SALEM, MASS. (WHDH) - The city of Salem was covered under a blanket of ghosts, goblins, and every other costume imagineable on Halloween.
“There’s no place like this, no place like this,” said one man sporting some spooky face paint.
“It’s the Halloween capital of the world,” said another man.
People from all over the U.S. gathered to be in the epicenter of the haunted happenings.
“We’re Texas girls!” said a group of women dressed as witches. “I know you can’t tell because we look so natural and we fit in so well here.”
A month-long festival filled with spine-chilling fun culminated Friday with tens of thousands of costume-clad visitors converging on the Witch City.
“Everyone’s looking to do something they haven’t done before, or be someone they haven’t been before,” said one man.
Officials have been bracing for the enormous crowds for months, employing street closures, parking restrictions, and doubling the amount of local and state police officers and K9s to make sure the festivities happen safely.
“Yes it’s barricaded off, it’s all very official, but it’s part of human nature that we all just need to connect and put on a mask and be someone else for a day,” said one woman.
About one million people have already visited the city this month, and organizers said the spooky celebrations should see a record of 50,000 to 80,000 visitors Friday.
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