Petrichor & Pumpkins: My favorite haunted attractions - Haunted Happenings in Hartford, CT

In this post about my favorite Halloween/haunted house attractions, I'm featuring one in my top 3:

Haunted Happenings in Hartford, CT.

T H R O W B A C K T H U R S D A Y

TBH, for me, Haunted Happenings was one of the best things that happened in the 90s.

In the mid-90s, Hartford-area millionaire and philanthropist Arnold Chase got to live every home-haunter's dream - he loved Halloween and had the means to build the haunted attractions of his dreams without limitations. It was a pure labor of love for him. He had done haunts at his own home for about 10 years until the crowds became too large. His first off-home Halloween event that was titled as Haunted Happenings was in an old roller skating rink in East Hartford in October of 1993.

(I didn't go to that one, so I can't speak to what it was like or how good it was, and internet searching brings up almost nothing about it other than it existed: no pictures, no video, no news articles describing it.)

In October of 1994, also the first year I went, the Haunted Happenings I knew and loved so much was relocated to the former luxury department store G. Fox, an historic 11-storey Art Deco building that was a crown jewel shopping destination for not only Hartford but the entire state.

As I mentioned above, Chase loved Halloween, had money, and wasn't afraid to spend it. I don't know how much he invested in the attraction, but the entire thing was filled with state-of-the-art animatronics, lighting, special effects, and costuming in an over 100,000 square foot space. Even by today's standards, this shit was amazing. Chase was far and away ahead of his time, and went to conventions like Transworld to find the best effects and people in the industry. He had a Hollywood/theme park caliber attraction in a relatively nowhere location on the east coast. Even today, Haunted Happenings (a name now used by Salem, MA as the title of their general Halloween season events) is ranked as one of the best and most influential haunted attractions to have existed.

The best and purest creations are the ones done for love and not money, and Haunted Happenings was a prime example. Chase took a personal interest in how the attraction was planned & built, and worked on some of the construction himself, as he had a talent for electronics. He didn't intend to make a profit from his event, instead using the attraction as a fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association, a cause near and dear to him as he and at least one of his children were diabetic. He also was one of the first haunt attractions to also offer a Christmas/holiday themed attraction the Nov/Dec after his Halloween event.

And the love & enthusiasm he poured into Haunted Happenings was obvious in the sheer explosion of attendees that came out to see it. My first time seeing it was in October of 1994, its first year in Hartford. It was early in the month, and my friends and I hardly had to wait in line to get in. Each time we went after that, however, there was a multiple-hour wait. (If only we had the contemporary timed-ticket admission system back then...) And of course, the info about the haunt was all word of mouth, no internet and social media as we know them today. It was just that amazing.

Here's some of the things I remember most about the experience:

When you arrive, your journey began queuing up outside. As Haunted Happenings got more popular, the line would extend down the whole block and wrap around, so you might be waiting awhile.

(huge skull hanging on the side of the building's exterior)

Once you make it into the building, you find yourself in a wide open area with massive pillars, the remnants of G. Fox's glory days. It has that odd, eerie feeling of an abandoned building, even though there's a lot of activity bustling around you. Rumors abounded that the building was actually haunted, for real; I could absolutely believe it. When it's finally your turn to enter the haunted house, you're taken down an escalator to a lower floor by your group's tour guide, who remains with you throughout your journey. I don't remember these in the correct order, but some highlights are:

A "subway" ride with a simulated train - basically, a facade that looks like a subway car, but rocks back & forth to make you feel as though you've gone on a journey
A mine shaft full of black light with shifting floors and neon glowing orange ceiling supports that moved as though everything was about to collapse on you

A catacomb with glass floors, showing the restless dead writhing below your feet
A mad scientist/Dr. Frankenstein-esque character with real Tesla coil, Jacob's Ladder, plasma tubes, and other electric effects, plus realistic monster animatronic
A cornfield full of scarecrows and animatronic werewolves that would jump at you
A medieval style torture chamber
A gory dinner/cooking scene
Gas chamber and electric chair execution scenes
Copious amounts of fog machine fog - ahhh, how I'll always love that scent
Few, if any licensed characters - everything was original.
And -- the best ending to a haunted house that I've ever seen. The tour seems to come to an end and your guide brings you to the elevator to bring you back up to ground level. However, once activated, the elevator begins to shake, and the room around you crashes and bangs as though you are plunging down the elevator shaft, the emergency lights are flashing and alarms blaring. Suddenly it stops, and the doors open to reveal a vast red room: you've arrived in HELL with the devil there to greet you. THEN you're finally lead back upstairs, where you can peruse their well-stocked gift and Halloween costume & prop shop before you leave.

There were definitely tons more scenes and details that I'm forgetting, no doubt. Most of our visits there ended in a night of drinks and pub food at the now long-gone Brown Thompson bar & restaurant, which went out about the same year Haunted Happenings did.

Sadly, Haunted Happenings lasted only four years. Halloween 1997 was its last run (also the last of Chase's holiday attractions, too). The city of Hartford had made a deal around that time with a development firm which had plans to renovate the G. Fox building into other businesses. Chase hoped he would eventually be able to continue at another location, but that sadly never came to pass. All of the Haunted Happenings assets were eventually sold at auction.

Weirdly, a video surfaced last year or so, labeling itself as an auction video, but has (very low res) video that's almost a complete walkthrough of the entire tour - which you can watch below. It also contains TV spots and ads for it at the beginning of the video. Needless to say, I was pretty much beside myself when I first found it - so many great memories.