U at Albany Haunts

University at Albany - Normal College Days
Hey, when your looking for ghosties, colleges are always a good place to start. Most have a long history and a tradition of both long-time employees who can't seem to leave their schools and students who have met a messy end. New York's University at Albany is no exception.

It dates back to 1844, and since has grown to a major research center with 18,000 students scattered over several city campuses, with a tradition of gently spooked buildings. Its alleged haunts include:

-- The Humanities Building mostly reports, via the evening work staff, eerie night noises - things dropping to the floor, slamming doors, bodiless footsteps and other assorted sounds. There are also unsubstantiated reports of a ghostly nun sighted in the hall.

-- Mahican Hall (located at the Indian Quad, how appropriate!) is said to be spooked by the apparition of girl that walks the corridors late at night. She's a relatively recent addition to Albany's lore, first being reported in the mid-nineties.

-- The Performing Arts Center features the shadow of an electrician who died in the building when some wires he was working on shorted. He's more of a presence than actual spook, and his sense has been reported by actors, especially during rehearsals.

-- Pierce Hall, part of downtown Albany's Alumni Quad, was built in 1935 as a women's dorm and basically unchanged since then, also hosts a specter girl that endlessly paces the building.

The U may not exactly be a hotbed of howling ghouls, but hey - get off campus and take a trip through Albany; you'll find a who's who of spookdom in the state capitol.

The Education Building sports the spirit of a workman who was buried alive in concrete in the basement, called the Dungeon; Sage College's Fine Arts Building is home to a collection of specters; and the Capitol Building tour includes the ghost of a custodian who died in a fire; there are several other tales of the unexplained floating all around the town.

Detractors may mockingly call the upstate city smAlbany (everyplace can't be the Big Apple), but it's big-time when it comes to spooky lore.

Washington Square Park

Hangman's Elm - photo by Srosenstock for Wikipedia Commons
Washington Square Park is among the elite of New York City's 1,900 public greens. The ten-acre site, which also serves as the quad of NYU, is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, and a magnet for marchers, the fashionable and the bohemian.

But when the park was dedicated in 1826, its pedigree wasn't all Joe Cool. Its foundations are an old Native American burial grounds, and like many NYC parks, Washington Square was built over a potters field of the graves first of the unwanted and unknown, and later the victims of the yellow fever epidemic of the early 1800s.

It was also the scene of weekend festivities in the mid-eighteenth century, when it was an execution grounds. The crowds would turn out and picnic while the criminals of the era were hung from the elms in the morning and tossed into a common grave in the afternoon.

A legend passed on in many tourist guides says that the large tree at the northwest corner of the park, honored with a plaque specifying it as the "Hangman's Elm," was the old hanging tree.

Unfortunately for the legend, said tree is located on the other side of the now-diverted Minetta Creek, then the dividing line for the execution grounds, and apparently stood in the back garden of a private house during the necktie party days.

Later, it was thought that the park area was used as a formal cemetery, with tombstones and all, for the dearly departed huddled masses. All in all, it's estimated that 15-20,000 bodies lay under the park's greenery and landmark fountain and arch.

So hey, no surprise that the park has become somewhat famous for reports of apparitions walking around the park during the bewitching hours. Some speculate that the spooks are from the poorly buried Potter Field remains, searching for their bones that have been broken and scattered from their shallow graves.

Other stories say that ghostly figures still sway in the breeze from the sturdy branches of the Hangman's Elm late at night (hey, maybe they did hang people in backyards).

The most famous is the ghost of Rose Butler, the last woman hung in Washington Square in 1820. A maid accused of torching her master's house, she was executed for a fire that later investigations showed to be almost surely started accidentally. Her spirit has been seen swinging from the Elm on stormy nights - when else?

Ghost hunters have photos of orbs galore populating the park.

In justice, the karma of the place may be the source of its lore. New York.com says said that “the place just feels haunted.” So one night, after an afternoon of watching street theatre and sipping Starbucks while playing chess, hang out til the midnight hour. Then you'll discover if the spooks are real or not...

