Windsor Terrace's Halloween Weekend Ends at Lakeside, Where the Pumpkin Patch Hands Off to the Ice Rink

On Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1, the LeFrak Center at Lakeside runs two seasons in one building. The Lakeside Fall Festival has its last weekend, with the corn maze, pumpkin patch and Haunted Hotel. On the same weekend the rink opens for skating with free lessons, public skate and discounted ice hockey. For Windsor Terrace, that puts the park's whole move from fall to winter into one walk across the southwest side of Prospect Park. After this weekend you won't get both seasons in the same place again until next year.

A First-Year Festival Ends on the Rink's Opening Day

The overlap is new this year. Lakeside's operator calls the festival "Prospect Park's first fall celebration," and the Haunted Hotel's own page calls it the centerpiece of "Prospect Park's first Harvest Festival." It opened October 9 and runs through November 1 at 171 East Drive. In its September fall guide, the Prospect Park Alliance lists an October 8 start and says times and prices vary. The operator's split schedule below is the one to plan around.

Prices are posted on the Lakeside festival page, and most of the grounds cost little or nothing:

• Pumpkin Patch & Path: free to enter, $10 per pumpkin
• Corn Maze: $5 for a 30-by-30-foot maze built for kids and families
• Yard & Family Games: $5 flat for ring toss, giant checkers, Connect 4, cornhole and skill challenges
• Pumpkin Painting: free and supervised
• All-Access Festival Pass: $20 for the corn maze, games, one small pumpkin with painting, and grounds access
• Tarot Reading: $15 for five minutes or $30 for ten, sold on site only

The Haunted Hotel is sold separately at $35 Tuesday through Sunday, with its own timed entry windows. Abracadabra NYC, which has built haunted houses in New York since 1981, made it for Lakeside. It is a 7,680-square-foot walkthrough with live scare actors, groups of up to eight, and 30-minute entry windows. It's recommended for guests 13 and older, though guardians can decide for younger kids. Parts of the route run through open-air courtyards and uncovered rooftop sections, so dress for the weather.

Four Days, by the Clock

The operator's hours mean the family-friendly grounds close at 6 p.m. every day of the closing stretch, while the Hotel stays open into the evening. Halloween changes that. On Saturday, October 31, the Hotel runs from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The other Halloween events in the park are listed in the Alliance's 2026 fall guide, and they fit around those hours.

Lakeside's Craftopia drop-in workshop also lands on Halloween. For $15, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., kids can make a trick-or-treat tote. That gets the bag made in the afternoon, ahead of the evening. The Park Slope Civic Council's Children's Halloween Parade starts at 6:30 p.m. at Seventh Avenue and 14th Street, and marchers line up by 6 p.m. It heads down Seventh Avenue, turns left on Third Street and ends at Old Stone House and Washington Park, where the Brooklyn Conservatory plays spooky music. This year's theme is "The Haunted Forest of Brooklyn." The full details are on the Park Slope Civic Council's parade page.

The Windsor Terrace Way In Is a Foliage Route

The Alliance's fall guide lists six walks for the season. One of them starts in this neighborhood. "Peninsula to Lookout Hill" begins at the Vanderbilt Street Entrance in Windsor Terrace. According to the guide, the horse chestnuts on the Peninsula are usually the first trees in the park to show the season. The route winds around the Lake, then crosses Wellhouse Drive to Lookout Hill, the park's highest point. Raspberry bushes there turn red, and the tulip trees turn yellow.

Lakeside sits on that same Lake. The guide's separate Lakeside walk describes views across to Duck Island and Music Island and the London Plane trees in Concert Grove along the White Levy Esplanade. That walk starts from the Ocean and Parkside Avenue entrance in Flatbush. From Windsor Terrace, you reach the same shoreline from the other side.

Two capital projects on this side of the park will change parts of the route in the coming years. Both are listed on the Alliance's Capital Projects Tracker.

1. Terrace Bridge on Wellhouse Drive. The bridge was last restored in 1930 and is currently closed to vehicles. The NYC Department of Transportation has $21 million in City funding to rebuild it with a new concrete deck, recreated historic arch girders, new railings and brick retaining walls. The work also repaves the pedestrian paths beneath the bridge. Construction is not expected to start until 2028, with completion estimated for 2031.
2. Lookout Hill Forest Restoration. The project is in procurement, backed by $1 million in Mayoral funding. Over several planting cycles it will stabilize eroded slopes and replace lost tree canopy with thousands of climate-adapted native trees, shrubs and plants. Construction is estimated to start in 2026 and finish in 2029.

The canopy you walk under on Lookout Hill this fall is the one that restoration is meant to rebuild.

Sunday Moves to the Boathouse

On November 1 the park has a second big event besides the rink. Brooklyn FAM's sixth annual flagship festival takes over the Prospect Park Boathouse from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It's free, family-friendly and open to all ages. According to the festival's Eventbrite listing, this year celebrates Indigenous voices from North, Central and South America. Those include Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, Shinnecock, Matinecock Turkey clan, Montaukett, Unkechaug, Diné, Taíno, Colombian, Mexican and Guatemalan Maya communities. The day includes music and dance performances, workshops, a drumming circle, craft-making and public art under the theme "Shine Your Light," and food and drink are for sale. The festival is presented with the Prospect Park Alliance, the American Indian Community House and the NY Immigration Coalition.

The Boathouse is also where the Audubon Center hosts Creepy Crawly Halloween the day before. So the same lakeside building has a family event on both days of the weekend, and the festival grounds and the rink are on the same water.

What Stays After November 1

On Monday, November 2, the pumpkin patch, corn maze and Haunted Hotel are gone, and the rink is what's left at Lakeside. The Alliance's October 19 announcement describes 30,000 square feet of ice across connected covered and open-air rinks, looking out over the 60-acre Prospect Park Lake. From October 31 there are daily public skate sessions, Learn to Skate classes in three semesters, youth hockey through the NY Rangers Rookie League and NY Islanders Learn to Play, and adult leagues and pick-up. Duck Island Café, which serves the festival's food this month, stays open all season with hot chocolate, snacks and comfort food. The Alliance says a Skate with Santa weekend and holiday tree decorating will come closer to the holidays, with details still to be announced.

Registration for the free opening-weekend lessons is linked from that announcement. Advance tickets are recommended for festival weekends, and most festival activities can still be bought at the gate if space allows. If you're not walking in from Windsor Terrace, Lakeside's operator lists street parking around the park, the B/Q trains to Prospect Park station, and several bus lines.

At Pen Realty, we follow the park's southwest side season by season, from the Vanderbilt Street entrance to the Terrace Bridge timeline, because it shapes daily life on the blocks around it. If you want to talk through how the park and its upcoming projects factor into a Windsor Terrace home's value, request your Signature Market Valuation.