#494 Scary Stories of Old New York

Ghost Stories of Old New York Live

0:00We interrupt this important broadcast to announce that our hit Halloween tradition, Ghost Stories of Old New York, is returning in 2026 to Joe's Pub. Two shows a night, October 28th through October 31st. And this year, for the first time, we have a special theme. Haunted Circus!

0:24That's Haunted Circus. Go to Joe'sPub.com and get your tickets. That's the Bowery Boys' Ghost Stories of Old New York. And we'll see you ringside.

A Daylight Ghost on an Elevated Train

0:37From the New York Tribune, January 22nd, 1899. The various members of a Christmas house party were sitting around the big hall fireplace, with no other light than the leaping flames from the blazing driftwood, which burnt blue and green and scarlet with many a hiss and crackle. They were telling ghost stories. Yes, I have actually seen a ghost, said one of the group. And what made it more uncanny, it was in broad daylight,

1:09in practical, crowded, busy New York. That is, I feel sure that I saw one, but was made so uncomfortable about the occurrence that I stopped at my doctor's before going home, and he said that it was all stuff and nonsense, that my liver was out of order, and gave me a prescription. But this is what I saw, or thought I saw. As we have moved away uptown on the east side of 5th Avenue, I boarded, as I often do after shopping,

1:40a 3rd Avenue elevated train at 23rd Street. It was about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The car I entered was not crowded, and diagonally opposite the seat, in which I seated myself, was another that was empty. At 28th Street, a man got in and took the vacant seat, a red-faced, middle-aged, burly-looking mechanic, I judged by his dress, as he wore a flannel shirt without a collar, in what was evidently working clothes,

2:10although clean and respectable. And he took his seat, and after the car had started, a woman in black, who seemed to have got up from another place where she was seated, came forward and took the vacant place beside him, with an eager, possessive look, so to speak, which made me carelessly think, she must be a relative. And I looked to see his surprise recognition when he turned to greet her. He seemed, however, quite unconscious of her presence.

2:42And what struck me suddenly, as very odd, he glanced carelessly towards the other side of the car, just as if he looked through her. The woman, meanwhile, regarding him with a wistful look that was quite pathetic. She seemed a woman of about 30, and had an interesting, refined face, although sharpened evidently by illness, which, with her large, dark eyes, dusky hair, and black garments, gave her a sad appearance

3:13that was peculiar. I also saw to my surprise that she was dressed in a rusty black suit, cut with large sleeves, which were in vogue several years ago. I say to my surprise, for I have noticed that women of that class invariably follow the fashions, and would no more wear a gown that was distinctly out of style, than would m'lady of Murray Hill. All at once, without warning, a chill ran down my backbone.

3:44That woman is no woman, I said to myself with conviction. She is a ghost. The man cannot see her. And I assure you, as I thought this, I actually saw the man put his arm on the seat, and it passed right through the filmy shadow of her veil. Was I dreaming? No. There sat the man and the woman,

4:14a commonplace enough-looking couple to a casual observer, and no one but myself appeared to notice them. By this time, I had arrived at my station, where I got out, and the affair has forever remained a mystery. But nothing could ever persuade me that I had not seen a veritable spirit. The Bowery Boys episode 494, Scary Stories of Old New York.

4:45Hehehehehehe. Hey, it's the Bowery Boys. Hey. Hey. Hi there.

Two Decades of New York Ghost Stories

5:05Welcome to the Bowery Boys. This is Greg Young. And this is Tom Myers, and welcome to the Bowery Boys Ghost Stories of Old New York 2026 edition. Woo! For those who are keeping track, we started the Bowery Boys podcast in the early summer of the year 2007, which means that we are entering our 20th year of podcasting, and also two decades of telling New York City-related ghost stories.

5:37Which might beg the question, I'm sure some of you are asking yourselves, haven't you told all of the New York City ghost stories? Could there possibly be any more? And, you know, as I think we've said before, to paraphrase a famous line about New York City, there are about 8 million stories in the Naked City. And there are also about 8 million stories in the Haunted City as well. Ooh!

6:05We've told, I think it's almost like a hundred ghost stories, right, over the years. Feels like more. It is probably more, actually, both on this podcast, and then when you add in those at our live show at Joe's Pub, which we're actually very grateful to be able to perform again this year, and we have performed since 2018. So, for this year's tickets, you can go over to Joe's Pub's website for more information. Pick up your tickets now. But even as we've told

6:38so many stories, we somehow manage every year to unearth a brand new batch. So, what is that batch? I mean, what goes into a Bowery Boys ghost story? These stories are documented ghost stories by which we mean that they come from newspaper reports or from history books, right? Or are urban legends that have hung around for decades or even centuries and made their way into books as well. You don't need to believe

7:08in ghost stories to have fun with these stories, but it certainly helps. Yeah. And the other ingredient to a Bowery Boys ghost story is the history. So, we take these stories, wherever they're from, and then we place them in the historic context in which those stories first arose. So, many times we'll be talking about places and events that we have actually already covered in prior podcasts, you know, like the non-scary version. And we'll be sure to note that

7:40in case you want a more straightforward history. So, we really dug back through the archives, through the stacks down in the basement, wiping off the old editions, to find this year's batch. And all of them involve ghosts and haunted houses, except for one, the final one, which might be the most disturbing of all because it involves the 100th anniversary this year of a pretty important moment in American paranormal history. But before we get there,

8:12and before we unearth any further spirits, we must introduce, of course, our other guests to this year's show. Some familiar faces, if not voices, none of them actually have spoken yet on the show, including our diva of the demented, the queen of all things spooky, Miss Cheryl Crowe. Rapturous applause. Cheryl is here, of course. She's actually always nearby. Yes, always. Seems that way. She lives in the studio,

8:44but, like, she comes out in a special way during the Halloween season. Yeah, I think when she clarified that she winters in the studio in your home, correct? Sure, sure, sure. I mean, you would think that she would go to Florida to soak up some sun, but she just, she can't seem to quit you.

9:02You like that one? Yes, we've had, yes, we've told a lot of Cheryl Crowe jokes over the years, haven't we? They're actually harder to find new ones than ghost stories. We have to recycle them, yes, uh-huh. And we've also got some other friends with us. We've got Bat Damon right there behind you and Liza Spinelli. Of course. Love seeing Liza. You'll see all of them at our Joe's Pub show because they really are great sources of inspiration to us. Well, why don't we get this started,

The Severed Hand of Flatbush

9:31shall we, Tom? For our first American horror story, Tom, we are, we're going to start this one in Brooklyn. And during a most interesting year, Brooklyn in the year 1896, and we will specifically go to the neighborhood of Flatbush. One of the borough's oldest neighborhoods, although if you're talking about 1896, it would have been one of the city of Brooklyn's oldest neighborhoods. Yes, good distinction.

10:02The city of Brooklyn became a part of greater New York in 1898. And rather contentiously, the issue evenly divided the residents and those who opposed this consolidation were dragged kicking and screaming into the new union. Now, at the time of our story, the spring of 1896, the final bill had not yet been signed by the state assembly, right?

