Every year in downtown New York, in the week or two leading up to Halloween, you can always find a flock of people waiting in line on 4th Avenue—the queue sometimes snaking around the block to 10th Street. The last-minute shoppers are all waiting to peruse two specific stores: Halloween Adventure , a traditional kitschy costume shop, and Gothic Renaissance , a staple goth boutique open since 1999 that has since become a hot spooky season destination, too.

This year, Gothic Renaissance is already busier than ever. “It becomes a mad house around Halloween,” says Lili O, a senior stylist at the store. “It’s going to be insane this week—we’ve already started cutting lines on the weekends.” Though it is not a store that was specifically built with Halloween in mind, the shop has become a c

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