"Light rain or shine. Space is limited, please register to save your spot."
That line comes from the Whaling Museum's listing for Harbor Haunts, its Main Street ghost walk on Friday, October 16. It also describes most of the season. Between now and Thanksgiving, the busiest stretch on Main Street and Route 25A runs in the evenings and on Sunday afternoons, not at summer's daytime pace. Most of it needs a ticket and a spot booked ahead. Laurel Hollow sits on the western shore of Cold Spring Harbor, and for its residents the head of the harbor works as a downtown. This fall, the dates that matter most come two to three weeks before the events.
Deadlines That Come First
The museum's fall and winter hours are Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The calendar has a few exceptions, and missing them is easy. In date order, the dates that decide the rest of the month are:
- Thursday, October 8. Crafts & Cocktails: Hair-Raising Keepsakes, at 6:30 p.m. It is the first adult evening of the season.
- Monday, October 12. The museum adds a Monday opening from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., outside its usual Thursday-to-Sunday schedule.
- Thursday, October 15. The early-bird children's price for Haunted Boo-seum ends. Tickets bought by this date are $15. At the door they are $20.
- Friday, October 16. Harbor Haunts runs at 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Each time has its own registration link.
- Thursday, October 22, through Saturday, October 24. The museum closes to set up, apart from one adult event on the Friday night.
Nearly every item on that list is a ticket, a cutoff or a closure. Not one is a drop-in afternoon.
One Friday, Three Ways to Spend It
October 16 is the busiest evening of the fall at 301 Main Street. From 5 to 7 p.m., the museum runs Lights Out! After Dark Adventure for children and families. With the lights off, visitors search the exhibits with blacklight for glowing skulls hidden around the galleries, and finding all of them earns a prize. The workshop then makes glow-in-the-dark crafts. The program is included with admission.
Harbor Haunts overlaps it. Each walk starts at the museum and covers "fascinating tales of mishaps and historic hauntings on Main Street." The museum recommends it for adults and children 8 and older. Tickets are $15, or $10 for members. The listing doesn't name stops or stories, so the route will be a surprise even to people who walk Main Street every week. Main Street does have older ghost lore on record. A 2011 Patch account linked several stories to the building once known as the Van Ausdall Hotel and the Old Whaler, later Harbor Mist. Whether any of it is on this year's route, only the guides know.
The two schedules suit a household with children of different ages. Younger children can do the blacklight hunt inside while older ones and adults take the 5 p.m. walk, and both groups finish around the same time. The 6:30 p.m. walk starts after the indoor program has ended.
The Week the Museum Goes Dark
The midweek closure from October 22 to 24 is setup for a single evening. On Friday, October 23, from 7 to 10 p.m., the museum hosts Ghosts in the Galleries: A Night of Victorian Mischief. It is for adults only. The program includes tales of cursed collections, a Victorian-style séance, and a spirit photo printed for guests to keep. A cocktail or mocktail and light refreshments are included. Tickets are $25, or $20 for members.
The October 8 program follows the same Victorian theme. Hair-Raising Keepsakes explains why Victorians wove human hair into mourning jewelry and keepsakes. Guests then make a small keepsake box to take home, with a drink in hand. It costs $35, or $25 for members. Together, the two events give the adult side of the museum's October a theme that runs through the month. Nineteenth-century mourning customs make a fitting subject for a museum built around a nineteenth-century industry.
Sunday the 25th Stacks Up
Two calendars that have nothing to do with each other meet on the last Sunday of the month. Haunted Boo-seum: Ghost Edition runs at the Whaling Museum from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It has a Potions Master, a Fortune Teller, live sea animals in "Davy Jones' Locker," a Ghost Lab for mixing ectoplasm, a Phantom Photo Booth, face painting and crafts. Adult tickets are $10 and senior tickets $5, and adult and senior members get in free.
Boo-seum ends at 3 p.m., the same time Concerts by the Pond starts its second program of the 2026–27 season at St. John's Church, 1670 Route 25A. Duo Karolina & Iwo, from Poland, present "An Afternoon in a European Café." The two events don't overlap, but there is no gap between them. A family morning at the museum and an afternoon concert can fit into the same Sunday only with some planning ahead.