10:32So it was about to happen, but it hadn't quite officially happened. So perhaps the good people of Flatbush were a bit on edge that spring. And Flatbush is, of course, very, very old, right? It was one of the original Dutch settlements on Long Island. It was first a collection of farms and then a small village surrounding a church and its burial grounds. Today, if you go to Flatbush and Church Avenue, you'll find this old church

11:03or at least a third version of that church. This one was constructed in the late 1790s. Now, that beautiful old stone church sits there to this day, a relic of the past, although the neighborhood which surrounds it is quite contemporary, very modern. We actually have two podcasts on the history of Flatbush. If you would like more information, those are episodes 390 and 391. That'll give you a great background

11:33to the story you're about to hear. Our story today takes place further east of that church on, appropriately, Church Avenue, which was called East Broadway back in the day. So Church Avenue and Nostrand Avenue. Now, today, there's a two and a five subway stop at that corner, and the streets are lined with two- and three-story buildings. But back in 1896, it was a very, very, very different situation.

12:03Quote, only a few houses broke the monotony of acres upon acres of farmland as flat as a pancake. That was from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and that is where this part of the story comes from. Quote, one of these houses is an ancient two-story frame dwelling occupied by Charles Norton and his wife. This is a haunted house. The neighbors say that there is no mistake

12:34about the ghost. Unquote. But this is no ordinary ghost, Tom, where the name of this story is severed from the spirit world. An ancient two-story house occupied by Charles Norton and his wife. What do we know about them? Well, Charles was a painter. He was about 50 years old at the time of the story, a shy man who kept

13:04mostly to himself, as did his wife. I did find an interesting notice from a few years earlier in the year 1891 about the wife, you know, trying to dig up some more biographical information, and this notice said that, quote, Mrs. Charles Norton of East Broadway asked Justice Sweeney last evening to issue a warrant for the arrest of Mrs. John Dagwell, a neighbor whom she charged with slander.

13:35Unfortunately, whatever that slander was has been lost to time.

13:43Next week on The Real Housewives of Old Flatbush. Sounds pretty saucy, though. I miss the days when that's what made the paper. Or do we? No, we don't miss that. Well, you know, that level of detail. I only mention that because this is definitely an area of the world where the neighbors all seem to get up in each other's business at this particular time. They seem to know an awful lot about one another. So you can imagine

14:14the ruckus which spread through Flatbush in mid-April of 1896 when Mr. Norton was digging down in his cellar, okay, in this old ancient house, digging in the cellar, doing a bit of spring cleaning, you know, fixing up the place. So he broke into the dirt with his shovel, you know, cracking down into the hard dirt. When he saw something odd, he bent down, he dusted something off that was in the dirt,

14:45and he gasped. He had discovered the bones of a skeleton hand, five bony fingers, which appeared to have been buried in the cellar for a very long period of time. And something was attached to one of the fingers of this skeleton hand. And when Mr. Norton bent down to clean it and polish it, he realized it was a solid gold ring. Did he report

15:16this to the police? Did he just keep the ring? Well, it seems like perhaps they didn't report it to anyone. You know, being people who kind of kept to themselves, and I guess how would you explain this, right? But of course, as I mentioned previously, the neighbors were nosy. They found out, and one of them contacted the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, who then sent a reporter to snoop around and to investigate this mysterious hand. And it was these neighbors

15:46who claimed to have seen something unspeakable at this point. A ghostly apparition which flitted about the entrance to the house and along the flat patches of grass behind the house. They report that the ghost had only been seen since Mr. Norton dug up the hand, that in finding the hand, he had accidentally summoned a spirit. So I have

16:19some questions here, but let's start with the basics. Understandable. Whose hand was it and how did it come to be buried in the cellar, right? Especially when there was a burial ground that was located just a couple blocks away. This would lead one to believe that something nefarious had happened there. Well, the reporter thought so as well and he began asking questions all around Flatbush. Now, obviously, they didn't have forensic science to help

16:49them in 1896, but he had something possibly better and that is the assistance of the old Dutch men who lived in the village, the old gossips who attended the Dutch Reformed Church every Sunday that kept the secrets of the village to themselves. So, after asking all about it, the reporter was able to piece together the solution and one that was reported far and wide, in fact,

17:20this was actually reported in the New York Times. For some decades before, back when this abode was only a farmer's cottage, there had been a violent and ghastly murder.

17:37Quoting at length from the Brooklyn Eagles own article, a murder was once committed in this cheerful little cottage. Sixty years ago, it was inhabited by a German named Krug. He was a middle-aged man, as big as a longshoreman and surly as a bear. He associated with some of the neighboring farmers. His wife and three daughters were kept like prisoners.

18:08Three years before the family came to Flatbush, the best posted village gossip didn't know anything concerning their past history prior to their arrival. The man, it was rumored, was a fugitive criminal living in this country under an assumed name. This man, Krug, however, was a hard worker and a good farmer. Everybody had to admit that, and he attended strictly to his business. Late one night, a traveler

18:39stopped at Krug's house and inquired for a village inn. The stranger evidently had behind him a long day's journey, for his horse was ready to drop from fatigue. If you could give me a bed, said the stranger to Krug, I wouldn't go any farther tonight, and I'd pay you well for it. Krug was about to tell the man in his gruff way that he kept no hostelry when he suddenly changed his mind and said, all right,

19:10I'll keep you overnight. The horse was taken to a stable, and the farmer's wife prepared a meal for the unexpected guest. The stranger was talkative. He said he carried enough gold pieces in his money belt to purchase half a dozen fine flatbush farms. Krug spoke very little. He soon bid the stranger goodnight, mentioning the fact that as he had given up his own bed, he would have to sleep

19:40in the hayloft. So, the stranger slept in a room while Krug slept outside in his hayloft. Yes. But Krug's family remained in the house in the other rooms. Yes, for reasons which will become evident, Krug's wife had her own room. Okay. Okay, so back to the story. At one o'clock in the morning, Krug's wife was awakened by a noise in the adjoining room where

20:11the guest slept. She listened for a while, and as all was still again, she resumed her slumber. At six o'clock, the girls who slept in the garret or attic, was they were up preparing breakfast. Half an hour later, one of them knocked on the door of the room occupied by the stranger. At seven o'clock, he got a second call, but there was no response. Krug, meanwhile, was already at work in the

20:42field. Presently, he walked up to the house, and his eldest daughter told him that they couldn't get their guest out of bed. Oh, replied the father calmly, he went off early in the morning, saying that he couldn't wait for breakfast. Then the girls went into the room to make the bed. They were surprised to see nothing but the bare bed stand. Sheets, pillows, and mattress

21:12were gone. They told their father, and he said, I burned the bed clothes, because the man told me that he had just got over the yellow fever.