Legend of the White Lady

White Lady's Castle - photo from Virtual Tourist by rdywenur (Chris)
At the turn of the century, Dr. Henry S. Durand owned a summer camp in Irondequoit, near Rochester, in New York's Monroe County. He and his friend George Eastman saw a need for a public park in the area and bought a number of farms around the Durand property.

They transferred the property parcel between the Genesee River and Irondequoit Bay to the people, and on May, 22, 1909, Durand Eastman Park was formally dedicated.

The park is a jewel, sporting a Lake Ontario shoreline, a Robert Trent Jones golf course, great trails, beaches, and about everything an urban boy could want to return to his outdoorsy roots - including a legendary "Lady In White."

The White Lady is well-known in local lore. The details of the legend are fuzzy and debated, but the main story is crystal clear - a man kills a girl, the mom searches unsuccessfully for her body, and finally dies, filled with pain. Then she returns from the grave to continue an eternal search, making sure to give any men she runs across a hard time on her daughter's behalf.

The story begins in the early-to-mid 1800s, when the White Lady and her daughter were said to have lived where the Durand Eastman Park now stands.

The mother was abused by her husband and he eventually split the scene, leaving her to raise her daughter alone. It also gave her quite the attitude regarding men, which carried over in her relationship with her girl (and into the afterlife).

At this point, the tale diverges a bit. One version said the teen daughter had a boyfriend that the mom disapproved of, and another claims that a neighboring farmer had been making lustful eyes at her.

The girl left the house one evening to take a walk on the beach with maybe her beau, or maybe alone. Either way, she never returned, perhaps killed by her lover boy after a spat (don't you hate it when your mother's right?) or raped and murdered by the jilted local.

The distraught mom reported her missing child to the local gendarmes, who did next to nothing about her claim (although her report is supposedly still on file; talk about your cold cases!). The White Lady took to searching the shoreline herself day after day, accompanied by her two albino German Shepherds, but they had no luck in discovering the girl's body.

Finally, overwhelmed by her grief, the mother threw herself off a cliff into Lake Ontario (or perhaps off a bridge into Durand Lake; other versions say she lived to be an old lady and died a natural death). Her dogs pined away for their mistress and shortly joined her in the netherlands.

A sad story indeed. And it's just beginning.

Legend relates that the White Lady and her two dogs rise from the foggy mists of the lake (Ontario, Durand, a pond, take your pick) at night and together they roam through Durand Eastman park, still searching for her missing daughter or any other woman in trouble.

Some isolate the Lady in White's haunting to a crumbled foundation on Lakeshore Boulevard, with a great view and reached by twenty stone steps leading from the road. The ruins are known as the "White Lady's Castle." They do in fact look like a castle's remains, made of stone with round turrets.

It's said to be the remnants of the White Lady's house or an old hotel, although local historians say that the stonework is what's left of an old Conservatory built over the bones of a former battery guarding Lake Ontario from the Canadians and their Brit buds.

The spirit is said to hateful toward males (little wonder) and pounces on men relentlessly, seeking her vengeance against the guys visiting the park for her daughter, especially when they're with a girl. Mother's instinct, hey?

She actively seeks out guys, supposedly searching vehicles for necking couples. The White Lady picked a good spot for her mission, too - her castle is party central for teens and a popular lover's lane. Many young couples have allegedly been scared witless during their smooch sessions after seeing a white apparition with two spectral dogs drift towards their car. And it doesn't pay to be brave.

There have been many reports of the White Lady chasing men into the lake, shaking their cars, scratching their faces, sending her dogs (oddly, most reports say they're Doberman's) after them, and generally raising havoc until they leave the park. She has reportedly never touched any females, although they've seen her and her dogs. They say she seems very peaceful, yet extremely sad. (The guys may argue the peaceful part).

It's also been claimed that the daughter's muffled cries and sobs can be heard near the Castle. But it's not the only place the White Lady and her pooches visit. The Lady in White has been spotted all over park, even on the golf course. Her misty form has even been allegedly photographed a couple of times.

Many consider her not to be a spiteful spook, but a guardian spirit (well, the girls, anyway).

