{"id":122210,"date":"2020-11-28T21:33:54","date_gmt":"2020-11-28T18:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/neighbors-split-over-dyker-heights-christmas-lights-display\/"},"modified":"2020-11-28T21:33:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T18:33:54","slug":"neighbors-split-over-dyker-heights-christmas-lights-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/neighbors-split-over-dyker-heights-christmas-lights-display\/","title":{"rendered":"#Neighbors split over Dyker Heights Christmas lights display"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Neighbors split over Dyker Heights Christmas lights display<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Not even a pandemic can mess with Christmas in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

Lucy Spata, the longtime doyenne of the famous Dyker Heights holiday lights \u2014 which usually draw some 300,000 visitors each year \u2014 says she is going even bigger and better for 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the kids went through enough this year. They can\u2019t see Santa or go to the Thanksgiving parade. I can\u2019t take this away from them,\u201d said Spata, 65, describing her theme<\/a> this year as march of the wooden soldiers. \u201cWe all need a little bit of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Spata, who started decorating in 1986, she\u2019s happy to take credit for the Christmas blitz. \u201cWhen I moved here this neighborhood was a funeral home. I jazzed it up,\u201d said the veritable Mrs. Claus, whose home boasts 30,000 lights, 80 figures, and 16-foot nutcrackers. This year she added 30 toy soldiers lining the property including two 12-foot soldiers brought in by crane. There\u2019s also a new giant talking Santa.<\/p>\n

For Spata, who lost her husband of 49 years, Angelo, in 2019, she is driven by carrying on in his memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis wish was that I never stop decorating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not alone. James Bonavita, who lives nearby and is the CEO of B&R Christmas Decorators, said that business is booming across the city. \u201cI got more clients this year,\u201d he said, noting that many are first-timers. He also has a repeat customer who is adding some 10,000 lights to their extravaganza. \u201cPeople want to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lucy
Lucy Spata\u2019s elaborate Christmas decorations at her home in Dyker Heights.<\/span>Stephen Yang<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But some neighbors think maybe they shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want a lot of people coming around. It gets a little too crazy around here,\u201d said Maria D\u2019Onofrio, who\u2019s been showcasing elaborate holiday displays at her Dyker Heights home for two decades, but is going dark this year. She was already fed up with as many as 10 tour buses a night dropping shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on 11th and 12th avenues between 81st and 86th streets. She refuses to encourage them when virus rates in the city are on the rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s dangerous,\u201d said the 62-year-old who cares for her elderly parents. \u201cWe\u2019re afraid. There are too many people coming around. It was nice when it was just a neighborhood thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her sister-in-law, who lives next door, is skipping this year, too. So is Tony Muia, a tour-bus operator<\/a> who used to run five buses of 56 passengers a night. He considered taking it down to one bus \u2014 leaving rows empty and with partitions separating riders \u2014 but opted out after hearing from disgusted Brooklynites who accused him of potentially spreading the disease.<\/p>\n

\"Lucy
Stephen Yang<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI have friends and family there. I would never forgive myself if something happened because of me and my tours,\u201d said Muia. \u201cI put myself in their shoes: What if I lived there with all these people coming in?\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Spata, who has seen couples get engaged on her lawn, admits she is happy to lose some tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t have the buses, that\u2019s a good thing,\u201d said Spata, who said she will miss the interaction with spectators.<\/p>\n

Bonavita, who has designed some of the neighborhood\u2019s most fanciful front-yard scenes over the past 20 years, is hopeful that 2020 might be a reset for the Dyker Heights crowds \u2014 which number in the thousands on any given night during the season and have to be herded by police. \u201cThey leave a mess and they stay later than they should,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lucy
Stephen Yang<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

D\u2019Onofrio, too, sees an upside: She\u2019ll save big on her electric bill. \u201cMy husband\u2019s happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spata said in 2018 that her electric bill runs under $700 per month-long season, adding the LED lights are on timers, so they\u2019re not running constantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to \u00ad[donate to the cost],\u201d she said at the time, \u201cbut I won\u2019t accept it.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Neighbors split over Dyker Heights Christmas lights display” Not even a pandemic can mess with Christmas in Brooklyn. Lucy Spata, the longtime doyenne of the famous Dyker Heights holiday lights \u2014 which usually draw some 300,000 visitors each year \u2014 says she is going even bigger and better for 2020. \u201cI feel the kids went…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/11\/201128-dyker-heights-lights-covid2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[82056,4950,66,70344,82109],"class_list":["post-122210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-11-28-20","tag-brooklyn","tag-christmas","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-dyker-heights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}