21:25Okay. Yellow fever was a major scourge during the first half of the 19th century, so that's true. And I suppose if you came across somebody afflicted with it, you would do everything in your power to protect your family. But I mean, this does seem a little suspicious, right? I mean, that's a lot of activity early in the morning. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he had already burned a mattress by breakfast? Yeah,

21:55seems a little suspicious, doesn't it? Especially since there seems to be a lot of tension in this family anyway. Well, the reporter continued to ask around the town and found out the rest of the story as told by one of the old, quote, old-town Dutchman. Quote, the following day, the farmer's wife, pushing the empty bedstead away from the wall, found a bloody hand cut off at the

22:26wrist. She screamed and fell unconscious. Her daughter ran into the room and also saw the terrible hand which told the story of the murder as if they had witnessed it with their own eyes. the first blow with the axe did not kill. The victim raised his hand and it was cut clean off by the second stroke. The murderer in his haste to get the body out of the house and

22:57bury it and burn the bloodstained bedclothes and mattress forgot the telltale hand which had fallen to the floor. that night Krug disappeared and was never seen again. Two of his daughters became insane. The old timer then concluded his story by saying and I wouldn't wonder none if that there ghost come back after his hand.

23:27I wouldn't wonder a mite. I wouldn't not a mite. So then this ghost of the murdered stranger had been conjured back to Flatbush by the discovery of this hand, of his hand. And a great number of neighbors verified this. They claimed to have seen this ghost. One of them claimed that they saw the ghost gallivanting with the old neighborhood

23:58black cat. Another one said that he had been chased down the street by the ghost. You know, remember, these are very, very, very nosy neighbors. They get up on your business. Okay. So many of them took the matter of exercising this ghost into their own hands. Pardon the expression. Yes. According to another newspaper, because this was reported everywhere in the Daily Herald, quote, one neighbor crossed sticks into

24:30the Norton's flower bed near where the apparition had been seen and spoiled all of his crocuses. Another sprinkled salt over his lawn, subsequently sending in a bill for the salt. And a generous third neighbor offered to mold a silver bullet from five silver dollars to shoot the specter if Mr. Norton would furnish the silver dollars. Those are some really invested neighbors.

25:00I mean, you know, it's like neighbors cared in New York. Well, they have, you know, neighborhood associations today. So this is more of like a spiritualist version of that, I guess. I mean, I suppose that they did think that they were being helpful. Yes. Yes. Here's the thing, though. The Norton's themselves never saw the ghost. It was only the neighbors. So whether there really was a ghost ghost or whether they had fabricated these sightings that followed

25:31Mr. Norton's discovery in the cellar, we'll never know. Because the body was never discovered and as far as we know, the hand was never united with it. I'm sorry, can we go back to this old-timey Dutch character who was supplying all of this information? Did he have any more details about the possible whereabouts of this body? Well, that's what's sort of interesting because all of these reporters flocked to Flatbush and apparently

26:01talked to this individual and the New York Herald reporter mysteriously identified him only as quote, the oldest inhabitant. And when the writer asks if he might identify himself for this article, the old man responded quote, don't you put my name in young man, don't you put my name in. I don't want to be mixed up with no one-armed dead folks. I'm responsible.

26:32I am. And with that, the oldest inhabitant took a long draw on his pipe, wickedly laughed in a most devious manner, and disappeared into a puff of smoke.

26:48What? No. Okay, I made up the last part. I didn't know how to end the story, so I just made up. He didn't disappear. Did he deny, though? He didn't disappear. No, but that's a quote, that's a real quote. He said he didn't want to get mixed up with one-armed dead folks. Everything else is real. I just imagined that there had to be an evil cackle somewhere. The article

27:18in the Herald ends, quote, Until the grave of the murdered man is found, Flatbush's spring ghost will probably continue to disport himself in company with his accomplice, the old maid's black cat, in the calm moonlight that plays upon the Norton's lawn. While, of course, this appearance is particularly a matter of interest to Flatbush, it had more than just a local significance. It shows that the open season for spirits in Long Island is

27:49at hand, and presently from every place between Coney Island and Montauk Point will come several wild and awful tales of supernatural horrors, and the terrified Long Islander who ventures out after nightfall will be chased home to bed by footfalls from the boundaries of another world. Oh, but those tales will not only come from Brooklyn, because if you like that one, we have hand-picked three more ghost tales

28:19from old New York right after this.

The Schoolhouse Ghost That Slapped Back

28:27Well, for my first spooky tale, I am taking us, Greg, back down to our beloved Lower East Side. Oh, where we first began. We're going to one of our old haunts, I hope. Haunts, yes. If only we could go back to one of our old haunts and tell the story of the clairvoyance of clandestino. Today, it's more like the demons of Dime Square, I think. There are many demons in Dime Square. The malevolence

28:57of Metrograph. Yes. No, no, no. We are heading way back before our time to June of 1888 and over to Broome Street between Willett and Sheriff Streets. Sheriff? Now, that's not a street that most people know. Can you remind us where that is or where it was? Yes. Well, it's no longer much of a street, which we'll get to in a minute here, but you certainly do know where it stood because you used to

29:27live on East Broadway right by Seward Park. Well, if you headed east out of your door and walked up East Broadway, you know, where it hits Grand Street and comes to an end there. Right there, you would have run into Sheriff's Street. That's where it started. It started right across Grand Street from there and ran up to Houston. So this is like kind of what we call today the far Lower East Side or the lower Lower East Side, right? And in 1888, this was a very packed tenement district, just like all the

29:58blocks west of here that the neighborhood is so famous for today. Right. And on one summer nights in June of 1888, nearly 3,000 Lower East Siders crammed into the streets around the public schoolhouse here on Broom Street, all swearing that they had seen a schoolhouse ghost. And it all started with a smack. For this is the tale of the ghost that

30:28slapped back.

30:31So, wait a minute. This is another ghost hand? We didn't plan this. Gotta hand it to you. This is not planned. No. I love when this plan comes together like this, but actually, this sounds like a more active hand, like a more vibrant hand than the one in and my story, which was just in the dirt. Okay, so, but to be serious here, 1888, we know that this is a period of peak immigration to the city and into this very neighborhood in

31:02particular, into what they called the old 13th Ward back then. So, let's imagine that the streets were bustling with activity, push carts headed to the market streets, people were hauling garments and hustling to work. And this block here between Sheriff and Willett on Broome had some industry as well in the blocks around it. I was digging into the old fire insurance map from 1879, and you see the R.