It is said that if a gal suspects that her guy has been fooling around, one acid test of fidelity is to take him to the park. If he has been untrue, the White Lady will come a callin'. He'll be the only one able to see her, and she'll use her supernatural wiles to compel him to tell all about his cheatin' heart. Hey, who needs a big scene or Sodium Pentothal when the Lady in White is waiting in the wings?

There's an almost entirely different spin thrown on the tale by "Rochester - Off the Beaten Path" on the Virtual Tourist site. It goes like this:

In an age when the mentally ill were hidden away, she, the insane wife of the influential Dr. Durand, was cloistered in their vacation home on the lake. Abandoned and embarrassed by a philandering husband, she torched the house. The charred bodies of her nurse and orderly were found in the rubble (now known as The White Lady Castle) but Mrs. Durand had disappeared. Lady Durand roams the park, hunting unwitting young men who, she believes, take advantage of the young women who accompany them.

While there are multiple versions of the White lady legend, how many ghosts can claim to be the inspiration for a movie? Writer/director Frank LaLoggia is said to have created his 1988 supernatural thriller "The Lady in White' based on her lore.

Her legend is featured in many books, including Weird New York by Chris Gethard and Spooky New York by folklorist S.E. Schlosser.

The locals even get into the act, hosting a "Lady in White" candlelight Halloween Ghost Walk.

(While researching this post, H&H ran across nine other "Lady In White" legends based in New York alone. Geez, aren't there any ladies in black or red?)

Sagamore Hotel

Sagamore Hotel
In upstate New York, past Albany and hard on the Vermont border in the Adirondack Mountains, lies Bolton Landing. One of its' major draws is the Sagamore Hotel, located on a Lake George island and an elegant lodge that opened in 1883 and was restored in 1930 and 1985. And it hosts more than its paying guests.

If you're in the restaurant, keep an eye peeled for a couple that are dressed in nineteenth period outfits and stroll the eatery's lounge after coming down from the second floor.

They're supposed to be the shadows of a pair of original hotel regulars, circa 1880. Their behavior is a bit on the odd - and violent - side.

They argue, and the man throws the lady to the floor. She responds by grabbing at him before the pair fade into the carpet. Guess the honeymoon was over for that couple.

The dining area has also been frequented by the apparition of a tall woman with flowing blond hair, dressed in a white gown. She once visited the kitchen, said a few unintelligible words to the cook, and then walked through him before disappearing. Needless to say, the chef quit on the spot.

And she's not the only lady in white (unless the dining room ghost works the whole hotel.) There's another mysterious lady in white who enters the rooms, accompanied by chills. It's said that she rouses sleeping guests by peering into their faces and blowing her cold breath on their shut eyelids. Not too surprisingly, many guest have reported spending sleepless nights and the sense of being watched

You have to be vigilant on the elevator, too. There are tales of a chubby gent with an old-timey walrus mustache, dressed in a fine three-piece brown suit, sporting a gold watch fob, who's been known to take an eerie ride or two up and down the floors. It's said that he can be felt with not-so-subtle nudges before he materializes behind you - and when he leaves the car, he takes three steps and vanishes into thin air. The staff nicknamed him "Walter."

But all the spooks aren't relics of the good ol' days. There's the tale of a mischievous youth that dates back to the 1950's.

The imp was a ball boy on the golf course; he'd retrieve lost Titleists and sold them back to the pro. One day, a ball bounded over a roadway abutting the course, and the tyke sprinted after it. Unfortunately, he didn't look both ways, and was dispatched to the other side by a speeding car.

His spook now haunts the golf course and toys with the golfers. He steals golf balls hit into the rough, and can be heard laughing maniacally while players trudge through the rough in search of their wayward shots. When they finally give up, he returns the balls to them by tossing it at the hacker from behind a tree. Not much different from modern-day caddies, is he?

So if you hanker to play a Donald Ross golf course with a spook ball boy or spend a couple of nights in nineteenth century splendor with an unexpected guest or two, the Sagamore Hotel is the spot for you.

