Rachel Quednau is the program director for Strong Towns, an urban planning think tank focused on incremental development. She writes that Spirit Halloween's business model is based on utilizing otherwise unusable retail space. "Today's Spirit is pretty much a bottom-feeder business that works only at the expense of other stores," Quednau writes. "If there weren't vacant storefronts, this business wouldn't exist."

Some blocks in my neighborhood are getting downright spooky – front yards are filling with spider webs and tombstones, and ghosts peek through the bushes.

Try “Hine pumpkin” to see cheerier photographs by legendary documentary photographer Lewis W. Hine.

Baldung witches” to see a number of the German Renaissance painter Hans Baldung’s ghoulish drawings

“caprichos” will lead you to Francisco Goya’s legendary series of prints, rife with witches, demons

Henry Fuseli’s famous “Nightmare,”

search for “Day of the Dead” to find images of calacas

celebrate the season, there are thousands of suitably macabre images in the Artstor Digital Library

Brazil, Dia de Finados(“Day of the Dead”) is celebrated on November 2

Guatemalans build and fly giant kites

Mexico is known as Día de los Muertos, “Day of the Dead,”

Roman Catholic heritage, All Saints Day and All Souls Day (November 2)

The evening before All Saints Day was referred to as All Hallows’ Eve, which eventually became Halloween.

stems from the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain (roughly, “summer’s end”) held on October 31–November 1, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes

The evening before All Saints Day was referred to as All Hallows’ Eve, which eventually became Halloween.

Americans celebrate Halloween on October 31 by trick-or-treating, displaying jack-o’-lanterns (carved pumpkins) on their porches or windowsills, holding costume parties, and sharing scary stories.

The Nonnein Board also became a political interface between the spirit and earthly realms and by 1979 there were, in local government, several deceased politicians defending the social rights of both living and dead constituents. This wasn't without some controversy, as right-leaning politicians expressed concern at the idea of dead people immigrating to the UK and taking the jobs of the living.