New York's Most Haunted Historic Places (Best of)

Ghost Stories Live Tradition

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.

Celebrating Twenty Halloween Years

0:38Hi there, this is Greg Young from the Bowery Boys podcast. Next week, Tom and I will present to you a brand new Bowery Boys, Ghost Stories of Old New York podcast. Now, we've been recording Halloween podcasts about New York City for 20 years. Our first Ghost Story podcast was released on October 11th, 2007. The first time we used actual urban legends about wandering spirits and other unpleasant things as a way to share stories about the city.

1:10Expect more of the same next week with our show, Scary Stories of Old New York. But to celebrate our 20th anniversary of Halloween podcasts, Tom and I have put together a list of our five favorite stories featuring places that you can still visit today, pulled from past episodes and compiled together for the very first time. Whether you're having a drink at the Ear Inn or a meal at the historic One-If-By-Land, Two-If-By-Sea, you're never too far away from an old New York City legend.

1:43In next week's new show, we've got twisted stories about haunted subway cars and Lower East Side classrooms. And we've even got a tale of ghosts versus the gangs of New York. Until then, enjoy.

Captain Kidd on Liberty Island

2:01So let's get these ghosts a-stirring. I believe you should start because I think one of your stories actually starts chronologically the earliest. I'm going to take us, Greg, out to Liberty Island or Bedloe's Island, as it was known. So the home of the Statue of Liberty is indeed haunted? You can make that decision for yourself. I will tell you that tourists flock every day, of course, to the island to visit the 305-foot-tall statue unveiled in October of 1886. We have another Bowery Boys podcast about that.

2:34And we went into great detail about the construction of the statue, the framework, even the base. But what about the island itself? Today, we call Liberty Island, was originally referred to as Bedloe's Island. That was the original name. So long before the statue of this robed woman stood there, the island was home to Fort Wood, which was a military fort shaped like an 11-point star. So the Statue of Liberty today is actually set above the filled-in walls of the old Fort Wood. And it's those walls that we'll be focusing on today for our stories, or more precisely, the rocky shores just outside those walls.

3:12So the Statue of Liberty could be standing on a foundation of horror.

3:22Could be. But we're more concerned with what's outside that foundation. But I'm going to tell you first about a captain named Captain William Kidd. Captain Kidd. The famous Captain Kidd. Nothing to laugh about. Right. No kidding. Lived from 1654 to 1701, born in Scotland. And he settled in New York, where he lived for four years. He lived on Pearl Street, actually. In quite a nice house. Uh-huh. Facing, yeah, facing into the harbor. He made great connections here. He was friends with three different governors of New York, and even had his own pew at Trinity Church.

3:59He was also one of the most notorious 17th-century figures in New York City. He was accused of piracy up and down the Atlantic Ocean. And, however, we're not going to get too deep into these waters, because debate rages today about whether or not he really was a pirate, or whether or not he was just a privateer. He would end up being prosecuted in London and being hanged in 1701. And after his death, word spread fast that Captain Kidd had left behind a vast and buried treasure somewhere along the eastern seaboard.

4:30Of course, there were all manner of tales about where this could be, and people went on great digging expeditions. There was also a group, though, around New York City who was certain, because he had lived here, of course, that he had buried a lot of booty right around New York. Well, it would make sense he would bury it, perhaps, even within sight of his old house on Pearl Street. So, what, if you're looking out in the water from this particular place, one might have seen Bedloe's Island. Even 125 years later, in the 1820s, people were still whispering about where Captain Kidd's fortune might be buried.

5:05So, there was a Sergeant Gibbs, who we don't know that much about, but he was, in the 1820s, assigned to Fort Wood. And he'd been working there for a couple of years. A new recruit had come up to him, a private named Carpenter. He was a private carpenter. A private carpenter on Fort Wood. Yes. And this private carpenter worked up the nerve to approach Sergeant Gibbs and share with him the sense that he had that there was a fortune buried somewhere on the island. He had heard the rumors himself. So, they needed a plan. They needed more information about this.

5:36So, what did they do, of course? They got permission to leave Fort Wood, head into the city, which at this point would have been the lower part of Manhattan. Mm-hmm. Just a boat ride over. And visit a psychic. And I love thinking about an 1820s psychic in lower Manhattan. Hey, what does that entail? Probably sitting in somebody's small, dark office, maybe gazing into a crystal ball. And the fortune teller asked them, is it true I sense that there's a flat rock someplace around Bedloe's Island?

6:06Well, yes, there was. They were both familiar with this flat rock. It was on the north side of the island, but it was only accessible when there was a low tide. Hidden from sight most times, right? Of course, which made perfect sense. Of course, that would be a natural place for a smart sea captain to hide his booty. So, the fortune teller told them to wait for a full moon, then head out to the shore of the island armed with a witch hazel divining rod. Wow, so is that like the Y, like a Y-shaped stick?

6:37Yes. I believe, okay. That you sort of carry, you pass over the ground and you wait for a sign. Usually it goes up or I think it goes down. Mm-hmm. So, they had to take their divining rod out at the full moon and look for the exact spot where they should dig. So, they waited and they waited for that full moon. And this had to remain their secret because, of course, they wanted to keep the treasure. People might have thought they were crazy for thinking that it might be buried here and they didn't want to share the money if it was there. It was also a bit of a risky undertaking because, of course, it was outside the walls, the fortified walls, which they were probably not supposed to jump over.

7:14Finally, a full moon, it was midnight and the soldiers snuck out of the barracks. They climbed over a ladder that they had placed over a ditch outside the wall and they snuck past some soldiers who were lining the walls. They were armed with the divining rod and with one lantern and they looked over at the shoreline. The tide was low. They snuck silently past the soldiers. They headed to that large flat rock that they could now spot. They guided their rod over and around the shoreline, looking for a sign around the rock.

7:47With the only light being that of the full moon reflecting down onto the water and maybe the barest lights from the city across the harbor. And then it dropped. The rod dropped to the ground, fell to the rocks, and the soldiers knew that they'd been given a sign. They were standing on top of the captain's buried treasure. By the light of the lantern, the men holed aside the rocks and started digging through the sand. Within a couple of feet, with waves crashing not far from where they were crouched, they dug a few feet.

