Franklin Street Halloween grown at home

When UNC students celebrate Halloween, a visit to Franklin Street is often at the top of their lists — but it wasn’t always this way.

Missy Julian-Fox, longtime resident of Chapel Hill and director of UNC Visitors’ Center, said she’s seen a gradual evolution of the way Halloween has been celebrated in Chapel Hill.

“Halloween, when I was growing up, was absolutely a neighborhood thing, not a Franklin Street thing,” she said. “The holiday has exploded in so many ways and really changed the way people operate on the holiday.”

Julian-Fox’s parents, Mary and Maurice Julian, formerly owned and operated Julian’s clothing store on Franklin Street. She said she remembers how residents used to come in on Halloween asking for last minute costume help.

John Woodard, owner of Sutton’s Drug Store, said the event used to be all about the family.

“In the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, it used to be a huge family affair,” he said. “The parents would dress up and come down.”

Woodard said before the invention of smartphones, Sutton’s would stay open later on Halloween so residents could buy disposable cameras. The store also sold Halloween costumes. Now, the store closes at its regular time.

Julian-Fox said Halloween on Franklin Street developed into what it is today due to a grassroots effort from the students who wanted a place to go and see one another dressed up.

“I think students are what made it legendary,” she said.

Julian-Fox said even though it has become a student-focused event, local residents are still a big part of it.

Chapel Hill police Chief Chris Blue said he remembers attending the event in middle school.

“The tone of the event hasn’t changed drastically, but certainly the scale has changed.”

Matt Sullivan, the Chapel Hill interim fire chief, said he remembers seeing people parading around on Franklin Street on Halloween in their costumes when he was in high school.

“I remember at that point it being a community event,” he said. “By the time I started working in public safety in the 1980s, the event started to grow.”

The size of the event grew and grew until it reached its peak of 80,000 attendees in 2007. The following year, the event was officially given the name “Homegrown Halloween.”

“Giving it a name was to indicate that we were looking toward a smaller, more local and safer event,” Catherine Lazorko, town spokesperson, said.

Changes since 2008 include establishing a set end time at 11 p.m. and spreading the word that attending is difficult for those coming from out of town due to parking and traffic concerns.

“A lot of people that come to Chapel Hill have a mistaken conception that it’s a planned event, like Festifall, but it’s not,” she said.

Each year, in preparation for the event, CHPD holds a training exercise that simulates a Halloween night on Franklin Street. Around 30 officials sit around a table and rehearse how they’ll manage the event. Preparation begins only days after the previous Halloween ends.

“You know how in the movies there is a command post with all of these people sitting around with telephones and computers?” Blue said. “That’s what it’s like.”

Blue said he’s worked at CHPD for 18 years and, like many other public safety officials, he said he’s never spent a Halloween at home with family because of the event.

Lazorko said the event requires a workforce of 200 to 700 people, including law enforcement, firefighters, parking attendants and parks and recreation employees.

Blue said recently, regulating alcohol consumption brought on by the event has been the biggest challenge.

“That’s the kind of stuff that makes the event less fun for me,” he said.

Sullivan said the increase in safety concerns for the celebration could be a result of the increase in attendees.

“Anytime you get more people, the chances of having a problem increase,” he said. “It’s not just the human intention problem — larger crowds bring larger problems.”

Julian-Fox said as the Halloween event expanded in size and scope, Franklin Street became the place to be.

“You couldn’t miss Franklin Street on Halloween — it was Grand Central.”

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