Neighborhood Roundup

Fall-o-Ween Children’s Festival’ Coming Oct. 22 to the Common

Acting Mayor Kim Janey and the Boston Parks and Recreation Department will sponsor its ‘Fall-o-Ween Children’s Festival” at the Boston Common Parade Ground (near the corner of Beacon and Charles streets) on Friday, Oct. 22, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Adults and children are encouraged to wear Halloween costumes and participate in a wide range of fun and spooky family activities. Test your skills and courage to find your way out of the Haunted Fun House Maze, hop on the train hosted by Cabot Creamery Co-operative, and make your way over to our glow in the dark play space for some nighttime fun featuring LED  illuminated swings, seesaws, and cornhole. Join LEGOLAND® Discovery Center Boston to  build a LEGO® pumpkin for our pumpkin patch and learn how to build spooky creatures with  Lego Master Model Builder, Sean. Enjoy exciting acts from the Boston Circus Guild with  performances by an aerial artist and stilt walker between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.

This free family-friendly event will also include glow-in-the-dark games, children’s crafts, scarily delicious snacks and refreshments provided by Cabot Cheese, Dunkin’, and HP Hood  LLC. Join Harvard University’s Stress & Development lab for fun games focused on learning  about the brain and how we think. A monster mash of activities will include a visit from the  Massachusetts Horticulture Society, the Mass. Audubon Society, an art activity with the Mayor’s  Mural Crew, and other fun fall and Halloween activities.

For more information, visit http://ow.ly/uqDl50GfyvQ.

Halloween Talk Recalls History of Leverett Street Jail

The West End Museum presents “Ghosts in the Museum: The Leverett Street Jail,” a Halloween talk presented by Duane Lucia, the museum’s president and curator, on Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 150 Staniford St., Suite 7.

Located approximately where the West End Museum is today, the Leverett Street Jail served as the city and county prison for some three decades in the mid-19th century (1822–1851). The institution was a flashpoint for such hotbed issues as capital punishment, slavery and abolitionism, blasphemy, and women’s rights. The Jail was infamous for overcrowding and intermingling inmates with no regard for severity of crime. Seven of 10 women incarcerated there were innocent, arrested purely on the word of others for such offenses as speaking out about politics. Numerous executions by hanging took place within its walls, in close proximity to West End residences; one newspaper wrote: “A clear view of the execution could be witnessed from a dozen houses on Lowell Street, and one building at the end of Wall Street. The windows of these houses were filled with persons of both sexes, and on the back sheds were crowded boys and girls, and men and women of all ages. People swarmed upon the tops of buildings, and outside the jail, where no possible view could be obtained…”

Admission to the event is free with a costume, and tickets are available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ghosts-in-the-museum-the-leverett-street-jail-tickets-182922735827.

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