(Don't confuse this Sagamore with the old, also haunted Sagamore Hotel that was located in Pennsylvania's Armstrong county; it burned down in 2005)

Shanley Hotel

The Shanley Hotel
The Shanley Hotel is a turn of the century Classic Dutch Colonial in Napanonch, New York, built in 1845. It burned to the ground in 1895, was rebuilt the same year over the old foundations, and that's the structure that stands today. The hotel boasts of 35 rooms, hidden basements, and secret stairs throughout the building. Hey, it even has an old bordello.

Over the years, it acquired quite a history. While generally operated as a first class hotel - FDR and Eleanor stayed there, as well as Thomas Edison - there were also times when it was a honky-tonk house, featuring painted women, dancing, gambling, and the inevitable police raids.

It's had over twenty owners during the years, but the one we're most interested in is James Louis Shanley, who purchased his namesake hotel in 1906. He drew the public to his inn with card tournaments, social gatherings, high teas, a bowling alley and a billiards parlor. While it was a big hit with the locals and clientele who regarded the family warmly, there were several tragedies that struck the Shanleys.

James' wife Beatrice gave birth to three children; none survived long enough to reach their first birthday. Her sister Esther died in childbirth at the hotel. James himself met his Maker after a heart attack at his inn.

The place is spook central. Oh, a lot of the phenomena is paranormal child's play: doors open & shut, footsteps are heard at all hours, people chat in an empty bar area, rocking chairs are seen swaying on their own, unseen clocks chime, cold and hot spots are all about, the scent of perfume wafts by, the sounds of children laughing are reported, ragtime music is pounded from an unattended piano, ladies' jewelry gets tugged on by invisible hands, the smells of breakfast come from a deserted kitchen, orbs abound, a sense of being watched is felt, an occasional moan fills the air...you know, the usual stuff. It's a 24/7 ghost playground.

And that's just the opening act. The Shanley is supposedly home to 33 different resident apparitions, totaled up by the owners and the small army of ghost hunters that have swept the hotel halls.

Some sightings are attributed to the Shanleys. James is said to wander around the hotel in the form of a misty apparition, often whistling. A woman can be heard mourning; it's supposed that she's Beatrice, bemoaning the loss of her three children and sister.

Another story involving the Shanleys is the Al Hazen tale. Beatrice sold the hotel to him after James died. He had the same birthday as James (Halloween!), and eventually died on the same date, too, although different years. Probably just eerie coincidence that their signs lined up, hey?

The Shanley spooks aren't alone by a long shot. It's believed that many of the spirits that haunt the hotel are trying to share their tale with the living and receive a little justice, even if it's in the afterlife. Rumors teem that murders were committed and covered up there, along with the tragic deaths and fatal accidents sadly commonplace in an old hotel.

Some of the spirits interact with the guests, making physical contact with a poke or push, getting captured on film, or filling tape recorders with their EVP responses. Others just go about their daily haunts, happy to hang out in a place that's familiar to them instead of heading to the light and the unknown, like an ethereal lemming.

The ghosts cover the whole time span of the hotel, well over 150 years. A woman in a beautiful Victorian style dress can be observed on occasion. Men dressed in Roarin' Twenties outfits have been reported, as have girls in hippy uniforms from the sixties.

A spirit named Claire, a young woman who was said to have hung herself, haunts the third floor. She told psychics that she was murdered and isn't leaving until her true fate is revealed.

An 11 year old named Jonathan happily plays with toys left in his room to amuse ghost hunters; his rolling of a ball on request is featured on a You Tube clip.

Joe, a self-employed hit-man in life, also haunts the hotel. Unlike his earthly persona, he doesn’t seem to be a threatening presence at the Shanley, just another murderous boarder who is sometimes a bit surly.

In the old bordello, a photo was taken of a working girl gazing towards the Shawanugunk Mountains from her window. A penny for her thoughts! The room is supposed to be the most actively haunted in the hotel, and has a physical effect on its visitors.

People have reported feeling light-headed, suffering shortness of breath, a physical heaviness, and an overwhelming feeling of either euphoria or depression when they enter the Bordello Room.

Not that any of this bothers the owners, Sal and Cindy Nicosia. They embrace the spooky. Heck, their web site claims the Shanley is ghost-investigator friendly, has a blog roll of paranormal groups, hosts spook-hunting tours and ghost pajama parties, and offers a brief recap of the haunted history of the hotel.