31:33Hohen Company printing press factory at Sheriff and Broome Street just across the street diagonally. It took up actually most of the block all the way down to Grand Street. And within a block or two around the schoolhouse, you found old ironworks and a sawmill and a lead works and a malt house, along with many, many churches. And of course, amidst all of that, rows and rows of the most dominant form of architecture, tenements. And here then, on the north side of Broome between Sheriff

32:04and Willett, stood old PS34, which the New York Herald described in 1888 as quote, a big school with 50 teachers and over 2,000 children, along with a janitor named Michael Moran, who lived on site. One janitor for these 2,000 children. Sounds like he had his work cut out for him. He likely did, yes. And in fact, there were so many students that they had to use an old three-story

32:34wood-framed building around the corner on Sheriff Street as an annex to the old school, which was connected in the back to the school. And that, in the annex, is where most of the action took place. For on Thursday, June 28, 1888, the following article appeared on page 2 of the New York Herald. Ghosts in a school room. Children in grammar school 34 say that one teacher was slapped by a

33:05spirit hand and that another fainted from fright. The trouble began a week ago with a story told by children in the school that one day, Miss Anna I. McGuire, a teacher in the girls' grammar department, located in the school's annex, was slapped in the face by a spook. She started and shuddered, the girls in her class report, and some of the girls say they saw the hand that fell upon their teacher's face. They say that

33:35it was long and gaunt. The next thing related is that Miss McGuire described the affair to the principal, Miss Mary A. Tremper, but that Miss Tremper laughed and said it was imagination. That did not satisfy the little ones, however, and they insisted that there were spirits in the building. They told the tale at home and their mothers got alarmed, some because they believe in ghosts and are afraid to have their youngsters in a haunted building, and

34:06others because they are afraid to have their children in a building where there is danger of a panic. The children told the matter on the street, too, and it got to other schools nearby. All the crowded east side schools got hold of it on Tuesday, and it was common talk among the pupils in every department. I can imagine this story spreading quite quickly, right? The idea of a teacher being slapped in the face in front of her classroom full of girls?

34:38By a disembodied, long, gaunt hand. And according to the Herald, quote, the result was that on Tuesday night, a tremendous mob of ghost seekers jammed Broom Street and Sheriff Street and watched for visions in white. The neighbors declared that they saw mysterious hands open and shut the blinds of the old dwelling house annex. On Tuesday night, the crowd was determined that the ghost should come out and

35:09show itself. Some boys fired off blank cartridges, and there was a shouting and howling that kept the policemen busy. They tried to keep people moving, but every now and then the crowd would thicken at the school's doors. And the next night, Wednesday, was even worse. Another paper, The Evening World, carried the story on its front page, adding that in the neighborhood of Grammar School number 34, Broom and Sheriff Streets, 1,500 people

35:40swarmed these thoroughfares Tuesday night, and twice that number last night, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the shade. The neighbors say that Principal Martin was on the roof Tuesday night, and seeing the ghost fainted away. A woman who went on her own roof adjoining was shouted at by the crowd. She retreated. She was a ghost.

36:06This is chaos. I can't even visualize this. Three, did they count, is this to write a proper count, 3,000 people swarming the streets looking for a ghost, or not even a full ghost, just an appendage of a ghost, a ghost hand. So, with this number of people and this amount of, like, pandemonium, this is starting to sound a little dangerous. Apparently it was. The Herald said that a surging mob of

36:37nearly 3,000 chattering children and excited men and women surrounded Grammar School 34 last night. Policemen, especially detailed for the purpose, threatened and tried to chase them away. But as fast as they drove the excited mob down one side of the street, it came up the other. The children in the school got scared also. The primary boys and girls and the youngest grammar pupils were so frightened that they were afraid to go downstairs to the

37:09recess rooms. School was let out an hour and a half earlier yesterday than usual, and then stories began to fly thick and fast. One boy said he felt something brush past him as he was writing on his slate. something reached over his shoulder and wiped out the figures he had written. He looked up and says he saw something white. And the boy who sits on an end seat was joggled, and when he turned around to see what caused it, he couldn't see

37:39anyone back of him. The children say one of the teachers fainted yesterday, and that it was a ghost that made her do so. The children are reticent about telling what is done in school about it, because they say they have been punished already for talking ghost talk. When a group of them went out, a teacher was stationed to watch them with orders to note the names of those who dared to look up at the windows of the supposed to be

38:10haunted annex. Hmm. So the kids were not even allowed to look up at their own schoolhouse. Now, good luck asking how many 2,000 kids not to look for a ghost in their school. We've all watched Scooby-Doo. We know what this is. You can't tell teenagers not to look for a ghost. Well, exactly. According to the

38:40New York Times coverage, actually, the kids pitched in and they actually tried to scare it away by throwing rocks at the walls and at the windows of the school. I just have to say, by the way, as with the last story, this got covered in the New York Times. Yes, but granted slightly different tone and it was stuck back on page eight under the headline, the children believe it. The Times wrote that, quote, last night, in spite of the pouring rain,

39:11Sheriff Street was lined with groups of the half-frightened, half-witted people who watched the innocent brick walls of the schoolhouse in vain. All right, so let's recap. We've got a mysterious hand slapping a teacher in front of her class, wiping a poor boy's slate clean, jogging another kid, jostling him, making another teacher faint, making the principal faint

39:43on the roof. Any other incidents that I'm forgetting here? There were also the disembodied hands that were apparently opening and closing the shutters on the old schoolhouse annex. All right, so there must have been some theories, I'm sure there are a million theories, right, as to, like, what was causing this? Well, according to the New York World, a woman who arrived from Poland a year ago says that years ago there was a burial plot where now stands the

40:13school, and that all the cemeteries one-time inhabitants have returned. Another equally trustworthy authority says the wife of janitor Michael Moran, who died eight years ago, is troubled in spirit because there are 2,000 children and 50 teachers crowded into this school, and she's returned to the scene to give warning. Still another says that a murder was committed here, and that the spirits of

40:43both parties to the tragedy are infesting the neighborhood. 50 years ago, Ezra White was ejected from a ballroom near this corner, and he stabbed and killed his evictor.

40:58But one person who wasn't buying any of this was the teacher who had allegedly been slapped in the first place, teacher Anna I. McGuire. Quote, Miss McGuire is a comely little woman, and she was indignant at the story. The reporter was invited into her classroom. Class in ghost lore! Attention! He said, and every little girl folded her arms. Have you seen any ghosts today?

41:28No, sir, giggled the girls. Ever see any? Again. No, sir. Do you believe in ghosts? No, sir, there are no such things, chorused the class. The story goes that many children have been taken out of the school because of the ghosts, but this is denied. A new schoolhouse must be built for this big school soon, and it is thought that the ghost stories have been started to depreciate

42:00the value of the property by someone who wants to buy it cheap. Aha! Okay, now, now things are starting to come into focus. This is maybe a story about real estate, like a real estate play. It actually seems like the most... Would realtors do something shady? This is like the most New York explanation ever given to a ghost story. It seems so perfectly logical, right? And the Times

42:30actually talked to the night watchman working at the printing press factory across the street. He told them that on Sunday night, so two days before the first ghost sighting, there had been a terrible and sudden thunderstorm. And just as the storm was approaching, the skies grew dark. And then, quote, A woman with two small children, both pupils at the school, was hurrying homeward by the schoolhouse. The children were

