This holiday wonderland is hidden inside a Manhattan parking garage
It’s chalet parking.
The manager of an Upper East Side parking garage has turned the subterranean space into a winter wonderland called Frosty’s Village with thousands of lights, miniature trains, a hidden Yeti and even a functional ski lift.
“My kids are my customers’ children and the neighborhood kids coming over,” said Javier Sanchez, who manages the underground parking at Continental Towers on East 79th Street. “You just can’t imagine how much joy I get seeing them screaming and melting in front of my village. It pays off all the effort. It is a special feeling.”
Sanchez has been doing elaborate Christmas decorations since 2011, but this year’s colossal display — a $2,500 creation funded entirely by the Queens man and his six coworkers — is the most elaborate yet.
“For the first time, I did a 100% handmade ski lift,” Sanchez, 53, told The Post. “I had to come up with how to make one because to buy one would be too expensive.”
The dedicated artisan used tiny metal parts affixed to wood to build the chairlifts and green insulated wire for the overhead cable.
“After trying and failing, trying and failing, I was able to come up with a final result,” Sanchez said.
The majestic landscape also boasts five train tracks, an illuminated circus ride, an ice skating rink and a small river with a bridge comprised of prefabricated parts Sanchez perfected over 13 years.
“The bridge in the back is 100% handmade,” he said. “The walls, the fences, the mountain itself, the rocks back there – I painted and reshaped them to look like that.”
Sanchez, a Los Angeles native whose family hails from Colombia, credited his wife, Madeleine, for helping him refine his ideas and finalize color schemes. The couple also have a “private” Disney-themed holiday town in their home, but Frosty’s Village truly warms Javier’s heart.
“The idea first came up as we were standing here in the garage,” he recalled. “We had Christmas coming and I did a little display. Then we dreamed about having a train go around the pipes in the garage.”
But the garage’s sprinkler system, as well as fire department regulations, scuttled that plan.
“So we came up with a little train over a sheet of plywood,” Sanchez said of the 2011 effort. “We had a battery-operated train and it just got bigger each season.”
His handcrafted display is also interactive, challenging visitors to find a Yeti figurine lurking within the landscape. Anyone who finds the mythical beast gets a lollipop.
“He’s not really hiding – he blends in with the mountain,” he explained.
The display takes inspiration from European mountain villages as well as the Himalayas, where legendary Yetis purportedly roamed.
“But,” Sanchez said proudly, “it is made in America.”
