Downtown Joliet gets into the Halloween spirit

Ghouls and Ghostbusters roamed the streets of downtown Joliet on Wednesday night, creating a business friendly atmosphere on the eve before Halloween.

Called Spirits with the Spirits, it was a night of costume contests, tarot card readings, menus with Halloween themes, and other attractions aimed at bringing new people into downtown businesses.

“I love this night,” Michele Birk, owner of the Nail Inn Academy said. “It’s very busy tonight. It’s a great event.”

Birk’s business may have been busy in part because her 12-year-old grandson, Jackson Rivera, was on the sidewalk costumed as a phantom and coaxing people through the door to for tarot card readings and crystals samplings.

“We flew him up from Florida because he works so hard,” Birk said of her grandson from Jacksonville, Florida.

Melissa Collins of Orland Park led a dance performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on the front lawn of the Joliet Public Library under the statue of Louis Joliet.

Collins said she was invited to teach the dance at the library before the performance because she includes it every October in Zumba classes that she leads.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Collins said of the experience dancing on the library lawn.

Collins said she may go to a tarot card reading later.

“I’m going to see what my future will hold to know whether I should go back to the casino or not,” she said, pointing to Harrah’s Casino down the street.

Cean Magosky exhibited books he and other family members wrote of Joliet architectural history at the Black Cat Curiosities, an antique shop with a name made for Halloween.

His presentations had a Halloween connection, Magosky said, pointing to his latest book about buildings in Joliet designed by F.S. Allen. A house on Allen street designed by Allen is recognized as “one of the most haunted houses in the state,” Magosky said.

Miriam Ibarra, owner of Colibri, where she normally does Reiki therapy and Biofield turning, had a tarot card reader and astrologer in the shop and offered visitors hors d’oeuvres.

Spirits with the Spirits offered a chance to introduce her business to people she otherwise would not see, Ibarra said.

“It’s great,” Ibarra said of the evening. “We’ve had a lot of people come in.”

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