They back up their tales, too, saying the reports "Have been documented with EVP's, photos, well-known psychics, paranormal investigators, news articles, eye-witness's (sic), and guests who have visited the hotel..."

They've earned a spot in Linda Zimmerman's Ghost Investigator series. Book #7 is called Psychic Impressions, and has a chapter on the Shanley Hotel along with other Hudson Valley haunts.

So if you want to break into ghost-hunting, head up to Napanonch and the Shanley Hotel. Hey, you don't need experience and don't even have to bring anything more than a camera and tape recorder; the spooks are eagerly awaiting your visit and more than willing to strut their netherworld stuff.

Champ

Mansi picture of Champ from Genesis Park
Lake Champlain on the New York-Vermont border was named after Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer that discovered it. So is Champ, its legendary monster that was also discovered by the intrepid Monsieur Champlain.

He sighted Champ in July of 1609, and described the creature as a "20 foot serpent thick as a barrel with a head like a horse," although some think Sam saw a garfish.

But if Native American mythology is to be believed, he wasn't the first. The tribe that lived near Lake Champlain was the Abenaqi. They had their own lore concerning a creature in the lake which they called Tatoskok. The natives used to leave offerings for the creature so it wouldn't nibble on shoreline life - like the Abenaqi.

Champ, in fact, has been officially reported sighted 300 times, beginning in 1819. It's consistently described as a cross between a plesiosaur, a creature from the age of the dinosaurs, and a serpent. Some have proof.

In 1977 a photograph was taken by a tourist from Connecticut, Sandra Mansi. The Mansis were having a lake shore picnic when they saw a creature rise up out of the depths. She grabbed her Instamatic and snapped the best photo ever taken of Champ.

The print was studied by many sources and doesn't appear altered in any way, an easier thing to determine back in the pre-Photoshop days. Unfortunately, she didn't keep the negative, so there's always that question...

Champ has been video-taped at least twice. Sonar and underwater microphones have picked up evidence of a big critter lurking under the waves. Unsolved Mysteries, ABC News, and The Discovery Channel have all featured Champ.

The lake could possibly hide a monster or some lost species of dinosaur. After all, it is 109 miles long, and in some places it's 400 feet deep and pitch black.

But a word of warning - Lake Champlain is very much like Loch Ness. It is long, deep, narrow and cold. Scientists have discovered that both bodies of water have an underwater wave called a seiche that can throw debris from the bottom of the lake up to the surface. Some skeptics think this may explain many of the monster sightings.

Like the Loch Ness Monster, many authorities regard Champ is a groundless legend promoted by local tourist agencies. Others believe there's a rational explanation. According to the Lake Champlain Land Trust:

One theory suggests that Champ is a dinosaur that managed to escape extinction and lives on in Lake Champlain. Another suggests that the creatures could be surviving zeuglodons, a primitive form of whale with a long snake like body. These creatures have been thought to be long extinct, but fossils of them have been found a few miles form Lake Champlain in Vermont.

Champ might also be a Lake Sturgeon. There are sturgeon in Lake Champlain and they can grow to great lengths. They are a very old, almost prehistoric fish with a scale-less body that is supported by a partially cartilaginous skeleton along with rows of scutes. Its single dorsal fin, running along its spine, would match many descriptions of Champ, although its sharp, shark-like tail would not.

Another theory is that Champ could be related to a plesiosaur. A plesiosaur is a prehistoric water dwelling reptile (not a dinosaur) with a long snakelike head and four large flippers. Plesiosaurs loved fish and other aquatic animals. Scientists date the plesiosaur to the Triassic period, 200 million years ago, through the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago (when all dinosaurs are thought to have gone extinct).

And here's the ultimate proof of Champ's fame: showman P.T. Barnum posted a $50,000 reward for the "hide of the great Champlain serpent to add to my mammoth World's Fair Show."

And ol' PT would never try to pull a fast one, would he? (Although just in case, Vermont passed a bill into law in 1983 which protected the creature from human harm.)


Champ vid

Raynham Hall - No, the One in New York!

