A towering Phoenix is the key element of the Halloween display that West Hartford resident Matt Warshauer has created in front of his North Main Street home.

By Ronni Newton

West Hartford resident Matt Warshauer said last year that he would still put up a Halloween display in 2025, but pledged that it that after more than two decades it would not be political commentary. While he had said the same thing the previous year the timing wasn’t right with the 2024 presidential election underway – an election he said was pivotal to the trajectory of the American democracy – and he couldn’t resist an expression of his opinion through his Halloween tableau.

In 2025, he stayed true to his commitment to steer clear of political issues – at least in an overt way – with a striking, dramatic, and larger-than life Halloween display.

“It’s not because I don’t care,” Warshauer told We-Ha.com. “It is out of respect for my wife and her concerns – and what I have put her through for 20-plus years. And I do think it’s demonstrably more dangerous,” he added, noting the rise in violence associated with what should be protected free speech.

“For a long time, lots of folks thought I was being over the top,” Warshauer said, exaggerating what he perceived as threats to the survival of the United States’ democratic system. While the federal courts – although not the Supreme Court – seem to be holding the line, he said, since taking office Trump has has violated many critical tenets, including the Sedition Act and the Alien Enemies Act, and desensitized many members of the public to the use of military in cities.

“I’ve studied this stuff,” said Warshauer, who is a professor and political historian at Central Connecticut State University and has spent his career studying and teaching about the constitution as well as the Civil War. He doesn’t believe that the current political situation changed just with the last election, but rather has been a slow and steady progression over the past few decades.

“What more can I do in a display?” he said. “I’ve done the death of democracy, the rise of fascism. What more can I do? … We’re there,” he said. And while since 2018 (when the theme was the death of democracy) he has offered a panel for people to share their comments, and likes providing that opportunity, it’s become more and more filled with hate speech.

Although there’s still a touch of horror to this year’s display – it is Halloween after all – the more subtle theme is intended to inspire at least a little bit of hope.

“I have made a phoenix,” said Warshauer.

The giant, flame-colored mythical bird – with a wingspan of 18 feet – has risen in the front yard of his North Main Street home. It’s lit up at night, and sways in the wind.

“It represents rebirth. I hope that we will have, in the medium- and long-term, a stronger democracy, that we will wake up from this moment,” he said.

Warshauer has bamboo growing in his yard, and he harvested some of it to make the phoenix’s body as well as the pole that holds it aloft. The body is covered with painted landscaping fabric. The head is carved out of styrofoam, and adorned with peacock feathers.

Other elements of the display include skeletons wrapped around a large tree in the front yard, illuminated at night by fiery lighting, along with traditional Halloween decor of pumpkins, tombstones, skulls, and other ghoulish figures.

Warshauer said he’s not ready to mark the complete death of democracy while people are still protesting, rights are being upheld by judges.

And it’s ironic, he noted, that what’s happening in the country is taking place as the U.S. is about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Warshauer said he considered adding an artist statement this year, including the iconic words from President Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address: “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely, they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” He also hopes people will read George Washington’s Farewell Address, which includes a very clear warning about the dangers of partisanship and the influence of foreign powers.

But he decided to avoid an overt statement, to leave this year’s Halloween display unnamed, and the message unstated.

“From my perspective I hope this is a little bit of hope, that democracy will rise from the firestorm,” Warshauer said.

Past years, and how to view the display

Warshauer has always loved decorating for Halloween, but his first political Halloween display was in 2003, about the Iraqi War.

Last year featured the Statue of Liberty, and the 2023 “Untied States funhouse” display had multiple themes, and interactive games.

The 2022 display was the Ukraine War, and in 2021 Warshauer featured skeletons staging a simulation of the Capitol insurrection, which prompted quite a bit of commentary.

In 2020 Warshauer tackled two issues – which he said were both equally important and alarming – COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. Four of his previous displays, he said, were actually a prologue to that one:

• The 2019 display that had a SCOTUS theme, with images of all nine skeleton-headed justices peering down from behind a wall, with panels describing seven Supreme Court decisions that Warshauer considered to have had the most profound influence on our lives and the democracy.
• In 2018, the theme was the “death of democracy,” and for the first time Warshauer gave passersby a chance to comment.
• In 2017 there was a sinking pirate ship of state – the threat of tyrants, Warshauer called it.
• The 2014 display was the fall of Rome, and  included a replica of the Roman Colosseum.

Of all his displays, Warshauer said the most complicated to construct was the pirate ship in 2017. The “Trump wall” in 2016 garnered national, and even international, attention.

Warshauer’s house is located at 115 North Main St. in West Hartford, just north of Fern Street. There is no parking on North Main Street, but parking is available on some other side streets, including Hilltop Drive.

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