When we talk about Halloween in NYC, we have to say that the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade is so 20th century. A Brooklyn haunted house showcasing professional scarers is what you'll really want to check out this season.

The Gravesend Inn Haunted Hotel is a yearly production by the New York City College of Technology as a departmental project in "entertainment technology"—the kind of training that would prepare you to work on a Cirque de Soleil show in Vegas or be a Disney Imagineer. The hotel is designed to "sense" and respond to visitors; for more on that, check out an engineer's inside take on what makes it run. Last year's production imagined a hotel buried over a sailors' graveyard haunted by vengeful pirate ghosts; will it be zombies (or zombie Michael Jacksons this year? ]]> egw 2009-10-19T17:33:40-05:00 40.6987270 -73.987100 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/21/10157/3415

Financial site Mint.com has just released their 2009 list of "The Most Frugal Cities In America," charting the drop in discretionary spending for major American cities over the last 12 months. The data has all kinds of obscure and interesting information, from who spends the most on books to where residents are likely to drop cash on sporting goods.

We picked the weirdest data point from that last category and discovered that San Francisco ranks fourth on sporting goods, beating out a bunch of places where people buy boats, hunting gear, and camping equipment. Apparently whoever's selling cross-trainers to yuppies is making a killing.

The national drop in spending was an eye-popping 13%, which should provide our nation's totally hosed airlines a little bit of miserable company. Brooklyn led the way with a 28% decrease in total discretionary spending, a dip that future historians will undoubtedly refer to as "The Great Trust Fund Bust of 2009."]]> Omri 2009-09-21T16:33:56-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/28/142818/704

· Brooklyn
He might be gone, but he is definitely not forgotten; tomorrow is Michael Jackson's 51st birthday, and Spike Lee is calling all five boroughs of New York City to come to Brooklyn's Prospect Park to celebrate. Happening between 12pm and 5pm in the Nethermead Meadow, MJ's birthday party will be a fest of DJs spinning his music and more. Expect lots of single gloves, glittery socks with loafers, and much chanting of "ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sa."]]> JetSetCD 2009-08-28T16:29:42-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/26/1244/09526

Globetrotters who consider shopping a touristy gimmick are probably thinking more about Duty-Free boutiques at the airport, or landmark-shaped tchotchkes that fanny pack-wearing travelers just love to hoard. Then there's a clique of plastic-toting trippers who carve out quality time for retail indulgence. These hard-core consumers come back with heavier suitcases and cool keepsakes from their time away. That means no "I Went to [Blank], and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" shirts.

Jaunted's favorite shopping 'hoods are those that the locals frequent as much as savvy out-of-towners—places that have everything from the chicest clothes by local designers to uncommon home wares. We're less interested in the obscene glitz of Rodeo Drive than we are with destinations that have something unique to offer, like our suggestions below.

Jaunted's Favorite Local Shopping, Around the World, after the jump. ]]> Heidi Atwal 2009-08-27T09:24:42-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/20/20319/4352

Certain Brooklynites we know have been rather put out by the filming of "Eat, Pray, Love," the adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling travel memoir starring Julia Roberts as a woman who takes three different trips in a year to get over a destructive divorce.

Well, buckle down everyone as we can expect more movie trailers in, say, 2011: Gilbert's second memoir Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage hits stores in early 2010, and a movie version can't be far behind.

For the four of you who haven't read it yet, Eat, Pray, Love ends with Gilbert finding love in her final destination of Bali, with a Brazilian-born Australian played by Javier Bardem in the movie. Committed sees Gilbert and her lover contemplate getting hitched after he gets detained by the Department of Homeland Security after a trip to France, and then take off across southeast Asia while pondering the question of popping the question. Further spoiler alert: They totally got married at the end. ]]> egw 2009-08-21T09:04:38-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/1/28/181820/821

We had a hunch Brooklyn street art has been on the rise recently, as the borough's been looking a little more back-in-the-day every time we turn a corner. Now we've got the stats to prove it—the NYPD reports graffiti complaints are up 20 percent since 2007.

While the police frame this as yet another downside of the struggling economy, we say: bring it on! A little spray-painting and wheat-pasting never hurt anyone.

And the best part is the NYPD even offers up a handy hardcore travel tip—the most freqeuently graffitti'd building in all of New York is the middle school on Starr Avenue in Bushwick. The school, of course, is hardly amused, but why not embrace it? Most Tagged Building in NYC is quite the title—why not quit all that scrubbing and just invite tourists and start charging admission?

· Brooklyn's losing battles in the war vs. graffiti taggers [NYDN]
· Recession Culture: Skip Museums For Brooklyn's Street Art [Jaunted]
· Street Art coverage [Jaunted]

Photo: [mercurialn] ]]> BS 2009-01-29T09:30:57-05:00 40.7007261 -73.927463 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/8/24/1335/42664

Hitchsters.com, the online ride-sharing site for NYC-area airports, is expanding into Brooklyn next week. The service, which hooks you up with stingy strangers looking to split cab fare, will now partner with a Brooklyn-based car service, making trips to LGA and JFK easier for the heaps of travelers who aren't headed to Manhattan.

As we've mentioned before, taking a cab is usually something we do to avoid people: If we want to meet strangers, we'll take the subway. But for Brooklynites--who don't have cabs whizzing past at all hours--splitting a ride could make a lot of sense. And if things go nicely in NYC, Hitchsters plans to expand its reach beyond the city. Might we suggest Las Vegas--and its massive cab queue--next?

Related Stories:
· Hitchsters Offers Taxi Awkwardness to the Masses [Jaunted]
· Get Hitched to a Stranger [Jaunted]
· Hitchsters.com [Official Site]]]> pbb 2007-08-24T15:30:01-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/