8:19And past the sand, they hit ground. Dirt. And they kept digging. Another five feet or so past the dirt went plank. Their shovel hit the side of something solid. Of course, they dug all around it, unearthing a chest. And there was something else there, though. Just next to it was a skeleton. There was a body. They wanted to scream, of course, but they didn't want to attract any attention to themselves. And then they realized that, well, the body was probably that of a guard.

8:50Because legend had it that pirates, when they would bury their treasures, would also kill one or two of their men to serve as guards. So even after death, the men would be guarding the pirate's booty. The men positioned themselves to haul up the chest, breathless to see what was inside. When all of a sudden there was a giant flash. Flash of white light. Everything went white. They felt a certain pressure that shook them. And they both saw an unearthly figure, a sort of man.

9:22The figure demonic rose up from the hole and hovered about on the ground, breathing sulfuric fumes. So this entity, this apparition, has risen from this hole that normally would be underwater anyway during low tide. We have only the light of the lantern and the moon here to illuminate this ghastly shape. Gibbs let out a scream, which, of course, caused commotion, which was unfortunate for them.

9:53They were trying to not attract any attention. And when the guards came over, they arrived right away. Gibbs was passed out in a pool of the water that was gathering around them. And Carpenter was caught running away from the hole. They were taken, of course, immediately to the sergeant-at-arms to be reprimanded. Because they had snuck outside of the fort and they were doing something very unusual, digging a hole and looking for treasure. The situation was most unusual. And, of course, they told the sergeant-at-arms what had happened. And that they were sure that they had just also seen the ghost and witnessed the ghost of a dead pirate.

10:25Their stories were slightly different when they were questioned individually. But they had seen different things, almost, from this apparition. Yes. Gibbs said that the demon was big, with horns, and had wings on its shoulders. And Carpenter, though, said it was red and didn't have any wings or horns, but that it was floating around. Regardless, they had seen and experienced something really strange. And when the sergeant and the guards and the two men went back to the hole, the skeleton and the chest had vanished.

10:56Now, this story persists today. People are still seen sometimes wandering around the north side of Liberty Island, looking for a certain large, flat rock. I would suggest, if you do find it in a full moon and a low tide, leave it alone. Well, I don't believe that tourists are allowed on the island at night. Maybe this is why. Mm-hmm. That is a true legend of New York City, if ever there was one. And many of the details from that were actually published in a New York Times article,

11:29written on August 14th, 1892. Meaning that the story itself had been embedded by that time as a true urban folktale. If that helps you sleep, Greg, that's fine by me.

The Saucy Sailor at Ear Inn

11:41But, Tom, let me proceed now downtown to visit another ghost, probably one of New York's most famous ghosts. So, we're going all the way downtown to 326 Spring Street on the far lower west side to what is truly a haunted house and almost 200 years old. Today, it is a tavern called Ear Inn. Oh, I've seen the Ear Inn. Mm-hmm. Right. All the way over by the west side of the highway. The name of this story is The Saucy Sailor.

12:14So, at this particular address, it's one of the oldest federal homes still standing in New York City. No surprise that a building this old would be possessed with a few spirits in it. Historians believe it was built in the early 1800s, probably sometime during the years of the War of 1812. It was built by a man named James Brown. He was a black ex-slave, a war veteran of the Revolutionary War, and an aide to George Washington. Some speculate that he is actually represented in that famous painting,

12:46Washington Crossing the Delaware. Really? That he is actually in that painting. You'll have to give it a close look. So, Mr. Brown built this three-story home here, operated a tobacco store on the first floor, and then lived upstairs. And the third floor was an attic room. At this time, in the early 19th century, it was situated right on the waterfront. Now, over the years, the house didn't move. The waterfront actually did, thanks to added landfill. Right, because now it's a couple blocks away from the actual water.

13:18Right. In 1817, a tavern was opened here, which would make it one of the oldest operating pubs in New York City. Throughout the 19th century, it was a few other things as well. Flash forward to 1890, when an Irish immigrant reopened the place as a tavern and operated it quite successfully, almost until the end of Prohibition, of course. Until the end of Prohibition? Well, let's just say it still served booze during Prohibition, for it was also, like so many buildings, was also a speakeasy.

13:48And like so many buildings upstairs, it was a brothel. A small brothel, but a brothel, nonetheless. A one-stop shop. Now, the place reopened after Prohibition as an old, salty sailor's bar. There was no name attached to it, but because of the prominence of the green door that you had to open to get inside of it, they called it the green door. Now, it was around this period of time, so the middle of the 20th century here, that the bar was frequented by a young sailor by the name of Mickey.

14:21We don't know his last name. It's been lost to the sands of time. The only traits that we know about him are the ones that he still exhibits in the building to this day, and for over 60 years. Now, at some point, perhaps during a drunken bender one evening, he left the green door. Now, he wouldn't have heard the sound of boats. He would have actually heard the sound of trains, for the Spring Street Terminal was situated right across the street. So it also created a lot of traffic around this area of the city.

14:54And I believe we talk about that in our Highline podcast. Correct. Didn't mean to break the mood. But it was because of all this traffic, and we don't know the circumstances, Mickey was hit by a car and killed. Now, life here at the green door was pretty uneventful for the next few decades, but people made note of the building's particular history. I mean, by the 1960s, it was a building that was 150 years old, and it was rescued, of course, by this drive to preserve landmarks in the mid-1960s.

15:24So indeed, in 1969, this very building was made into a New York landmark. So in 1977, some college students moved in upstairs and eventually bought the whole building. These college students had operated a music magazine called The Ear, and they decided to name the bar after the magazine. So they decided to put a little black paint over part of the B in bar. Oh, in the neon sign. Right. So that it would spell ear. And so from that point forward, it became The Ear Inn.