Raynham Hall from the Raynham Hall Museum
Raynham Hall is the former home of the Townsends, one of the founding families of the Long Island town of Oyster Bay. Now a museum with 20 rooms, the building is a showcase of the community from its revolutionary war days in the 1770s through to the height of its fame in the Victorian Era in the 1870s.

It was built in 1740 by the Townsend family, and has a colorful history dating back to the Revolutionary War. The Townsends were the backbone of a Yankee intelligence group known as the Culper Spy Ring. Their home was used by the British to quarter troops, and the Townsends, being merchants, had free rein of the waterfront, so information was easy to come by and could be gotten out to the Revolutionary commanders by boat.

They once alerted George Washington about a planned British attack on the French fleet landing at Newport, Rhode Island. Once informed of the plan, Washington was able to bluff the enemy into believing he would attack New York City. The British had to withdraw their forces to defend the Big Apple, and the French were able to anchor without interference.

Its first ghost was due to the patriotic diligence of the family. A redcoat Major, John Andre (who was a friend and maybe more of Peggy Shippen, Benedict Arnold's wife), boasted of a letter he received from Arnold. He was ready to surrender his troops at West Point to the British for the right price. The scheme was overheard by one of the Townsend daughters and sent along to Washington, who foiled it before it began.

When Arnold heard that Andre had been captured, he skedaddled to the Vulture, a British warship. The Americans hanged Andre as a spy, but Arnold was never caught. Andre's spook has been seen on horseback roaming the grounds of the estate, perhaps still trying to absorb the lesson of keeping mum.

The Brits helped create another haunt of the home, too. John Simcoe, the commander of the unfortunate Andre, kept a lover in the mansion, Sally Townsend (OK, so they weren't all loyal to the colonial cause).

It's said Sally's spirit still remains in the home, and that her bedroom is frigid to this day, requiring the staff to don a sweater before going into it. Psychics claim the room is occupied by an unhappy spirit. It doesn't take an overdose of ESP to ferret that out.

The aroma of cinnamon and apple have been sniffed in the house, usually by staff near the stairwell by the kitchen. This manifestation is a good omen; it means that the "Ghost of the Kitchen" has accepted and welcomed you into her home. Her spook has been seen on occasion in the kitchen, although she's more often announced by scent than sight.

That's not the only smell associated with the house. In the front lobby, the aroma of pipe smoke and a woodburning stove are often encountered. The area was once a kitchen area of Raynham Hall.

The old servant quarters features the aroma of roses, and shadowy figures have been reported there. They say good help is hard to find, but heck, here you can't get rid of them!

And speaking of help that never left, the ghostie of 1860's laborer Michael Conlin has been seen in the garden and inside the house. He wears a heavy coat with brass buttons, and sometimes materializes as half a spook, with nothing below the torso.

When tour photos are developed, particularly from the children's nursery and sometimes in the master bedroom, orbs often appear. EVPs pick up screams and other sounds not heard when the investigators were present, especially in Mary Townsend's room.

Raynham Hall has been featured on a number of television programs on paranormal activity, and the help and many visitors accept that it's haunted. But hey, every thing's not so spooky there.

The Townsend home is also the the site of the first documented Valentine in the United States, a love letter from Lt. Col. John Graves Simhoe to Sarah Townsend dated February 14, 1779. So not all the vibes are bad.

(By the way, this is NOT the Raynham Hall that's home to the famously photographed Brown Lady. That one is in Norfolk, England, and eerily enough, is the home of a Townsend family, too.)

NYC's Haunted Hotels

Hotel Chelsea from Wikipedia Commons
The sun's out, the top's down, the wind's blowing in our hair, and we're cruising catty-corner across Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Empire State. We're heading for the Big Apple.

H&H is ready to gawk. We're hot to see Ellis Island, to find out if any of our forebears are haunting the portal to the Promised Land. But first, we need a place to crash.

The old Brittany Hotel on East Tenth Street looks like a fine place to park our bags. Built in 1929, it's right by the spook-laden Washington Square Park and has all the amenities we're looking for in a rent-a-room. It's penthouse was once a speakeasy, and its guests included Walter Winchell, Jerry Garcia, and Al Pacino.