43:00frolicsome and obstinate, refusing to follow their mother. Suddenly, seizing one of them by the arm, she exclaimed, Come, you naughty boy. If you don't mind me, I'll call the ghost that lives in the schoolhouse to catch you. And just then, a brilliant flash of lightning lighted up the windows of the schoolhouse for an instant, but left them darker than ever. The children appeared frightened and clung close to their mother. The next morning at

43:31school, they probably related their wonderful experience with an added authority. Mother says, etc. This is very probably the foundation of the delusion, unquote. So here we have two possible solutions to this ghost. But there's just one problem with both of these tidy little stories. Remember that an entire classroom of girls witnessed a

44:02floating hand slap their teacher in the face. I couldn't shake the graveyard theory. Yeah. So I went back through old maps of the neighborhood. And I didn't find any burial grounds, but I did find an old church on that same block facing Sheriff Street between Broome and Delancey. It's in the old maps from the 1820s, but then it disappears. I found out that it was a Presbyterian church that was built in 1819, but sold

44:33in 1826 to become the Catholic parish of St. Mary's, which was only the third Catholic parish in the city and the very first to have a church bell. When I compared the maps, it was entirely possible that St. Mary's sat near where this schoolhouse annex would be constructed. And then I found an article in the November 10th, 1831 Evening Post. Destructive fire. Yesterday morning between five and six o'clock,

45:03St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Sheriff's Street was discovered to be on fire. When first seen, the fire was raging about the altar. It was but a short time before the entire building was enveloped in flames and soon destroyed, with all its contents, including a fine organ. Two days later, the Catholic paper, The Truth Teller, reported that the fire at St. Mary's had been set in three separate places, and that the bell had been tied down so that it could not raise the alarm.

45:35Nobody was ever charged. The pastor, Father Luke Berry, was hurt fighting the flames and died a month later. St. Mary's congregation rebuilt at Grand and Ridge Streets, and that church is still standing. It was actually landmarked this past April. So could this have been maybe the ghost of Father Berry, or maybe, like, any other disturbed spirits that are associated with this fire?

46:05It seems possible, given that the atrocious fire had been set on the very spot or very near that old wooden school annex. Maybe someone was actually warning from beyond that this cramped neighborhood needed a new school that could safely accommodate this large number of students. And they would get one. Within a few years, the old PS34 came down, and a new brick one went up, and it would sit there for decades. But even it could not

46:36survive the mid-20th century bulldozing of the neighborhood. And the school wasn't alone. Sheriff Street, and most of the grid east of Pitt Street, north and south of the Williamsburg Bridge, was demapped in the 1950s and 1960s for housing projects. And the block where the school once stood is now a playground and basketball courts. So today, kids shoot hoops and swing with abandon on the very spot where, 138 years ago,

47:09students their age were too frightened to walk down the stairs of their own school. And where for three nights running, thousands of their parents lined the street in the rain and dared to look up at the ghostly hand that slapped back.

47:29Well, if that's not scary enough for you, we have a haunted house and a mysterious cemetery to visit right after the commercial break.

The Phantom in the Window

47:42Now, I think I can say that it's been a pretty good summer here in New York City. I think many people would agree with excellent weather, championship win by the Knicks, good vibes brought on by the World Cup. We just had the U.S. Open. But it wasn't perfect. In July, the former offices of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, located at 235 East 42nd Street, well, like many buildings right now,

48:14they were actually being converted into apartments. Which, in theory, is it's a great way to repurpose office space in midtown, right? Or downtown, flipping it to residential. Good intentions. Good intentions. Except that on July 7th, pedestrians on the street began fleeing in terror when bricks began falling. And it was discovered that two columns within the building were beginning to buckle and that, in fact, the upper floors of the

48:45building were sagging due to this, you know, conversion, this repurposing. So this horrible drama caused the city to evacuate the structure and kept the street north of the building, East 43rd Street, closed for a couple weeks. I only bring this up, and this is like a real-life horror, to kind of ground the next story that I have to offer, which took place in August of 1902, and at the address 232 East 42nd

49:18Street. In other words, next to this very spot. And it, too, involves a building tumbling to the ground and a great hysteria, which attracted, like your story that you just told us, which attracted thousands of onlookers. For the name of this story is, Who is the Ghost in the Window?

49:46So, East 42nd Street in 1902. Mm-hmm. A few blocks east, of course, of the new emerging theater district around 42nd Street, which really went into full throttle with the construction of the New York Times new offices at 7th Avenue, which would give that district its name, Times Square, in the opening of the subway in 1904. But we are far from the lights and the glamour of Times Square over here on the east side. Yes, the lights are much dimmer over

50:18here at this time. Today, the spot that I'm about to speak about, we know it as sitting on the border of two rather wealthy neighborhoods with reputations of being wealthy enclaves, Murray Hill and Turtle Bay, and sitting next to two particular impressive pieces of architecture, the United Nations headquarters, which is over on the water, and the Grand Tudor City

50:50apartment complex, which opened during the height of the Jazz Age, okay? But that's the 1920s. The story takes place in 1902, and the character of this neighborhood was quite different. Right. At this time, the east side was mostly associated with immigrant enclaves, and so the housing stock was decidedly of a different quality, right? Most of these would have been tenements. And actually even worse than tenements.

51:22In the mid-19th century, at least, it was a shantytown, known by various names, Goat Hill, Dutch Hill, where many newly arrived Irish immigrants lived. And many of them were employed by local waterfront factories and slaughterhouses. Which is quite dramatic, right? I mean, considering that it is located right next to what would become, you know, the extremely fashionable, Beekman Place, which

51:55of course makes us think of Auntie Mame. But all of that, that glow-up doesn't happen until the 1920s. Before that, this area was coal yards and dumps. There was no Auntie Mame. There was no Uncle Mame. There were no Mames and aunts, uncles at all of any kind in 1902. For it also went by the name, I would even say that it was a more prominent nickname by the new century. They went by the name Corcoran's Roost, named for a famous old gang leader named James

52:28Corcoran, and was actually notorious for gang activity. So the story that I'm about to tell combines both ghosts and unrepentant gangs of young thieves and toughs. Great. Yes. So, from one newspaper report, quote, There was a ghost in East 42nd Street on Friday night. Its appearance was not recorded in the real

52:59estate transaction files at the registrar's office, nor was there any mention of the spirit in the excise reports of the police. But that a specter did appear was solemnly believed by several hundred men, women, and children who lived in the neighborhood of 2nd Avenue and 42nd Street. And it was not until the disenchanting sun of the next day shone on the spectacle that some of them began to lose confidence in this belief.

53:29The real character of the wraith came to light Monday. The old house, which sat at 232 East 42nd Street, belonged to a man named Christian Bastion, a manufacturer of ornaments, ceiling, and wall decorations. Now, despite his success in these fields and, you know, the newly constructed houses in the region, he continued to live in this very forlorn house on the edge of Corcoran's

54:01Roost, where he was frequently beset with vandalism, hooligan behavior from the residents of that disreputable quarter. Eventually, he decided to move to Havana, Cuba, going on ahead to make arrangements there and telling his wife Clara and his mother to stay behind. He would call for them later. However, a great tragedy struck. For the newspapers report, quote, the day before their departure, the mother was found dead in an upper room with

54:35a gas tube in her mouth. The wife then departed for Cuba in such great haste that she left the place wholly unprotected. What a sad story. So then the house just sat there empty? And what exactly did that mean wholly unprotected? Well, not properly secured, not locked up. Prone to, let's say, regular visits from thieving hands.