15:54Very comfy, very out-of-the-way place to have a drink, with a lot of seafaring, historical clutter on the walls, old photographs. There's even a large ear on the wall. There's something so charming and popular about the place that even Mickey, who had been killed decades before, even Mickey, has returned.

16:16Now, the current owner of The Ear Inn claims that it is a fact that Mickey still haunts The Ear Inn to this day. Certainly a restless spirit. Maybe part of the reason he's sticking around, because as the bar was mostly patronized by men back in the day, well, he can't stop being a little flirtatious. Sounds like Mickey's a little randy. Randy and rude. Women patrons have reported being pinched while standing at the bar.

16:46They'll be startled, obviously. They'll turn as if to, like, tell them to back off, and no one would be standing there. The fireplace would sometimes light a flame all by itself. In fact, there was a fire in 1996 that, to this day, no one knows quite how it started there. Some attribute that fire to this mischievous little spirit, Mickey. You know, it's a small place, so, I mean, Mickey might poke you or touch you while you're there. Sometimes he might just be standing in the corner watching you as you're drinking

17:17or while you're talking with your friends and just looking at you. Occasionally, he gets rather thirsty. Diners have sworn that their drinks have disappeared from people's tables, and this is something that has been pervasively mentioned and noticed throughout the years, these disappearing drinks. Disappearing drinks at a bar. It's incredible. It must be a ghost, Greg. It must be a ghost. Many customers report seeing a ghostly shape in the corner or a shadow of a man being cast upon their table as they're sitting there

17:50when nothing is standing behind them. Although these days, it seems like Mickey seems to stay up in the attic today, which is just a little storage. But there used to be apartments up there, believe it or not. People used to live there. Women who lived there reported, as they were going to bed at night and just tucking in, they would feel a shudder, and they would feel as though like somebody was entering the bed, a shifting of the sheets and the blankets. And of course, they'd turn, and there would be nobody in bed with them. Other times, the beds would just shake violently in the middle of the night.

18:23One family who had actually rented that space moved out because they were so disturbed by these nighttime visitations. Perhaps they weren't frightened, necessarily, because Mickey doesn't seem to have been a sort of an ominous ghost, but they were just not getting any sleep. And again, they thought it was just Mickey. Or was it? Many years ago, the owner allowed a documentary film crew into the ear-in to film for about three days. And they, of course, naturally, in these stories, brought a psychic with them. The psychic attempted to communicate with Mickey and then, you know, pry him away from his ghost booze or whatever.

18:59But then she discovered something else, that there were more spirits in the house, that there were several that inhabited the ear-in.

19:09So this bar is truly full of spirits. In today's modern context, of course, Mickey's behavior, this is unwanted sexual assault, of course. Well, a crowded historic bar is no excuse for inappropriate contact. Absolutely is not. Now, I wanted to experience Mickey myself. So this past Monday, it was a stormy, rainy night. Do you remember that? It was very, like, almost foggy. I thought, well, that would be a perfect time to see if I could introduce myself to Mickey

19:39and let him know what they were talking about him on the podcast. I did go to the ear-in and had a charming dinner and a couple nice brews and even sat in that back dining room that so much history has gone through, of course. I didn't see Mickey, unfortunately, but if I had a few more drinks, I'm sure he would have popped right in front of me. And he may have even helped you finish those drinks. Oh, that's true. Right. I'm shivering over here, Greg.

20:10That was positively spooky.

The Daughter Returns to Barrow Street

20:12And I think that my next story is going to keep us basically in the same era, but not in the same area, for we're going to go much, much further downtown. Back to New York proper. Back to New York proper. In fact, to 17 Barrow Street in the West Village, or the village of Greenwich at the time, this lovely three-story building, if you go by today on Barrow Street, is a restaurant called One If By Land, Two If By Sea, and it's one of the most romantic restaurants in the city.

20:43I think there's probably one person who gets engaged there at night. And probably somebody at the table next to them celebrating at least one anniversary. And it's very historic inside. The original brick walls are there. Candlelit, brick and wood carriage house, really. That was turned into this lovely eatery. But what makes it worthy of retelling in an evening of haunted tales? Well, this is my story of the daughter who finally came home.

21:14Now, the building that we're talking about on Barrow Street was constructed in 1767. It was constructed as the carriage house of a lovely estate that is located south of today's location. So that's important to keep in mind, that today's restaurant didn't used to be there. It was one of the outlying houses behind a big estate. On a grand estate, on a huge parcel of property. Right. Just south of where it is today was this area called Richmond Hill. It had been developed in the 1730s by a British admiral named Sir Peter Warren.

21:48The area reminded him of the lands back home. He could look out from this area and see the shoreline and the rolling hills. So he named it Greenwich and referred to it as Greenwich. So he's actually one of the first people on record as referring to this area as Greenwich. So in 1767, Richmond Hill, the estate, was built here roughly at Charlton and Hudson. And during the Revolutionary War, Washington, to bring up George again, Washington would stay here.

22:19He'd even be headquartered here for a while before he was forced out of town following the Battle of Long Island. It sounds like he moved into a lot of houses as he crawled up the island, actually. He had to keep moving quickly. Right, of course. Well, after the war, Vice President John Adams, during New York's reign as the capital city, would live here in this estate. And later on, it would be purchased by Attorney General of New York State in 1794, Aaron Burr. Now, we've talked about Aaron Burr in other podcasts.

22:50A notorious figure in early New York history. And we'll get to why in a second here. But aside from this beautiful three-story estate, he also had this carriage house that was built in the backyard. And there he kept his coach and his sleigh. Aaron was married to a woman named Theodosia Bartow Prevost. They married in 1782. And the next year, they gave birth to a daughter, Theodosia. So Aaron and Theodosia had another Theodosia. Born in Albany, because he was Attorney General, but then raised in New York City and educated under the very watchful eye of her father after her mother died.

23:26So young Theodosia would have been a well-educated, high-society young woman. Very privileged position. At 14, she was considered the hostess of Richmond Hill, of the estate. And she'd welcome guests there and throw dinner parties and basically run the house. But Aaron Burr was growing a little bit nervous because he had some big bills to pay. It was very expensive, of course, to run this estate. So Burr was a bit relieved in 1801 when his daughter married Joseph Alston, who was from a rich South Carolina family.

