A striking political Halloween display has become the talk of a quiet, elm-lined block on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
For several days, a five-foot effigy of Melania Trump has hung above the brownstones on East 81st Street, wrapped in a spider’s web as a red-eyed tarantula appears ready to consume it.
“It’s very subtle,” Kevin Hyman, the sculpture’s creator, told Our News Outlet after stepping out from a $12.5 million townhouse behind the webbing on Tuesday.
“I spray-painted gray over her face so it wouldn’t be as vibrant as her usual makeup,” he said. “Her normal makeup and plastic surgery are quite startling, so this tones down the surgery.”
Hyman, a 67-year-old New Yorker who grew up in Michigan, said the display began with a discarded mask of the First Lady’s face that he found on the sidewalk five years ago.
He assembled the display in about 20 minutes “just for fun,” combining a furry spider toy from Target with a cocoon purchased from Amazon.
A message fastened to the chrysalis reads, “I REALLY DON’T sCARE,” a play on the controversial Zara jacket Melania wore during a 2018 visit to a child migrant detention center in Texas.
Melania addressed the jacket controversy in her 2024 memoir, saying the words “I really don’t care, do u?” were “a message for the media” intended “to let them know I was unconcerned with their opinions of me.”
Kevin Hyman, 67, created the controversial Halloween display showing Melania Trump apparently being devoured by a spider above Manhattan’s East 81st Street
The installation has split opinion among passersby. Some see it as an inventive Halloween prank, while others have called the effigy disrespectful to the First Lady
Although Hyman is plainly not a Melania supporter, he said the sculpture was not intended to deliver a specific political message.
“I think people can take their own message from it,” he said. “Maybe she’s being suffocated and silenced, or maybe she simply doesn’t care and is hanging around doing nothing. It makes people stop, think and enjoy the spectacle.”
“I’m having fun with Halloween and with the politics we have today,” Hyman added. “The politics we have today are about as frightening as Halloween itself.”
He said combining politics and Halloween was a way to entertain the neighborhood and bring people together. “People stop, talk and laugh. Some get angry. It has become a conversation piece for residents and tourists alike.”
Hyman said he became friends years ago with the 90-year-old artist who owns the five-story mansion in Florida and has spent the past decade working as the live-in general manager of her Manhattan property.
“She loves the sculpture,” he said, adding that hundreds of people stop to photograph it each day.
On Tuesday morning, reactions from pedestrians ranged from amusement to outrage.
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Several people pointed and laughed as the figure spun eerily in the breeze, intermittently exposing the First Lady’s face.
The sign attached to the cocoon says, “I REALLY DON’T sCARE,” referencing the Zara jacket Melania wore during a 2018 visit to a child migrant detention center in Texas
Former First Lady Melania Trump caused controversy with a jacket reading, “I really don’t care. Do u?” during a June 2018 visit to migrant children at the US-Mexico border. In her 2024 memoir, she said the message was aimed at the media
Hyman said he built the Melania-themed Halloween display in roughly 20 minutes “just for fun,” using a furry Target spider and a cocoon from Amazon
Hyman said he created the dummy on a whim after finding a discarded Melania mask on the sidewalk five years ago. The figure usually sits in the basement
Fans called the hanging figure “freaky” and “creative.” One neighbor said it was “the last thing I’m seeing” before heading to the polls for early voting in the midterm elections.
Not everyone was entertained. An elderly resident reacted angrily, telling Our News Outlet, “It’s an insult to her. There’s no point in doing something like this.”
“This is all hate, and it’s not what we should be promoting,” she said. “There has been too much vilification of our president, his wife and his family.”
Asked about the criticism, Hyman dismissed the display as “just a Halloween prank.” “If people think it’s disrespectful, that’s fine,” he said.
The flagpole supporting the suspended figure normally flies the American flag, Hyman said. He also uses it to mark other national occasions, including Pride Month, when it carries an LGBTQ+ rainbow banner.
The Upper East Side is known for elaborate Halloween decorations, and nearby brownstones were also transformed with witches, ghosts and spiders.
Hyman said the sculpture was not meant to carry one defined political message, despite his lack of admiration for Melania. “I think people can take their own message from it,” he said
Across the Upper East Side, residents embraced Halloween by decorating brownstones with witches, ghosts and spiders
A nearby home was turned into a sinister “asylum,” complete with skeleton patients
Two blocks away, a different property had been converted into a creepy “asylum” populated by skeleton patients, while another home featured an Alice in Wonderland-themed facade.
Still, Hyman’s display stood out as the neighborhood’s only overtly political Halloween attraction and appeared to draw the most attention.
He expects crowds to gather around the haunted Melania on Halloween night. “I’ll be ready with a bottle of bourbon for any trick-or-treaters,” he said.