55:08By the time the wife returned the following month, she had discovered that, quote, thieves had ripped out all the lead pipes and had stolen several valuable statuettes. She then took whatever was left of value and returned to Cuba for good. But the house appeared to still be occupied. In fact, from the very top floor, it seemed that somebody was still living there. But I thought it was empty.

55:38Over the next few days, neighbors reported sightings in an upper floor window and news spread quickly that something yet lingered in the decorator's abandoned house. Quoting from the Evening Express, there in the window was a white figure of life size and motionless. It was not the stock-stereotyped, old-fashioned, back-numbered kind of

56:11specter, with a skull face, bony hands, squeaky voice, and sneaking gait, which amuses itself by playing hide-and-go-seek among new-made graves or mumbly peg-on-decaying tombstones. There was nothing ugly about this ghost. It was remarkably beautiful. According to the description of a Peter McWade, who lived at 234 East 42nd Street,

56:41the ghost was that of a maiden of pensive countenance and graceful figure. One arm had been amputated at the shoulder, and the other had been broken off so as to leave a stump of several inches in length. From what could be seen of her attire, some thought that she had at one time been on the stage, unquote.

57:10Could it have been the ghost of the mother, the poor mother who had died in the house? Well, there were many theories. Local teenagers actually spread these details, and soon it was believed that the house did have a ghost. Over the course of many weeks, thousands gathered on the streets below to figure out exactly what was going on. But of course, the punchline to this ghost story lies in the fact that thieves, after all,

57:43are not so scared away from such things as ghosts. I mean, if it really was truly abandoned, I doubt that an armless ghost was going to scare away a bunch of thieves. Right. I mean, events rolled out through the summer and fall, like different anecdotes with different adventurers leading ghost hunts through the house. I mean, these people were far more unafraid than the ghosts in our prior story, or, you know,

58:14I guess they were more inquisitive, shall we say. In August, one hoodlum, nicknamed Snipe Jake, who was a leader of a gang called the Avenue Terrors, mounted the front steps of the house, shouting, according to the newspapers, shouting in his particular dialect, There should be the ghost! If you's feller skirt the bloomin' bloke, dare be! And that was actually, that was actually how it was written in the newspaper, and I tried

58:47my best. Wait, those Avenue Terrors, that gang must have been terrifying.

58:53Quote, to continue, in less than half an hour, a mob of nearly half a thousand of all ages and nationalities had gathered in the front yard, yelling and shrieking, unquote. Soon, many of them began hurling rocks at the mansion's windows until all of the house windows were smashed. And the ghost, then, which had been standing at the window that whole time, the ghost suddenly vanished.

59:24Did the bricks and the shouting scare the ghost away? Well, Tom, the clues to this easy-to-solve riddle have been planted throughout my story as you've been listening, so I hope you've been paying attention. Oh, boy. I now give the listeners a few seconds to see if they can find the solution. Okay, so.

59:59The ghost wasn't a ghost at all. It was a statue. Quote, a plaster cast of the Venus de Milo, which had been placed in the window where the electric lamp opposite could bring it into the most startling relief, unquote. Well, that certainly makes sense. Wait a second. Hadn't the wife left the house after the death of her poor mother? I mean, if she had left the house, who put the statue in the window so prominently in the

1:00:32first place? Hmm. Well, late that very evening, the boys, you know, had flooded into the house because the ghost was gone and began ripping out many of the floorboards. And then later, they started a huge bonfire outside the house where the flames licked so high that they almost caught other buildings around it on fire. These huge tongues of flame illuminated the ravaged, empty mansion and the terrible state

1:01:06it was in. And the boys hooted and hollered well into the late evening. But one boy looked back up again at that one window, that cursed window, and thought in the dancing shadows of the flickering bonfire, he thought he could again make out the face of a woman looking down at him. But this was a different face and a different woman. And then just like that, the face was gone.

1:01:38Now, don't go looking for this house, of course. It's clearly about to be torn down. And in fact... It was in process of being burned. Yes, exactly. But it's lot, and actually many, many others around it were swept up together in the 1920s to form the grand footprint of one of the greatest Art Deco skyscrapers in New York City, something that was completed in 1930, the headquarters of the New York Daily News.

1:02:14A fabulous building, fabulous lobby. It's a rotunda lobby with that distinct rotating globe. Listeners, you must go into the lobby and check it out if you haven't already. And we guarantee there are no ghosts. There are no statuettes that I'm aware of. Now, they might have... It's also like the home of PIX, Channel 11. So maybe there's like Emmys. Maybe that's the closest you're going to get to some statuettes here on the spot.

1:02:45Is an Emmy a statuette? Is that like... That's an Oscar, I suppose. Well, it's like, you know, an Emmy. She's got the wings. She's not standing there. Oh, yes. It's okay. So that's an Emmy. So that's a statuette. With arms. Maybe that's staring at you from a window somewhere in the building.

Houdini and the Centennial Anniversary

1:02:59Well, for my final story, we are heading out to a small Jewish burial ground in Glendale, Queens, to part of the cemetery belt that runs adjacent to the Jackie Robinson Parkway. The cemetery, called Machpelah, was founded around 1855 and covers about six acres. Since the 1980s, however, it's been in a pretty sad state. Bankrupt, subjected to decades of vandalism, and pretty much abandoned.

1:03:31However, just inside the gates stands an elaborate private monument rivaling those found in Greenwood or Woodlawn, a 12-foot-long curved granite bench, which steps up to a pedestal, anchored by a marble statue of a weeping woman. For decades, that pedestal held a bust, although it was repeatedly stolen. And every October 31st, this burial ground locks its gates.

1:04:02Because the man buried under that bust died a hundred years ago on Halloween. October 31st, 1926. His name was Eric Weiss. But you know him as Harry Houdini. For the name of my story is... Rosabelle Believe.

1:04:26Oh boy. We are not only going to be talking about Houdini, who we love, one of our favorite subjects, but the, oh my God, the importance of this moment, because he died exactly one century ago. Yeah. This is a big year in Houdini circles. All right, so let's go back here. We have actually discussed Houdini many times on our show, including, and maybe our first time, actually, episode 144, which was a show called Mysteries and Magicians of New York.