24:00It was a strategic marriage because the family was very well-connected. And he would actually go on to become the governor of South Carolina. It was from his Richmond Hill estate that Aaron Burr woke up the morning of July 11, 1804, took the boat across the Hudson, and participated in a duel, infamous duel, with Alexander Hamilton, whom he shot and was later charged with killing. Now, we will not get into that whole story now. And of course, we should stress the fact that he was the vice president of the United States during this period.

24:34And it became very inconvenient for him because New York and New Jersey launched into trials against him, trying to find him guilty of the murder. He wasn't found guilty. He would return to Washington, where he would finish off his vice presidential career, but then leave politics for his political career was basically ruined. It was odd, however, because then he would get himself involved in another strange ordeal in which he was allegedly planning to start up his own independent country in land that was carved out of the Louisiana Territory.

25:11So what happened to Richmond Hill? Did he still own it by this time? Well, in 1804, when he took off, when he had to leave because he was wanted in New York State and New Jersey, he transferred the lease over to John Jacob Astor, who was extremely powerful and developing land all over town. Now, this is where it gets a little bit confusing because Astor would develop the land around this area of West Soho today, basically, of Richmond Hill. He developed streets and row houses, and by the account given by the restaurant and by others, he moved the carriage house from its spot behind the estate on logs.

25:49They pushed the carriage house up to Barrow Street, which was another development of Astor's. Wow. So instead of just building another structure, they just moved the old one. They moved it up because it was, you know, it was an interesting building. It isn't that far, Greg. Okay, that's true. Maybe like a, you know, five to six minute walk. I'm just thinking of all these logs to use to roll the whole building. It's incredible. Well, you keep using the same ones. You move it to the front. I know. I know that. Just clarifying.

26:20Just clarifying. Meanwhile, back to Burr. So he doesn't have the house anymore. But now he's really, his name is really mud, and he can't find a job in the state. So he takes off for London. But his daughter, meanwhile, is living in South Carolina, the wife of the governor. So she had some political connections. So she was riding around, trying to get her father, you know, a right of safe passage back to the states. Trying to repair his reputation. Right. And just trying to get him kind of home on good terms.

26:50She succeeded. And finally, he was able to return to New York in July of 1812. Theodosia couldn't join him in New York in 1812 because of the outbreak of the War of 1812. She waited to go on her own until the very end of the year. And in fact, on December 31st, 1812, Theodosia boarded the Patriot, a vessel from Georgetown, South Carolina. They were going to make a quick jaunt up the eastern seaboard to New York City so that she could be back with her father. The only problem is that the Patriot was never seen again.

27:22We don't know what happened to it. It was a shipwreck or was it captured? Well, there were several stories circulating, several of which involved shipwrecks pillaged by pirates with only Theodosia alive. One in which she was rescued. She was tied up alone on the shipwreck pillaged ship. She was rescued by an Indian chief who took her ashore where she told him the whole story, gave him a locket with her name on it and promptly died in his arms. I mean, that sounds like it's from this book from Clarksdale here, this Ghost of Pegleg

27:57Pete. It's a very dramatic story. Well, not even as dramatic as another, even more popular story, which had pirates attacking and killing all the men on the ship before forcing poor Theodosia to walk the plank and jump into the sea, at which point she looked up, waved it all on board, smiling as she sank out of sight. Ooh. A less dramatic hypothesis, and the one that most scholars today believe, is that the Patriot was shipwrecked.

28:27There was a big storm on January 2nd, 1813, which was just three days after they took off. So it seems a little bit more likely that they could have been caught up in that. Regardless, Aaron Burr would continue to live in New York. In 1833, when he was 77 years old, he married the wealthy widow Eliza Jumel, and they lived together in the Morris Jumel Mansion up in Upper Manhattan. Well, Miss Jumel has appeared in a ghost story podcast in the past.

28:59If I recall, that marriage didn't go so well. No. In fact, it didn't take her very long before she realized that her husband, Aaron, was making some not very wise real estate decisions, speculating on property and basically ruining her fortune. So after four months together, she separated from him, a separation which became legal on September 14th, 1836, the very same day that Aaron Burr died in a boarding house in Port

29:32Richmond, Staten Island. So where does this go in terms of a ghost story? For we have... Well, there's so many people, right, who have passed out of the story, so many possibilities. And meanwhile, the carriage house is up on Barrow Street at this point. But now surrounded by other, many, many other buildings. Well, at first it wasn't surrounded by much, but other carriage houses and other stables and that sort of things with pigs and swine in the streets, eating garbage. You can imagine the scene. A firehouse would be built next door to it, and the animals would be banished from the streets

30:07along with vegetable carts and things, were not allowed to be there anymore because they needed to be able to take the fire trucks out, which is kind of interesting. And firemen were living up above in the second floor of the carriage house at this time. Now, in the 1890s, the city sold the house to a new owner who turned it into a brothel, a house of ill repute. So it just kept on going and changing with the times. Multi-use here. But throughout the 20th century, from 1910 onward, it basically was in the business of

30:40either being a restaurant or a bar, kind of swiveled between the two, until in 1971, when it was sold to its present owners, who decided to restore it to a very nice upscale restaurant. When you walk in, there's a bar area with a couple fireplaces and a baby grand piano. And then there's a big open dining room, a staircase leading up to an upstairs dining room behind that. And then there's off to the right, there's another private dining room where they have

31:10some drawings of Aaron Burr and of Alexander Hamilton. But it seems that that may not be all that they have of Aaron Burr because it seems like he might still be hanging around the restaurant. And several of the patrons and even the restaurant staff have reported that they felt certain things. They felt chairs being pulled out from under them or drafts of air blowing through the rooms in weird spots. There are oil paintings of New Yorkers long dead, which seem to tilt on their own.

