Charlie And The Giant, Accidental, Park Slope Pumpkin

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Charlie Pigott never intended to have a 1,000 pound pumpkin sitting on his Eighth Avenue stoop, but that's how life goes sometimes.

"This is the replacement pumpkin," he said.

"The pumpkin we had originally reserved cracked," Pigott, a real estate broker at the Corcoran Group, explained, "so they asked if we wanted this one."

Pigott's stoop pumpkins aren't new — the Park Slope dad has been bringing large pumpkins to adorn his home, near Union Street, every fall for the last eight or so years, he said.

It's a tradition that started when his daughter, Elizabeth, was attending school in Connecticut. On one trip to pick her up, a large pumpkin caught Pigott's eye.

"Wow, look at that thing," Pigott recalls thinking at the time. "We gotta bring that back to Brooklyn."

Each year, Pigott — whose family has lived in Park Slope since 1885 — sought larger and larger pumpkins, but about four years ago, he got a pumpkin patch tip from his son, George, who now lives in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

"He told me they were twice the size," Pigott said, "so I told him: 'Great! Bring 'em in!"

For the last couple of years, George would bring a large pumpkin back to Brooklyn for his father to display.

Last year's pumpkin clocked in at 600 pounds, Pigott said, and the family made plans to reserve one for this season.

After learning that their reserved pumpkin had met its maker, Pigott asked his son: "Well, what do they got?"

His son replied that there was a crazy pumpkin, about 1,000 pounds, and he sent his father a picture.

Like with every other year, Pigott told his son to bring it to Brooklyn.

His son tried to explain, telling his dad that he didn't understand the extreme size and girth of the thing.

"'You can't,'" Pigott remembers his son telling him, "'It's too big.'"

"I told him, 'no, we'll figure it out,'" said Pigott.

Nothing prepared him for its size once he saw the beast inside of the U-Haul truck his son drove up from Pennsylvania.

Pigott quickly assembled a motley crew to somehow move this monstrous pumpkin.

"There were four of us," Pigott said, "and we couldn't handle it."

Pigott quickly recruited a friendly building super down the street, the two guys who paint the stoop every year and then called a friend, who ended up bringing two of his nephews as well, bringing team pumpkin up to 10 people.

Using furniture dollies and planks of wood, they finally got it up the stoop after two hours of joyful struggle, with Pigott screaming "push, push," or "watch the stem! Don't lose the stem!" to the team.

"Screaming in a kind way," he said.

During the struggle, some suggested displaying it on the sidewalk. Others said why not on the front area of the brownstone, and just avoid that set of stairs?

Pigott was determined. He even considered hacking off a wrought-iron latch from his front gate to better fit his treasured beast to its throne of hay.

Pumpkins this size are normally used in seasonal displays at big commercial venues — like at a hotel or the Four Seasons or Rockefeller Center — not a brownstone on a busy residential street.

A crowd had gathered, cheering the team on. One little boy with his mom sat and watched the whole show, Pigott said.

"It was like a communal thing," Pigott said, "it turned into a neighborhood event. We had a great time."

And now Pigott gets to enjoy watching the neighborhood examine his curiously-sized pumpkin.

Standing on the sidewalk, flocks of strangers couldn't help themselves from taking a look, some with questions.

"Is it real?" one asked.

"Go ahead and touch it," Pigott says.

"Can I take a picture?" said another.

"Of course," Pigott said, "you can sit on it if you want."

Another young neighbor walking with her mother stopped just to say: "I love your pumpkin."

After Thanksgiving, Pigott says he plans to chop the pumpkin up with an axe, maybe even making it into a composting event with the Sanitation Department.

One things for sure: Pigott has now tasted the life of the gargantuan pumpkin, and there's no going back.

He says next year, he plans to get a similarly sized pumpkin and hopes to turn it into a formal neighborhood event.

"It's the neighborhood's pumpkin," he said, "everybody comes, every age. People really, really dig it."

People even leave notes, urging Pigott to let them know when he plans to chop it up so they don't miss the show.

As the light faded on Eighth Avenue, one last young girl approached the pumpkin with her mother.

"We live two doors down," the mother said as her daughter approached the great pumpkin, "and she has to hug it every night before bed."