weidenbaum is still planning on celebrating Halloween this evening in her Jersey City neighborhood. Her costume of an Olympic skier racing down a mountain to the finish line is almost complete, and she plans to use it for next year’s Halloweenparade in the West Village.

“I’ll have a leg up next year,” she said. “I’ll put it in storage.”

After graduating from Yale Drama School, Long lived in the notorious Chelsea hotel, where Larry Rivers and Viva were his neighbors and he once stepped around the body of Terry “TK” Folger, a former resident who unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide by jumping off of the roof. Since then, Long has designed costumes for 60 Broadway shows, including Cabaret, La Cage aux Folles, Catch Me If You Can, Young Frankenstein, The Producers and Contact, and has garnered five Tony awards from 11 nominations.

Long’s previous home and studio was a lavish Chelsea brownstone, but last year he sold it to his next-door neighbor, artist Louise Bourgeois, after learning she wanted to turn her brownstone and his into a museum. After selling, Long was off to find new digs; it had to be a ground-floor space so he could load in and out bolts of fabric, set models and yards of tulle for tutus. The 1852 space, built as a button factory, fits the bill.

When Long moved in, they demolished the dropped ceiling and installed dehumidifiers in the basement. The space is designed to be flexible, with movable walls made of fabric that are used as bulletin boards for inspirational photos, clips and drawing of the multiple projects humming in the wings.

–Photo by Wickham Boyle