31:44Dishes and plates have been reported moving by themselves about the candlelit table. Waiters sometimes feel a push or a nudge and they turn around, but there's nobody there. Waiters have reported heading over to a table because they see a man sitting by himself only to realize when they get over there that, well, there's nobody at the table. These ghosts don't seem to be doing anything malicious. They seem to be just playing around. Ghost experts have gone there, said that they feel the presence of about 20 different distinct

32:14ghosts in this space. But one has to, you know, the skeptic in me wonders, well, why in the world would Aaron Burr be one of these? He lived in so many amazing places, including the Morris Jumel mansion. Why would he come back to his carriage house of all places? He never lived in the carriage house, but it is such a historic building. It does seem like he might have come back here waiting for somebody. I stopped by today and they were kind enough to let me in on a Sunday afternoon.

32:44They do a jazz brunch and show me around. And I spoke to a woman who worked there who confirmed that, oh, yeah, very matter of fact about, you know, the fact that she's she's felt some ghosts here and there. You know, she had been upstairs for a period and heard footsteps above her on the third floor, but there was nobody up there. Other waiters there have reported seeing a woman dressed in black descending the staircase. A woman? A woman. A woman in black descending the stairs, always descending. It makes me wonder if perhaps Theodosia has come home to her father after all.

33:19Well, Tom, I'm pretty sure that you have given me a couple future nightmares. There's that particular one.

Tragedy at the Chelsea Hotel

33:29So thank you. We're going to stay in the realm of apartment buildings or rather apartment hotels. I'm taking this down to Chelsea. We're going specifically to the most famous landmark in Chelsea. That is, of course, the Hotel Chelsea or the Chelsea Hotel. Now, this building has been very important to the history of apartment living, to this new concept in the late 19th century, and also to the arts, because there has been an incredible concentration of creative icons that have stayed here.

34:03However, for every famous person who has stayed at the Chelsea, there are 99 others whose stay wasn't so famous, who may have tried and failed to become a creative star. It's a place that's filled with tragedy and mystery and even violence. And that's what the name of this story is, The Hotel of Horrors.

34:31The Chelsea wasn't always a hotel when it was constructed in 1883. It was, as I inferred earlier, one of New York's first cooperative apartment buildings. It was a very innovative idea at the time and soon very popular with theatrical people because the theater district at this time in the 1880s was around Madison Square and Herald Square. It would eventually become a place for both short-term and long-term accommodations. And it opened, you said, in the 1880s? In 1883. Now, thousands of people have stayed here over the years, so there's bound to be a few

35:02mysterious stories and disturbing tales of ghosts, including those of very big stars. Now, we have a podcast on the history of the Chelsea Hotel, where you might have heard us talk about Sid Vicious, who murdered his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in Room 100 in 1978. Writer Dylan Thomas actually stayed here when he died in 1953. But he had been out, right, the night before? I think we talked about him being at a bar, another landmark bar that night.

35:33Yes, at the Whitehorse Tavern, he had drank himself into a stupor. But to clarify, he was actually already ill at this time. This just didn't really help things. And so he was staying at the Chelsea when he became incredibly sick, and he died actually at St. Vincent's Hospital on November 9th of 1953. Now, these are very tragic stories that are embedded into the walls of the Chelsea Hotel. But the more tragic, more disturbing tales actually come from those people that we don't know, that aren't iconic names.

36:05A great number of disturbed individuals have stayed at the Chelsea. I'm going to read a couple clips from old newspapers. Please do. Yes. Greg is unfolding some dusty old newspapers and some clips right here. So, the first poor individual, her tragedy was reported in the New York Sun on February 3rd, 1908. The headline, Woman Who Couldn't Sleep, Dead of Morphine, Leaving a Letter. Quote, Ms. Elmira Wilcox of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was found dead in a room in the Chelsea Hotel

36:41on West 23rd Street yesterday afternoon. Unquote. Now, among her possessions in the room, they found a letter that was addressed only to a person named Deerheart. So, in this letter... Deerheart? Like her dear heart. Like you are my dear heart. Oh, to her dear heart. My dear heart. Okay. But she pines on in this letter in a really mysterious fashion. Pines on about how uncomfortable she is in New York, but also keeps going on about this

37:13sleeping disorder she has. Quote, Do not expect a bright intellectual letter, for I think I bought one drugstore last night, all but the shelving. And tonight I have taken two, and I'm writing you while I woo the sleepy god. Another excerpt. Quote, Will it ever come morning? This is the fourth night without sleep. The more I take, the wider my eyes open. I have a book, but if only I had someone to talk to me. Unquote.

37:44Oh, how disturbing and sad. You have another story? You think that one is sad? Here's another unsettling tragedy, that of Etelka Graff, from the New York Times, March 5th, 1922. Quote, Ms. Etelka Graff, 38 years old, severed her left hand at the wrist with a large pair of shears yesterday and jumped from the window of her room on the fifth floor of the Chelsea Hotel. At the hotel, it was said that Ms. Graff's daughter telephoned to the clerk that her mother

38:17had jumped out of the window. It was said that Ms. Graff had been suffering from nervous prostration and had been in a sanitarium. The severed hand was found in Ms. Graff's room.

38:30Now, there are actually dozens of these types of stories. The more you look into the Chelsea, it just has this really unique reputation for attracting people in mentally ambiguous states. There's actually two great books on the subject of the Chelsea that people should check out. Cheryl Tippin's Inside the Dream Palace and Ed Hamilton's Legends of the Chelsea Hotel. And they go into a lot more detail about these more unsettling episodes which have occurred here at the hotel. But these are really tragic and sad stories.

39:03But are they hauntings? Are they ghost stories? Well, here's the thing about famous haunted places, that the roots of these stories, of these scary stories, actually come from the terrible tales of those whose names aren't familiar to us, right? So, you know, the hallways of the Chelsea already feel somewhat otherworldly, if you've ever walked through there before. All the goings-on that have occurred here, all the raucous and scandalous behavior that's happened in these rooms, the most common feeling that people, when they experience some kind of

39:39supernatural event here, involves hot spots, where they're, you know, they're nowhere near a vent or pipe, as, you know, in an old building, you'll sometimes feel a hot spot, but that's because it's a badly made building. See, my apartment. These hot spots make guests feel like they're in a sauna in the dead of winter. And it won't be just temperature, either. It will be emotions, a sudden change of emotion. People will be immediately filled with dread or fear, such as the case in room 124, which is one of the most haunted rooms at the Chelsea.

