The crowds were a lot thinner and the decorations somewhat subdued, but the mood among trick-or-treaters who flocked to Hill Drive to celebrate Halloween Wednesday night was every bit as cheerful as last year.
And as was the case in 2011, the largest crowds were seen visiting two homes within a block of each other. The first destination was a sprawling Cape Cod house that is the residence of Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce President Michael Nogueira, who was recently elected president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council.
Nogueira mostly featured the same elaborate decorations as last year, including a vintage car with some shady characters inside it and a guy hanging from a construction crane. But a broomstick-borne witch who appeared to have collided with a wooden power pole on the sidewalk was a new feature, as was a set of peppy music and dance videos being broadcast on a screen in a corner of the Nogueira home’s front yard.
The other attraction was a Spanish-style mansion in which longtime Eagle Rock resident Louis Herrara lives. If trick-or-treaters thronged to the Nogueira house partly to see the special effects, they lined up outside the Herrara home for the candy, many of them secure in the knowledge from past visits that the place never runs out of Halloween goodies.
Herrara, who takes the distribution of candy during Halloween very seriously, estimates some 2,000 trick-or-treaters visited his house.