The Full Calendar, October 8 to November 21
| Date | Time | Event | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Oct 8 | 6:30 p.m. | Crafts & Cocktails: Hair-Raising Keepsakes | Whaling Museum | $35, members $25 |
| Fri, Oct 16 | 5 to 7 p.m. | Lights Out! After Dark Adventure | Whaling Museum | Included with admission |
| Fri, Oct 16 | 5 and 6:30 p.m. | Harbor Haunts walking tour | Starts at Whaling Museum | $15, members $10 |
| Sat, Oct 17 | 11 a.m. and noon | Paint a Pumpkin | Fish Hatchery | Advance registration |
| Fri, Oct 23 | 7 to 10 p.m. | Ghosts in the Galleries | Whaling Museum | $25, members $20 |
| Sun, Oct 25 | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Haunted Boo-seum: Ghost Edition | Whaling Museum | Kids $15 early, $20 at door |
| Sun, Oct 25 | 3 p.m. | Duo Karolina & Iwo | St. John's Church | See Concerts by the Pond |
| Wed, Oct 28 | 6:30 p.m. | Beyond the Book: Whalefall | Whaling Museum | $15, free for members and partner-library patrons |
| Sat, Nov 7 | 11 a.m. and noon | Build a Wood Bird Feeder | Fish Hatchery | Advance registration |
| Thu, Nov 12 | 6:30 p.m. | Crafts & Cocktails: Corn Husk Figures | Whaling Museum | $35, members $25 |
| Sun, Nov 15 | 1 and 3 p.m. | Pickle Party! workshop and tasting | Whaling Museum | $15 plus admission, members $10 |
| Wed, Nov 18 | 6:30 p.m. | Beyond the Book: Gales of November | Whaling Museum | $15, free for members and partner-library patrons |
| Sat, Nov 21 | 11 a.m. and noon | Decorate a Ceramic Turkey | Fish Hatchery | Advance registration |
The book discussions cost the least of anything on the calendar for people who already hold a library card. The October 28 session on Daniel Kraus's novel Whalefall and the November 18 session on John U. Bacon's Gales of November, about the Edmund Fitzgerald, are both free for museum members. They are also free for patrons of the Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington and South Huntington libraries. Everyone else pays $15. The Whalefall talk will cover the real science behind the novel, including sperm whale anatomy.
Where the Evening Ends
Every adult program on the list begins at 6:30 or 7 p.m., so dinner falls on one side of it or the other. Three Main Street places have current evidence that they are open in 2026.
- Sandbar, 55 Main Street. Its site lists a FourLeaf Best of Long Island 2026 award, and Newsday included it in its 2026 guide to standout burgers on Long Island.
- Grasso's, 134 Main Street. The restaurant keeps a live-music calendar that is current through this fall, so check it before choosing a night.
- Sweetie Pies on Main, 181 Main Street. The café lists daily hours and online ordering. It marked its 15th anniversary in May 2025.
On October 16, the 5 p.m. walk leaves time for an early dinner afterward, and the 6:30 p.m. walk works best after one. For the Thursday Crafts & Cocktails evenings, the museum provides the drink, and the restaurant can follow.
November Slows Down
After Halloween, the calendar thins out and moves earlier in the day. The Fish Hatchery's craft sessions for children run on Saturdays at 11 a.m. and noon: painting pumpkins on October 17, building wood bird feeders on November 7, and decorating ceramic turkeys on November 21. All of them require advance registration. The Nature Conservancy directs visitors to St. John's Pond Preserve through the hatchery entrance and then toward St. John's Church. That makes a walk around the pond an easy addition to a craft morning.
The museum's November is gentler. Corn Husk Figures on November 12 covers the Indigenous agricultural roots of the corn husk doll and comes with an apple-infused "Golden Harvest" cocktail or mocktail. The November 15 Pickle Party marks National Pickle Day with a look at what whalers ate at sea. Each participant leaves with a decorated jar of pickles they made.
For daylight hours, Uplands Farm Sanctuary is open every day from dawn to dusk and has nearly 2.5 miles of marked trails. The hiking trails and parking field at Cold Spring Harbor State Park are open year-round from sunrise to sunset. The trails need no reservation. The events in the table above need nearly all of theirs by mid-October.
At Cottie Maxwell, I get to know the head of the harbor the way its neighbors do, one season at a time, from a Friday ghost walk to a Sunday concert by the pond. If you would like to talk about Laurel Hollow and the places that make up its week, I would be glad to sit down with you. Schedule a private consultation with Cottie.
