Leisure

Dark Shadows

Five Ways to Party This Halloween

It’s time to discuss Halloween. America’s Día de los Muertos. Childhood’s second favorite holiday (next to snow days). Thus, we present a wide cross section of the best places to throw a party on your terms. As always, don’t forget the candy corn...

PERFECT TEN

GrandTen Distillery’s Tasting Room

The Party: A 50-friend Halloween “Hey, why not” party. You’ll sample gin tastings set up by GrandTen’s bartenders, then wreak havoc on the full bar. Bonus: it’s also a warehouse, so feel free to bring a band. Nobody around for noise complaints.
The Crowd: Your buddies, colorful coworkers, gin enthusiasts.

FAVORITE HAUNT

The Orleans Inn

The Party: Just you and a brave companion who’ll appreciate a late-October date in a haunted hotel. But prepare to be interrupted: mysterious footsteps are regularly heard in Room 4. Another room has voices (caught on tape) saying, “Let me down.”
The Crowd: You and said date. And maybe a friend. For safety...

CHARLES BRONSON

Great Escape Restaurant

The Party: Full restaurant blowout with your entire company in a Clink-esque space that was once the oldest active hoosegow in the land (replete with original brick and granite, and iron bars, but no convicts). Three-course tastings, 160-person capacity. Maybe a few bad decisions.
The Crowd: The prison-y type. Tim Robbins. Martha Stewart. Etc.

HOTEL LIFE

Hawthorne Hotel Basement Library

The Party: Fellow lovers of leather-bound books, porthole windows and the kind of wood paneling you’d find on the lower deck of a ship. All located in the basement of one of Salem’s rumored haunted hotels.
The Crowd: Leggy singles from your sailing club Facebook group.

FIDELIO

Sixth-Floor Gallery at the Revere

The Party: A swanky, Eyes Wide Shut–esque black-tie soiree of satellite bars dispensing rivers of bubbly in a 10,000-square-foot, exposed-brick gallery housed on the sixth floor of the hotel. Oh, with ping-pong tables.
The Crowd: Healthy mix of blue bloods, Nicole Kidman doppelgängers and paddle jockeys.