At the entrance, you’re greeted by two giant skeletons, “welcoming” you to Boney Island. If you decide to enter, you’ll walk along a garden path lined with carved pumpkins and lit-up skeletons doing all sorts of things: drinking, using slingshots, doing handstands.
Further along, you’ll find bowling pins wrapped like mummies and dinosaur skeletons, much like the real ones inside the museum.
Amy Hood, a spokesperson for the Natural History Museum, said, “We want visitors to enjoy this amazing natural garden in the middle of South LA, and we want them to come back to the museum and feel welcome here.”
The annual attraction returns for the second year tonight to the museum’s Nature Gardens and runs through Halloween. It occurs most weekends from Thursday through Sunday, with a select few Wednesdays. Boney Island is open to all ages. And while USC students receive free admission to the museum with their USC ID, admission to Boney Island is not included. General admission for the attraction is $25 dollars.
Engineer Rex Danyluk, the co-creator of Boney Island, described what the goal of the event is, “So many times, Halloween haunts are geared to one segment. Maybe it’s for young adults who want to jump out in scares, in the hockey mask and chainsaws, or the little kids who want the pumpkin patches. We’re trying to bridge it all together so the whole family can come to event and had some great memories and have something to laugh about and enjoy together.”
According to Danyluk, Boney Island started out in 2001 at the home of The Simpsons producer Rick Polizzi as a front-yard display. It was then moved to Griffith Park but was suspended during the COVID-19 shutdown.
“Before COVID, I think that Boney Island was really, really growing and had this wonderful neighborhood cult following. And we’re so happy that those people came along with Boney Island to the Natural History Museum,” Hood said. “It was very well received, very popular and brought back by popular demand.”
Danyluk has high hopes for what the event will be like this year. He described a few new additions.
“We’re always adding props here and there, but some of the bigger additions this year is a robot dog that walks around and can interact with people. That’s been very popular,” said Danyluk. “But the biggest addition is an area called Skeletown. And that’s where you get to walk up a residential street, a business street, and you get to see skeletons and how they live and how they act in their in their day to day lives. And it’s kind of fun.
Both Hood and Danyluk said that attendees shouldn’t miss the fortune teller.