Your Healthy Dose of New York History

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In the Spirit of Halloween, Places in New York You Should Tread a Bit More Lightly Around

^ me, relentlessly trying to get people to care about New York history with these newsletters

Can we quickly talk about how the recommended age for the Ouija board is 8+? You’re telling me that children with highly malleable minds, who still believe in Santa, don’t understand consequences, and haven’t seen The Exorcist yet, are allowed to sneak this demon summoning contraption into a sleepover, and then one moron, whose parents were too busy playing the Lotto to realize their kid was watching Hereditary, decides to call out to dark spirits, then fast forward a week, you’re relaxing with a glass of wine after a long day, and Samara from The Ring is crawling out of your TV, soaking your hard wood floors, just making a total mess and also coming to murder your family. Yet they’re banning books like The Catcher in the Rye from reading lists for 13-year-olds.

So clearly I believe in ghosts/demonic spirits thanks to a violently overactive imagination. Coupled that with the fact that I’m in dozens of homes a week, often in buildings that have been around for well over one hundred years, I can’t stop from asking…could this apartment possibly be haunted? Building upon that, I won’t even try to do the mental cartwheels to produce a rough statistic of how many people have lived in this city but it’s a lot. In its more than 400-year history, New York has been the backdrop to a lot of life, and a lot of death, so to ruin a handful of places in the city for you, let’s discuss some spooky spots in the city:

Starting off strong, in the heart of the West Village, 14 W 10th Street (which is a rental building and I’m sure this isn’t disclosed) is widely know as “The House of Death” and is haunted by 22 ghosts, most notably Mark Twain. Residents have seen Twain on multiple occasions along with heavy dark outlines frequently documented. A paranormal expert visited once and not only noted multiple individuals present but was unable to successfully cleanse the home.
Today it’s overrun with NYU students, but long before, the land that’s now Washington Square Park was used as a burial ground. During yellow fever outbreaks from 1791 to 1821, the city used the land as a mass grave…for over 20,000 people. The park was established in 1827, and a year after, human remains were accidentally dug up during a parade. Archaeologists recently uncovered more human remains, possibly unsettling dormant spirits…
North Brother Island is just east of the Bronx and it has a dark history. In 1904, it was the site of a steamboat crash that killed over 1,000 people, New York’s deadliest disaster until 9/11. It also housed the Riverside Hospital from 1885 through 1963, where it quarantined patients with deadly infectious diseases including smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, and scarlet fever. Typhoid Mary lived there for two decades before dying in 1938.
St. Paul’s Chapel has survived a lot of tragedies since its opening in 1766, and its graveyard, which dates to 1697, is said to be haunted by many of its occupants. One of the 17th-century graves belongs to the English actor George Frederick Cooke, who loved to gamble. When he lost all of his money, he sold his head for research, and a headless ghost has been seen wondering the graveyard and a nearby alley where there used to be a theater.In 1800, the body of a young woman was found at the bottom of the Manhattan Well, located at what is now 129 Spring Street. The ensuing trial was a huge scandal and involving the city’s top attorneys, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. In 1817, the Manhattan Well was built over, only to be rediscovered in 1980 and it is now a COS store. However, the well has never aged, a woman’s screaming and pleading has been heard countless times, and employees frequently are joined by a female apparition.
In 1800, the body of a young woman was found at the bottom of the Manhattan Well, located at what is now 129 Spring Street. The ensuing trial was a huge scandal and involved the city’s top attorneys, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. In 1817, the Manhattan Well was built over, only to be rediscovered in 1980 and it is now housed in a COS store. However, the well has eerily never aged, a woman’s screaming and pleading has been heard countless times, and employees frequently are joined by a female apparition.
William “Boss” Tweed was a politician who played an enormous lead role in the history of New York in the 1800s, most notably leaving tales of terror across the city. Ironically, it’s the eponymous courthouse where he was sentenced for his crimes that his spirit dwells. Tweed is regularly spotted in the courtroom where he was sentenced and haunting noises and ghostly figures are commonly reported by terrified night watchmen.
Gay Street is one of the most picturesque blocks in New York and the quaint brick townhouse at No. 12 is no exception. The building served as a speakeasy called The Pirate’s Den during Prohibition and was purchased by the corrupt Mayor Jimmy Walker as a home for his mistress. Neighbors insist that ghostly flappers and the Gay Street Phantom – a dapper gent in a cloak and top hat – still lurk around the street late at night.