1:05:04Yes, which was a Halloween show. Yeah. That year we kind of told spooky stories, so not, you know, things that were, like, mysterious. Not fully ghost stories. Yeah, we thought we had run out of ghost stories. Yes. And that was in 2012. Well, I think our research methods have gotten better. I don't know. Anyway, that story really explored the friendship and rivalry between Houdini and his friend, the celebrated author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who we all know perhaps best as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

1:05:40Yes. So let's rewind. Houdini was born Eric Weiss in Budapest in 1874, the son of a rabbi. He moved as a young child to the States. They settled in Wisconsin, but he moved to New York as a teenager. He worked as an acrobat in a circus, and then he moved into professional magic in the early 1890s. It was then that he met Bess, his onstage partner, and soon his wife.

1:06:12And in 1899, he was discovered by vaudeville impresario Martin Beck, and his career in magic really took off. Wait, so this is like the Martin Beck Theater. I mean, today it's the Al Hirschfeld on 45th Street, but it used to be called- We still call it the Martin Beck, yeah. It used to be called, oh, wow, that Martin Beck. But Houdini here was a superstar, right? I mean, like the defining magician doing stunt escapes from boxes, milk cans, submerged vaults, you know, come up with something, and he escaped it, right?

1:06:47You name it. Internationally famous for doing this, by the way. And he became very rich, too, and bought himself a brownstone in Harlem. So Houdini had also been very, very close to his mother. And when she died on July 17th, 1913, he was absolutely devastated and, I think, depressed for quite some time. He purchased this plot here at Machpelah and commissioned an architect colleague to oversee the construction of a lavish granite and marble excedra, which is a term for one of these semicircular seats that has a pedestal and sculptures.

1:07:29And he spent about $40,000 on it, which is just a fortune. His mother was buried here in 1913, and then this monument over her was finished in 1916. And here on the back of this bench, this curved bench, cut into the stone were the words, erected by Houdini, 1916, in sacred memory of his beloved parents. And yes, indeed, he would move his father and his brother here, and he also planned to be entered here as well one day.

1:08:02Many years ago on our website, I mean, I can picture this vividly because I posted, there's a kind of a famous, amongst Houdini heads, there's this famous photo of him sitting on this excedra. You know, it wasn't even finished. It was actually being carved. It was being completed. In the studio. Yeah. And he doesn't really seem all that bothered sitting on it. No, not bothered at all. He's kind of looking off into the distance, but I think that's because he always had this kind of flirtation with death.

1:08:34I mean, that was part of his career. It was part of his shtick. In one of his big tricks, he used a hermetically sealed coffin in this buried alive stunt, which he reclined in and was buried, indeed buried alive in it. Or he would be submerged in water for an hour, 90 minutes. What is it? Hermetically sealed? Like sealed for freshness? Like he came out afterwards, right? The point was that he couldn't, a normal person wouldn't be able to breathe in there.

1:09:04Right, right. There was no oxygen and he'd be in there for quite some time. So, yeah, he had this special relationship with death that didn't seem to bother him. So designing his own future memorial was also not something that ruffled him in any way. And also building this monument to his family and especially to his dearly parted mother offered some solace to him. But he wanted more, right? He desperately wanted to believe in spiritualism, which, as we have recently discussed here on the show, was a way of using mediums and spirit circles to communicate with those living in the spirit world.

1:09:47In the world, Houdini wanted to be able to communicate with his mother. He really wanted to believe that he could do this. But there was just one small problem. Well, he wasn't, I guess what you'd say, a typical seance participant. He knows all the tricks. He's got one eyebrow up. I don't think I'd want him joining my seance if I was leading one. No, I don't think that we would want the master magician himself sitting at your spirit circle. Right, right. And he attended some seances and he concluded, you know, that the wrappings and the tappings and the objects and the tables moving around, they were being done with trickery and with stagecraft.

1:10:29They were basically magic tricks and it infuriated him. So starting in the 1920s, Houdini crusaded against the spiritualism movement, publicly exposing their methods on stage in his own stage show in order to sort of demystify them and debunk the claims of these spiritualists. And what I find interesting then is around 1920 is when he befriends Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

1:11:00Doyle, though, is like a huge champion of spiritualism, right? Like on the other side of the coin here. So this must have made things kind of awkward between them. Well, especially awkward after Doyle's wife, Jean, who was herself a medium, led a seance with Houdini in 1922, in which she supposedly communicated with his mother. And then she produced 15 pages of automatic writing. You know, she was channeling Houdini's mother's very words, except that they were in English and had a distinct Christian bent to them.

1:11:41I think she drew a cross, even though his mother didn't speak English at all and she was Jewish. I mean, I would have been kind of offended. Naturally, this killed their friendship. In May of 1926, Houdini even testified in Congress against fortune tellers and fraudulent mediums. So the spiritualism community, this is kind of an interesting twist, which still had some power in the early 20th century. They hated Houdini.

1:12:12Yes. And yet, Greg, Houdini and his wife, Bess, they still held out some hope that maybe there was some kind of truth to it all, right? Maybe the problem was with these fraudulent mediums, but maybe there was still something to spiritualism. Now, years before, back when they were on the vaudeville stage with Martin Beck, the two had performed an old mind-reading trick in which they used a special code to decipher messages and read minds.

1:12:46So Harry and Bess decided to use that same old code again, if there was an afterlife, to send a message to the other through a medium. So whoever has died, the spirit in this case, would send a message back to the living world, and Harry or Bess, whoever is the living one, would know that this was authentic, right? So what was the coded message then?

1:13:17And once decoded, that message would spell out, believe. As in, like, believe in the afterlife. Exactly. That was her plan. And then, on October 22nd, 1926, Houdini, while he was performing in Montreal, he was relaxing in his dressing room when a McGill student named J. Gordon Whitehead asked him if it was true that he could withstand punches to his stomach.

1:13:59He was famously strong, and other people had tested him all the time. So Houdini agreed, and was still reclining, so he had failed to brace himself, or even really to stand up, when Whitehead started punching several times, causing Houdini great pain, although he somehow managed to go back on the stage and to finish his show. However, two days later in Detroit, he collapsed with 104-degree fever after a show.

1:14:32He was raced to Grace Hospital, where they determined that his appendix had ruptured, and that dreaded parentinitis had set in. There was nothing that could be done. Harry Houdini died in his Detroit hospital room, Sunday, October 31st, 1926, at 1.26 in the afternoon. He was 52 years old. The next day, November 1st, Houdini's body was placed inside his buried-alive stage coffin, and transported by train to Grand Central Terminal.

1:15:09And then he rested in state at the West End Funeral Chapel, at 200 West 91st Street. And then his funeral service was held on November 4th, at his pre-written request, at the Elks Lodge Ballroom, on West 43rd Street, with thousands present inside and out on the sidewalks. Bess was present at all of it, of course. And at the funeral service, a member of the Society of American Magicians, of which Houdini had served as president for years, stepped forward, over the coffin, held out a wand, and broke it in half, and laid it atop the coffin.

1:15:48And thus began the funeral tradition of the broken wand. A procession then made its way to the burial ground in Queens, where Harry was interred next to his mother, in a memorial he designed and had constructed himself. His brother, the magician Hardeen, threw the first flower, as the casket was lowered into the ground. And then, Bess waited for a sign.