40:11No one's really sure what happened here, but it has been so emotionally disturbing that people will refuse to stay in that room. They will particularly say, I don't want to stay there, because they've heard these stories. Well, one recollection is actually, this is from Ed's research, from, um, on his blog, an experience that someone had in this particular room. Quote, my friend commented on the couch and likened it to a couch that an old school funeral parlor used to prop dead people up so that they could be photographed. Well, we got to joking around about this, and my friend decided to have me pose on the couch

40:45as if I had been murdered. Unquote. As friends do. Well, afterwards, some dark, gloomy cloud of sadness actually settled over this friend, the one who had made this suggestion. Quote, I've got to get off this couch before I start crying, he said, his face red and eyes full of tears. Something bad happened here, in this room, on this couch. I have to delete those pictures that we just took. It was wrong for us to have joked about this. I have to delete them to make things right again.

41:18Unquote. There's been a wide variety of ghostly spirits that have been identified with the Chelsea. One of them, the most famous, is a woman named Mary. She actually has a connection to the Titanic, which sank in 1912. In fact, many of the survivors of the Titanic stayed at the Chelsea Hotel after they had arrived. Oh, over on Chelsea Piers. Chelsea Piers aboard the Carpathia. Yeah, right. So Mary was either a survivor or a widow of a man who perished on the Titanic.

41:49She apparently paces on the fifth floor. Sometimes she's been seen on the eighth floor of the Chelsea Hotel. Some even say that she hung herself on the eighth floor of the hotel. People have seen her gazing into a wall as if admiring herself in a mirror, beautifully dressed, fixing her hair, done up really nice, maybe like combing it a little bit. Rather indignant about people who are looking at her. She's even a little rude to the living who may be in the room with her.

42:22Now, some have claimed famous ghosts like Dylan Thomas and Nancy Spungen herself haunt their respective rooms at Nancy Haunts Room 100. Sid Vicious, the ghost of Sid Vicious, has been seen getting into the elevator and just hanging around the front entrance of where the elevator is, even though no one has called for the elevator. So on Ed's website, ChelseaHotelBlog.com, someone actually cataloged the number of ghosts by floor.

42:58There are that many that they have multiple guests, multiple ghosts per floor. Oh, yeah. There's a boy ghost dressed in the 1930s. I wonder if he knows the girl, the Dakota. The boy ghost actually kicked a woman so hard that the woman then had a limp for the rest of the evening because of this spirit. There's also a depressed girl in a Victorian nightgown who wanders the floor beseeching people to help her and to listen to her tragic tale. But perhaps the most famous ghost at the Chelsea is most likely the least frightening of all the

43:34ghosts that permanently reside here. Well, first of all, his name is Larry. Larry, that is literally the least scary name you could have come up with. Maybe he's is he mad that people don't call him Lawrence? Well, he's he's annoyed. He's an annoyed ghost. Let's just say many of the longtime residents of the Chelsea Hotel from a couple of decades ago, when they would encounter Larry, he would be a little bit more of a nuisance than a fright because he was known for being a loud talker in his living years or as a ghost, as a ghost

44:07and not ghostly moans or the kind of horrific sounds that you might hear emitted from some kind of a specter. He's just like talking about the weather too loudly. Incessantly and incessant talking, keeping people up at night. Is he really a ghost or is he just an annoying tenant? He's yes, he's he's one of the most famous ghosts. He's even known for interrupting other ghosts who have been trying to send messages to people that he will somehow disrupt them with his own tales of the afterworld.

44:39How do they even know his name's Larry? Does he have like his is he like Laverne? Does he have a big L or his name emblazoned upon his breast? Well, I'm sure he's shared his name like many, many times over. Right. I mean, that's what ghosts often share their name. It's like basically some of the only information they do share and meet and greet. Now, before I end the story, I just want to present a counterpoint, which is just to say that a lot of drugs have been taken at the Chelsea Hotel over the many decades. Today, the Chelsea is being turned into a luxury hotel like so many things in New York.

45:13In 2016, it will open. But I find it really intriguing that all these new residents are about to go into this building without awareness of all the old ones who still inhabit the rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. So we'll stay tuned.

Inside the Merchant House Museum

45:33Well, for my final story, we're going to return to old New York, and we're going to go downtown to a neighborhood that we call today NoHo. We're going to be visiting an elegant federal-style townhouse that was constructed in the 1830s and last decorated in the 1850s. That's right, last decorated in the 1850s, because this is a home where hardly a thing has changed in almost 170 years,

46:04including one of its residents. For this is the tale of Gertrude is happiest at home. Now, in that very first story, I talked about a townhouse in the 1850s, right? The one with the green hand. The green hand, yes. And that neighborhood was becoming fashionable around that period. But this is further south and two decades before that. That's right. We're going from no mad to no ho.

46:35And we are heading now to 29 East 4th Street. It's between Lafayette and Bowery to drop in on the Treadwell family. Father Seabury Treadwell bought this lovely brick home in the mid-1830s, and they would live here with their eight children and their four servants and various other relatives passing through. Well, this sounds beautiful. What I'm a little confused by, though, is you said it was last decorated in the 1850s. What do you mean?

47:05Well, let me explain. Father Seabury Treadwell died here in 1865. But his children, many of them, continued living in the home for a very long time. And they changed very little about the home's appearance and decoration. One of his youngest daughters, Gertrude, was born here in 1840 and would live here her entire life. And in fact, starting in 1909, when all of her siblings had died off, she would be living here alone in the home for another couple of decades.

47:38And over the course of her life, she would watch the neighborhood change dramatically all about her. She'd see it start out as this elegant place during her youth, and she'd see it sort of fall from grace as it becomes a kind of extension of the seedy Bowery district. Throughout the 1910s, the 1920s, the city would roar. And, of course, things would crash into the 1930s. And yet here, inside this house, Gertrude changed nothing.

