BCVFD Gets Ready to Haunt

By Katie McFadden

From the minds of those who voluntarily run into burning buildings and pull people out of crashed cars, comes the scariest Halloween event around. The Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department’s (BCVFD) Haunted House returns October 29 through November 2.

Head to the BCVFD firehouse at 15 Noel Road and get ready to scream. This year’s haunted house has no set theme like last year’s Vollyville Prison, but rather, things that are more unpredictable. The men and women of the BCVFD are busy building out and bringing to life…or death… multiple levels of excitement in their 100-foot maze. From a movie theater to a swamp, to a cemetery and a murder masquerade waiting at the end, this disorienting haunt will have you trying to anticipate what’s next and never really knowing, especially when trying to figure out if the eyes staring at you from above, below or hiding within the walls, are real or fake, until they make their presence known among the darkness and strobe lights.

Starting after 9/11 as a camaraderie builder, the BCVFD Haunted House has become a tradition that locals look forward to, and an attraction that has folks coming from all over, as word of mouth spreads about the little firehouse that makes big scares each Halloween. Hurricane Sandy put the tradition on hold but due to high demand, their haunted house made a comeback in 2015, took another pause for Covid, and then became bigger than ever as the world opened up again.

“This is something we’re bringing back from our childhood. This is something that we did as kids and now we get to do it as members,” acting Lieutenant Katie McIntyre said. “The more we do it, the bigger and better it gets. It’s almost like I don’t want to do it anymore, but once those pallets are stacked outside, the whole town starts talking about it,” Chief of Department George Conklin said.

Conklin and his team of volunteer firefighters and EMTs are the brains behind the haunt, but it’s the community involvement that helps them make it possible each year, including the pallets that they use to build the walls of their intricate maze inside the firehouse. And they’ve had so much stuff donated over the years from building materials to costumes, that they’re at a point of being able to recycle and repurpose it this year. “A majority of the pallets are recycled from last year. We get it donated from a shipping yard and Bryan’s Auto gives us a hand with a tow truck and driver so we can pick up a flatbed of pallets,” McIntyre said. Breezy Point Lumber has also been a contributor of wood they use to build out the floors and other factors. And then people start to line up to volunteer. “People come from all over the place. We’ve had people from the Kiwanis Club, the Junior Department, people from the VFW, people from NYC Sanitation help, PJ Marcel from Howard Beach, Dan Guarino from The Rockaway Times and West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Departments help out. It’s crazy the amount of people that help out each year when I think about it,” Conklin said.

And then people come from near and far to experience what the BCVFD puts on. “Last year, we had 666 people come through. That’s a true number,” Conklin said, noting the irony. “We’ve had people come from Ozone Park, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Harlem, and as far as upstate, north Jersey and PA. There aren’t any other haunted houses in Queens. You gotta go out east. So, people find out about us through word of mouth and one year we were trending on Instagram,” Conklin said. He hopes this year, they have 1,000 people pass through.

As lines have gotten longer, and so has the wait, this year, the BCVFD will have a few things to keep crowds occupied. A costumed Conklin will be at the door, greeting people, handling crowd control and entertaining. “I like being outside. I’m good at improv and I’m a witty guy and this year, I’m going completely out of the box with my costume, which will be pretty funny,” he said. And as a first, there will also be snacks for purchase outside. “We’re going to have a snack shack with hot dogs, pretzels, popcorn and hot chocolate,” Conklin said, noting that as the haunted house becomes more popular, crowds can wait as long as half an hour to get inside.

With so many people coming through to help out or to experience the haunt, the BCVFD Haunted House has served as a good recruitment tool, especially when they can use more firehouse volunteers than ever. “Ever since we’ve started back after Covid, we’ve gotten a new member every year. We’ll either get a member from the past that came back to see it or someone who helped out as an actor and goes on to become fireman or EMT of the year. I myself came back in 2015. I was in Long Island, and I came back to the haunted house 10 years ago and now I’m the guy in charge of the place,” Conklin said.

The BCVFD Haunted House also serves as one of the firehouse’s main fundraisers for their operations. “With last year’s funds, we were able to buy two new sets of fire gear at $3,500 a piece,” Conklin said.

Hard at work on planning since September, the Haunted House committee is ready to get reactions out of their neighbors. “My favorite part are the reactions from the community. I love seeing everyone get excited for it and running out screaming but laughing after. It’s a rewarding experience to give something to the community that they are so much in love with, and they look forward to every year,” McIntyre said. She just hopes some reactions aren’t as intense as past years. “I once scared a grown man whose immediate reaction was to punch me in the throat,” McIntyre shared, giving an idea of just how scary the BCVFD Haunted House can get, for everyone. “He felt so horrible after, but I was able to scare a 6’3” man. People you wouldn’t expect to get scared are horrified,” she said.

With that, they do offer different levels of scare depending on who is coming through. “We have code words to dull it down a bit if someone says they’re really scared, but if we get older kids saying, ‘I’m not scared,’ we amp it up a bit,” Conklin said.

So let the BCVFD guide your scare level this Halloween. The Haunted House (15 Noel Road) in Broad Channel is open to all on Wednesday, October 29 through Sunday, November 2, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on 10/29, 10/30 and 11/2, and until 11 p.m. on 10/31 and 11/01.