Sleepy Hollow tourism boom draws big crowds, traffic as Halloween approaches
Village officials are now adjusting plans to handle the surge in visitors
SLEEPY HOLLOW, New York (WABC) -- It's enough to lose your head over. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" has literally stopped traffic flow throughout the Westchester County village, dead in its tracks on multiple occasions this month.
Sleepy Hollow, the setting for Washington Irving's iconic short story, is famous for its October street fair, its festive decorations and other vibrant Halloween celebrations, but when the small village of just over 10,000 people gained a burst of national attention this year, big crowds and lots of congestion followed.
Traffic, both vehicular and foot, was already building Friday on North Broadway. In one 10-minute span, Eyewitness News met visitors from California, Philadelphia and even Hungary.
"We're really huge fans of Halloween in general and this is such an iconic place, so we definitely wanted to come by," said tourist Csaba Deri.
Thanks to the short story, the village has always considered itself Halloween town, but this October, there's been an explosion of tourists checking out the elaborate decorations lining the main drag on Beekman Avenue and posing by the Headless Horseman statue near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
There have been two key factors: planning a day trip to Sleepy Hollow is now a TikTok trend and the village was the subject of a recent New York Times writeup.
"Always seemed like a really cool place, and we were in the area," said tourist Courtney Bellio.
Congestion came to a head last weekend during the Sleepy Hollow Tarrytown Chamber of Commerce Street Fair, which caused massive traffic jams that inconvenienced local residents, and potentially blocked emergency vehicles.
In a post to the Village of Sleepy Hollow News Facebook page, Mayor Martin Rutyna said the growth at this year's fair was "much greater than anyone expected."
"Our Police and DPW did a good job of adapting to a difficult situation that expanded from a local to regional issue," he said. "They added staff, coordinated with other departments, and did their best to manage the crowds and traffic."
He said the village will update their planning to improve traffic routing, safety and event sizing for future events during the month of October.
Officials are urging visitors to take Metro-North Railroad to reduce the congestion.
"It's difficult when you get about 30,000 people here when the population is 10,000... we've don't have a lot of parking, so we're really encouraging people to take alternative transportation to get here," said Village Administrator Anthony Giaccio.
The adjacent village of Tarrytown is also taking a similar approach, encouraging people to take the train in for their annual Tarrytown Halloween Parade, which takes place on Broadway and Main Street on Saturday, Oct. 26.
And while some see the boom in traffic as a negative, for most businesses owners, the influx has been a good problem to have.
"It was beautiful. We love it. It's really busy... it's crazy busy. But it's nice, we love it," said pizzeria owner Kate Kastrati.
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