48:12She kept it almost exactly as it had been in the mid-1800s. And the house is really only preserved because after she died in 1933, it opened just a few years later as the Merchant's House Museum and literally provides today this kind of time capsule. You walk in and you are transported to the 1850s. Now, some of you may be experiencing deja vu, if you're familiar with our back catalog of ghost stories, because we have talked about this before.

48:43Yes, we have. We have talked about the ghosts of Gertrude Treadwell. Yeah, that's right. Because another thing that hasn't really changed in this house is Gertrude herself, or her spirit at least, because strange experiences have been reported by employees, by volunteers and visitors to the Merchant's House since it opened as a museum in the 1930s. Since that time, people have been really sort of wondering, what is Gertrude up to? And so, Greg, I thought that we could perhaps visit the Merchant's House

49:17in order to learn about the home, tour the rooms a little bit, and to get to know Gertrude just a little bit better. Are you suggesting that we record the rest of this show in a haunted house? A haunted house in NoHo. Let's go and meet up with Carl Raymond, who is one of the Merchant's House's docents, and who will lead us around and take us to some of the spookiest spots in this 19th century home.

49:51Well, Greg, we have arrived on 4th Street between Lafayette and Bowery, and we're heading to No. 29, which is the Merchant's House Museum. Now, it's a house you can see as you're walking down the street because it is one of the oldest houses, and it's extremely well-preserved. Right. It's a Federalist-style, three-story brick building with a stone staircase that is flanked by intricate wrought iron railing. And hanging on the door is a black wreath, or a wreath wrapped in black material,

50:22signifying that something has happened to the family. Let's head up the stairs and meet up with Carl Raymond, who's going to show us around the Merchant's House. Greg, do you want to knock at the door?

50:36Hello. Good morning. It's the Bowery Boys. It's Tom and Greg. Welcome to the Merchant's House Museum. Come on in. Hi, Carl. Hi, Carl. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you so much for inviting us to the Treadwells House. We're heading through the heavy, yellow, wooden doorway. Anyway, when you entered a 19th-century house, the whole foyer was an important part of the experience of coming to visit someone in a house. You didn't immediately get into the fancy rooms, the parlor. You had to come into this foyer for a little bit,

51:07and a servant would have greeted you. You would have presented your calling card just to see if Mrs. Treadwell was at home. So this is a sort of entry hallway. Well, that's right. The image that I use a lot is a 19th-century house was often constructed like a theater, meaning that you had onstage spaces and you had backstage spaces, depending on what you wanted to show to whoever was coming to your door. If it was family and servants, you would have come in through another door under the staircase. But what you just did is you came through sort of the grand ceremonial entrance

51:37that would be reserved for visitors to the house. Now, you'll notice that we're in this long, fairly narrow hallway that's not particularly decorated with anything. This was about revealing the house slowly. When you think about our apartments now, you open the door and you're off and right in the living room. That wasn't the way it was in the 19th century. The whole name of the game was to get over here into the parlor behind this closed door. So if we were lucky enough to be allowed past this point, we would walk into the parlor.

52:08Let's do it right now. Are we allowed? It's dark in there. Well, I think you two have actually made it under the velvet rope of the house, and I would be happy to take you into the parlor. Okay, we're going through a doorway into a grand parlor. It's kind of hard to see what's going on in here because it's so dark. There's some candles on a wooden mantelpiece. There's a fire and, oh my goodness, on the left, do you see what I see, Greg? Yes, that would actually be a coffin covered with beautiful flowers. It's very dark and moody in here.

52:40There are several chairs arrayed in front of it and beautiful couches and divans on either side with a piano. This is not how the room normally looks. You've come to the house at a very special time. The patriarch, Seabury Treadwell, of the house, he died in March of 1865. And every year during the month of October, we recreate what the house would have looked like during his funeral and what would have led up to the funeral. So you're actually seeing a house in mourning. And what's interesting about that,

53:11life and death was so close to people in the 19th century. We don't think about that today because of our modern medicine. In fact, if you look at the top of the room, you'll see the original plaster from 1832. And the design in the middle is called egg and dart. And you see the shape of the egg next to the dart. And that represented life and death. So even in people's living spaces, they were constantly reminded of that. Obviously today, most people do not host

53:41funeral ceremonies in their houses. But back in the day, it was a little bit more of a traditional custom, I guess, for people of a certain means. Well, it was. When we think of being sick and having to go to a hospital, that didn't happen. Being cared for when you were sick happened in the home. The doctor came to you. And when unfortunately you passed away, all of the funeral rites occurred in the home as well. As frankly, so did weddings oftentimes. But here, after someone died, the body would be prepared by an undertaker

54:12brought down here to the parlor, just as you see it today. There would have been a visiting period of several days. And remember, time was really of the essence. These bodies were not preserved. And one grisly little detail. Often people would look for signs of decay in a body to make sure that they were actually dead. Well, Carl, could you actually take us to this next room? So if you walk past the columns, there's another huge room, which I believe is the dining room. But it is very lavishly decorated as well. And even a little bit macabre here

54:42because we have the mannequin of a woman dressed in black. That gown came from Treadwell's wardrobe collection? When George Chapman, who was one of the descendants of the Treadwells, actually came to the house after the death of Gertrude Treadwell, he found so many of the original furnishings still here in exactly the places they were, of course, when the family lived here. But one of the extraordinary things was he found a collection of dresses. There were 39 of them that went back to the 1820s.