1:16:19Where was the cryptic message? More than two years went by. One day, January 8th, 1929, Bess was at home in her Manhattan home, recovering from a fall, when she was visited by a medium named Arthur Ford. He pulled down the shades, drew the chairs around her bed, and then fell into a trance and uttered, Hello, Bess, my sweetheart. That was the nickname that Harry used for Bess.

1:16:51She was touched, but waiting for more proof. Then Arthur said, He says he wants to repeat the code you used in your mind-reading act with him. Rosabelle, answer, tell, pray answer, look, tell, answer, answer, tell. Is that right? Ford asked in a trance. Yes, it is, Mrs. Houdini said in a whisper.

1:17:23However, she signed a letter stating that Houdini had just reached out to her from beyond. The Daily News put it on the next day on page 3. Houdini speaks from grave to aid spiritualism. Harry Houdini, who was the arch-foe of spiritualism in life, proved yesterday, through a seance test, that he lives in another world. Such, at least, was the claim advanced in a copyrighted story by the Associated Press.

1:17:54Houdini's widow, who received a trance message through a spiritualist medium while ill in bed, said the text of the message was that which she and the magician had agreed on. So, had Houdini actually communicated with his wife? Was she now a believer? Did this coded message actually do the trick? Well, unfortunately, it had slipped Bess's mind, as she was pretty ill, that this story of their otherworldly code had also been printed in an authorized Houdini biography that was written by Harold Kellogg the previous year.

1:18:36Oh, no. Okay. Well, this sounds wrong. Yeah. It's terrible. And a day later, newspapers were actually reporting on this and calling it the Houdini hoax, which is actually pretty sad. Did she ever try to do this again, to make contact with him again? At least one more time on the 10th anniversary of his death, on October 31st, 1936. Now, by this point, she was living in Los Angeles, and she held a seance that night on the rooftop of the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel.

1:19:13She called it the final Houdini seance, and 300 invited guests sat in bleachers. In the center sat Bess and a group of scientists, occult specialists, magicians, and other people. And on a table lay a pair of handcuffs on a silk pillow. Locked. And a trumpet and a tambourine. So if Houdini were to return, he would have plenty of ways to show it. And this event was actually broadcast on radio, and we still have the recording.

1:19:48They sat for nearly an hour, calling out to him. From the next day's New York Daily News. Mrs. Houdini fails in last contact try. The light that burned for 10 years above a photograph of the late Houdini is darkened, and his widow, Mrs. Beatrice Houdini, said she had abandoned hope of contacting the spirit of the great magician. They sat for an hour, but nothing happened. Then Bess turned to a candle that she had brought, which had been burning and keeping vigil next to his photograph for 10 years, and put it out.

1:20:27The Houdini shrine has burned for 10 years, she said. But that didn't mean that things were quiet at his gravesite out in Queens. No, because a year after his death in 1927, the Society of American Magicians unveiled a marble bust of Houdini.

1:20:59And thus started the tradition as well of magicians coming to Houdini's grave during the Halloween season, solemnly breaking a wand and laying it on the grave. But then, in 1975, somebody broke that bust to pieces. It was replaced with a replica the following year, which in 1983 was stolen, as was its replacements. Come on, give the guy a break.

1:21:29This is terrible. The worst came in 1993 when vandals attacked the entire plot, using the headstones from his brother and sister's grave to smash up the benches, and then they stole the bust. The Society of American Magicians restored the benches in the 1990s with major funding provided by the magician David Copperfield. Oh. And a new bust would be installed in 2011 by a magician named Dorothy Dietrich.

1:21:59But then, by then, the burial ground itself had run into major financial difficulties and had even gone bankrupt. And so, in order to prevent further crowds or vandalism, they began locking the gates on October 31st every year. Well, so, we have a big anniversary with the 100th Halloween. What's happening this year? It's a big one. So, in Budapest, where he was born, they're unveiling a statue to Houdini.

1:22:29In Hollywood, on October 31st, Potter and Potter is auctioning off a hundred Houdini artifacts at the Magic Castle. And in July, hundreds of musicians descended on Appleton, Wisconsin, the town that Houdini claimed as his hometown when they first moved here, for the Society of American Magicians' Centennial Convention. Anything happening more locally here in New York? There will be another seance. For on October 31st, for the first time in over 50 years,

1:23:02the doors of 278 West 113th Street, Houdini's brownstone in Harlem, where he lived for the last 20 years of his life, will hold three seances. Thirteen guests at each table. A medium named Jody Lynn will preside. And one of the sittings begins at 1.26 in the afternoon, the exact minute that Houdini died a hundred years before. And so, will anything actually be happening over in Queens at the grave?

1:23:36Well, the grave is a bit more complicated. There is now a non-profit that is run by Dorothy Dietrich, the magician who installed the bust in 2011. And they took over the plot's upkeep in 2024. And when they were going through the paperwork, they discovered that Houdini had actually left the cemetery money in his will for its perpetual care a hundred years ago. And yet, this summer, Houdini fans were starting to sound the alarm that the whole monument,

1:24:06the whole Exedra, had never looked worse, actually. So, there's a cleanup effort underway, and the magicians are still planning to hold their broken wand ceremony there at some point near the anniversary, as they always do. So, stay tuned if you're in the magic world for dates on exactly when. Just on Halloween. No, no, not on Halloween. Because on that day, on the actual hundredth anniversary

1:24:38of the death of the greatest escape artist who ever lived, 13 people will be sitting in his parlor, calling his name. And out at the burial ground in Queens, the gates will be locked. Well, if you don't have a seat in Harlem around the seance, maybe, may we suggest that you come join us at Joe's Pub for our Ghost Stories of Old New York live show.

1:25:09That is from October 28th to October 31st, 2026. And two shows a night. We would love to see you out there. We'll be telling some stories. There might even be a few references to a couple of things we've mentioned in this show. I won't spoil any further. There might even be a seance on stage. There may be. So, that's joespub.com. Go get your tickets now, and we'll see you there. Also, we would love to have you join us in the streets. We have brought back our historic haunts

1:25:39of Lower Manhattan walking tour. It was really quickly booked up last year. So, now's your chance. Grab a spot on one of those tours while they're still available. You can book that at boweryboyswalks.com. That, along with many other tours all over Lower Manhattan, Midtown, Gilded Age mansions of Fifth Avenue, and throughout the city of New York. We'd love to have you join us on one of our public tours or book one of the private tours for your family or group of friends or your work colleagues.

1:26:09Join us over at boweryboyswalks.com. This show was masterfully edited, mixed, produced by Kieran Gannon. And spooked by Kieran Gannon. So, on behalf of Liza Spinelli, Bat Damon, Cheryl Crow, and us, we want to thank you for joining us on this fine annual tradition of ours, scary stories of old New York, ghost stories of old New York. So, thank you all.

1:26:40Creepy tales. Yes. And we'll begin researching for next year. So, thank you all very much for listening. Have a great New York week, whether you live here or not. See you real soon.