It was 1974 and I was a newly single mother raising my daughter in the West Village.

An artist and photographer (having had my first solo exhibition in the Village), I was involved in both the art world and the progressive Greenwich Village community. My daughter and I had been part of the very first N.Y.C. day-care center in the “Peace Church”—the Washington Square Methodist Church on West 4th Street, now a condo. It was there that I first met artist, puppeteer, and mask-maker Ralph Lee, who was staging his theater shows at the Peace Church.

The demographics of the West Village were vastly different then. What are now mostly gut-renovated, single-family, zillion-dollar town houses were modest, affordable multi-apartment dwellings. Reasonable rents allowed for a diverse, vital artistic and theatrical community to live and practice their arts. I would awaken not only to the sweet trills of birds, but operatic voices practicing scales and theatrical tenors singing show tunes.

It was a hopeful time. In the aftermath of the 1960s, the community of artists and activists optimistically still believed that their individual and collective actions would definitively create a better world.

It was an era of relative innocence, of carefree-ness: before AIDS, 9/11, Katrina, Sandy, Newtown. We thought these “good times” might last forever.

And it was in this context, that the parade began. To quote Ralph Lee: “The worst fear for the Halloween Parade was that there would be raw-egg throwers!”

I had heard buzz about the first Halloween Parade before those old-style mimeographed fliers enlisting neighborhood participation appeared. Just before Halloween, I visited Lee and his perky soon-to-be wife Casey, and with a cadre of volunteers they were readying his fantastic creations—like the infamous Emperor Hadrian—that would soar above the parade.

All the emblematic characters that would become the parade’s highlights were first assembled in that Westbeth studio and courtyard. Oversize creatures such as the snakes floating atop wooden sticks, dancing skeletons towering above the crowd, and huge masks like the Owl—these mythical figures and fanciful characters would soon become forever memorable.

I have a visceral memory of that first Halloween Parade.

It was a crisp, chilly autumn evening. As everyone gathered expectantly in the Westbeth courtyard there was a sensory excitement. A sense of creative freedom prevailed, and an unexpected enormous turnout from the community and their friends arrived. There were artists, families, drag queens, and proud members of the L.G.B.T. community.

Then, in an oddly silent and sometimes jubilant procession, the colorfully costumed participants moved out from the courtyard and paraded through the winding streets of the West Village.

There was a feeling of medieval pageantry, with some carrying tall weeds and others glowing candles. As if paying homage, the parade would stop at live vignettes staged along the way. Beneath the eerily silhouetted windows of the Jefferson Market Library, witches beckoned the group forth.

The grand finale of the Halloween Parade happened at the colorfully illuminated Washington Square Arch, which was “inhabited” by spooks and spirits.

Time felt like it stood still during that very first Halloween Parade. The night felt episodic, and it was exhilarating. Wondrous, magical, and surreal, I was hooked.

I photographed what would become the annual Halloween Parade until 1988. By that time, the original sense of community was gone. Instead, enthusiastic hordes descended from all over, producing a crush of people.

Ralph Lee left the Halloween Parade he founded in 1985. It was, he noted at the time, to his disappointment that the parade was no longer the theatrical-community event he envisioned, but a more commercialized specter.

Recently, I returned to Lee’s Westbeth studio. Surrounded by many of those first iconic Halloween Parade creations, I had a sense of déjà vu. Lee spoke of how he originally developed the Halloween Parade under the aegis of the Theater for the New City, noting how the parade grew organically, with over 2,000 participants by the second year, and 250,000 by the fifth.

He praised the amicable relationship with the police, how they introduced and followed the parade on motor scooters. Expressing appreciation of grants from the N.Y.C. Department of Cultural Affairs, the NEA, and the support of small and local businesses, he acknowledged the contributions of a core group of individuals who embraced the idea and attended weekly organizational meetings.

Lee’s legacy will always be embedded in the Halloween Parade, an institution that continues to bring fun and merriment to so very many. In a quasi-continuation of the original community sensibility, on Halloween eve, an organic grassroots, informal “Children’s Parade” has developed in the heart of the beautiful West Village streets.

In small-town style, petites and parents trick-or-treat, visiting town houses, stoops, brownstones, and boutiques ornately decorated with ghosts, rattling skeletons, spiderwebs, horrific monsters, and smiling jack-o’-lanterns. Generously they offer up candy, apples, and giggles, happily filling overflowing goody bags.

We wish you all a wicked good Halloween!