55:13What you're seeing is an actual dress worn by one of the Treadwell family members in the room where it was worn. And that's an extraordinary bit of bringing the past and the present very close together here. The 19th century, particularly the 19th century before the Civil War. But of course, this is our ghost story show. And it does seem that Gertrude was not afraid of living in the past. Had there been any supernatural events, suggestions that have occurred

55:44or taken place in these two rooms? Because it certainly looks like there could be. The Merchant's House Museum has been called actually Manhattan's Most Haunted House. Now, one can choose to believe what one chooses to believe, but I can actually tell you there are some things that have actually happened to me. Now, Gertrude, we know, loved her life here. We certainly believe that she did. And some people say she really never left when she died in 1933. You'll see right here this beautiful piano, which was bought for the girls,

56:15the daughters, in the 1840s because, of course, you had to entertain. It was live entertainment at the time. And it was also a wonderful way to get a husband by playing and singing, or at least that's what it seemed then. But Gertrude loved to play the piano. And over the years, people have commented on hearing piano music throughout the rooms, including me. When I was learning the tour here as a tour guide back in 2012, I was downstairs following a guide, rapidly taking notes, and I heard this beautiful piano music. And I thought, that's wonderful.

56:46Maybe they're doing a little concert in the afternoon upstairs. I'm not sure. I came back when we got here only to find that the piano at the time had not been restored and was unplayable. Did you report that story? Do people in general report stories when they experience something supernatural in the merchant's house? Well, I did talk about it. I was a little nervous. I thought it was the only thing, you know, did it really only happen to me? Only to discover that's a fairly common occurrence, people hearing piano music throughout the house. And it's really gone on for years.

57:17Also, come over here. I want to show you the stairs. Come here. So here you can see the staircase going up to the second floor and you see that window at the top of the stairs. That, along with that very dim gas light, would have been the only light in this hallway. There seems to be some kind of concentration of energy at the top of the stairs. Perhaps Gertrude or her mother looking out into the yard behind the house. We really don't know. But there's something about that. In fact, only a few years ago, one of my colleagues here at the merchant's house

57:47was sitting on the stairs and actually looked up and saw Gertrude's sister leaning over the stairs. So again, it's not only apparitions of Gertrude that appear in the house, but also other members of the family as well. But wait, there's even more. I haven't even taken you to the most haunted room in arguably the most haunted house here in Manhattan. Will you come with me? Please. So would you say this is one of the most haunted rooms in New York City? Oh, absolutely.

58:20Finally, Greg, Carl is leading us up the wooden staircase, past the window, see if we feel any spirits.

58:30Step up to the second floor, past another mannequin at the end of the hallway. So we've ended up in Eliza Treadwell's bedroom. This room is dominated by this beautiful carved wooden bed with ornate carvings at the top, the drapery here. This was where Gertrude was born in that bed, in that very space in 1840. The beds have never moved. We know that because of the soft wooden floor and the indentations the bed has made here.

59:02There have been experiences, paranormal experiences, felt in this room? Oh, there have. There's been some examples of the electronic voice phenomena recorded in this room, but also various photographers that have come in to take photographs have found things like orbs, these little bits of light on their film or columns of light that are just completely unexplained. There's no reason for them to be there in the film. There's nothing wrong with the camera. Different photographers at different times have captured these very same images

59:32on their film, and we have no idea why. So we've heard that the Treadwells have been making appearances to visitors here at the Merchant's House. Do they also ever, you know, act up in that way that the supernatural spirits sometimes act up and actually do things? Oh, they certainly can. You know, we felt that the family really loved their house the way it was as they knew it, and any time any construction or painting or restoration is done,

1:00:03there seemed to be an uptick in occurrences. And one really I found extraordinary. It was a Saturday morning. The house had not opened yet. The bookkeeper came to the executive offices upstairs, opened the door, and found it was a set of three glass nesting bowls that were on the center of a table, upended and smashed on the center of the carpet. I don't mean just broken as if they'd slipped. I mean smashed on the carpet. And it was really kind of a chilling example of somebody wasn't very happy,

1:00:35I guess. We don't know. And they took it straight to the top, to the executive director's office. Well, yes. So is this the actual bedroom where Gertrude died in 1933? No, this is where she was born, but let me take you to the room just less than 100 feet away where she died all those years later. Follow me.

1:01:01Oh my God. Okay.

1:01:04You could have warned us that there is actually a, we're passing through a bedroom and there is a, there's a man lying in a bed. This is Seabury's bedroom. A very lifelike body with his arms crossed in front of him. He doesn't look very lifelike to me, Greg. Well, that's Seabury and he is dead. Or at least that is an image of what he would have looked like after he died in his bed. But yes, that is the bed, the exact bed where he died in 1865.

1:01:35It is also exactly the same bed that Gertrude died in in 1933. So it's extraordinary that the bed where she was born and the bed where she died is so incredibly close to each other and she died in the same bed that her father died in all those years before. But this was the room that Gertrude lived in at the very end of her life. Well, thank you, Carl. And thank you to the Merchant's House for showing us around and sharing these

1:02:05spooky and supernatural tales with us. Oh, you're welcome. But before you go, there's one more story I'd like to share with you because it's something that happened to me. I was working here on a Saturday. I was the site manager for the day, checking in people for tours and the house had closed and I was sitting downstairs counting the money and doing the accounting for the day. And interestingly, that often also seems to be a time when things happen in the house. But I didn't really

1:02:36think about that at the time. But I had to close up the rooms and I went downstairs to the kitchen where we were to the cold pantry right next door which doubles as our coat room and I closed it up and bolted the windows and came back upstairs to get my things ready to go and realized, of course, I'd left my coat down on a coat hook. So I went downstairs only to find that that entire room was completely open, everything was unbolted, it was as if I'd never touched it. Isn't that interesting?

1:03:08And you were alone in the house at this time? Well, I think I was alone in the house. It seems as if Gertrude maybe wasn't ready for me to leave. So we often say here we invite everyone to come and visit because what we like to say is come and visit. Someone is probably going to be at home. And for more spellbinding stories

1:03:38from New York City history, join us at Joe's Pub for the live version of this annual tradition featuring some all-new stories this year. Or you can also book one of our Bowery Boys walking tours, including the return of last year's smash walking tour, Historic Haunts of Lower Manhattan. Get more details at BoweryBoysWalks.com. This episode was edited and produced by Kieran Gannon. So thank you very much for listening. Have a great New York week whether you live here or not.