Another trick-or-treating destination is an Embassy Row neighbor – the home of University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg.

With a few neighborhood children and about 10 GW students stopping by each year, trick-or-treating traffic at the Trachtenbergs isn’t normally very heavy.

“We have a couple of buckets of candy bars,” Trachtenberg said. “You know, the mini Snickers bars and the coconut ones.”

Trachtenberg, who does not plan to dress up this year, said he has not worn a costume for the holiday since he came to D.C. in 1988. His last dress-up days were when he was president of Hartford University in Connecticut, when his children were younger. One of his last costumes was, appropriately, a university president – complete with a bowtie and stovepipe hat.

If you were trick-or-treating with little Trachtenberg where he grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., you had better have watched your back. A trick-or-treating tradition in his old neighborhood involved filling a sock with flour and smacking people on their backs if they didn’t forfeit some of their candy.

“In those days, we used to play a little rough,” he said.

These days, students can just expect some good, old-fashioned Halloween candy if they go trick-or-treating with the president.

Directions to SJT’s house

1. Head out on 22nd Street going toward
Dupont Circle
2. After walking about eight blocks, take a
left on Massachusettes Avenue
3. Go through an intersection and then
go right on 24th Street.
4. Take a right on Bancroft Place (his house is
at 2241).
5. Trick-or-treat!

-Caitlin Carroll