What? It's a New York University dorm now? Will my 1971 Pitt ID get me a spot to flop? OK, OK, quit pushin', I'm going.

Just as well, we suppose. Old hotel regulars and the dorm residents have reported hearing mysterious music, bodiless footsteps, and the sense of being watched. The basement is supposed to be an especially eerie maze, and the penthouse is said to host a noisy, never-ending ghost gala. Party on, phantom dudes!

One roomie even reported being transported at warp speed by a house spook through the Brittany electrical system in a dream and deposited in his room's smoke detector - which woke him up when it went off. So that's how they get around!

Well, we'll just get a room in the stately Grosvenor Hotel on Fifth Avenue, opened in 1925. Dang! NYU bought up this grand old dame in 1964, made it a dorm and named it Rubin Hall. Where's a man to lay his head? Do we have to enroll at NYU to get a bed in the City that never sleeps?

Hmmm...on second thought, we might not get a good night's rest there, either. It seems the shades of former Grosvenor boarders have taken up in one of the dorm's rooms. According to rumors among Rubin students and staff, an older couple, who were the last two people to leave the building after the University bought it, have returned to reclaim their familiar former digs in the afterlife.

In another case, after learning from a Rubin RA that her room, #903, was haunted, a NYU student used her Ouija board to contact the ghost. During their chat, she discovered that the spook's name was Al and believes he was a bootlegger in the 1930s. Now that they're on a first-name basis, he doesn't lock her in the bathroom anymore. Spirits are such comedians!

One alleged ghostie there has been debunked, though. Samuel Clemens (you may know him as Mark Twain), who according to local lore does haunt the halls of the old Breevort apartments (the "Death House") down the street, doesn't hang out in the Grosvenor. He was supposed to have lived there, but since he died 15 years before it was built...

Maybe the Hotel des Artistes on 67th Street in Central Park West will have a vacancy. Oooops, just looked at the rates...H&H will be moving on. But first, a stop in its cafe for a cold one before we continue our search.

There we hear about the bar's famous spook. The help is mum, but the regulars tell of a cloudlike apparition that reaches out and touches the paying customers as it goes by. No one is really sure who the downstairs drinking hole shadow is, but the list of suspects is pretty impressive - Marcel Duchamp, Isadora Duncan, and Fiorella LaGuardia are just a few of the names under the scope.

Off we trudge to Manhattan, and the artsy Algonquin Hotel. It opened for business in 1902 and was an instant drawing card for the literary set. Across the street from the Ziegfield Folly foxes, it was also close at hand to famed eateries like Delmonico's and crowd magnets Times Square and the Great White Way.

It drew all kinds of big-time literati and actors, but its most famous crew was the acid-tongued wits of the Round Table (aka, the "Vicious Circle"), who met for lunch every day and after the shows at the Algonquin during the 1920s. Among them were Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, Heywood Broun, George Kaufman and Edna Ferber, part of a cast of dozens eager to puncture whatever show biz balloon that happened to float by.

Besides injuring the pride of countless performers, they continue to scare the pants off of innocent hotel guests. Some of the visitors claimed to have seen the ghosts of the Round Table's members lurking around the hotel halls and bar, the Oak Room, where patrons have reportedly channeled some of their famous quips. Ah, the power of spectral suggestion.

The historic Algonquin was renovated in 2004, and the updates seemed to have displeased the hotel's resident spirits. Eerie noises emanated from a 13th floor room on the night the work was completed (a hotel with a 13th floor? It deserves to be haunted!) At 3 AM, a picture of Dorothy Parker fell off the wall and shattered. Maybe her shade was a bit tipsy at that hour.

The resident cat, Matilda, is apparently well-acquainted with the sarcastic spooks.

"The cat seems to know things the rest of us don't know," Barbara McGurn, hotel historian, told Fox News in 2005. "She could be looking at people she sees whom we can't. I think she tries to make peace among the various ghosts of characters who stayed here and lived here and partied here."

The Algonquin ghost tale is so much a part of the hotel's history that every New Year's Eve, at the stroke of midnight, the kitchen staff marches around the building banging pots and pans in an effort to chase the building's apparitions to a quieter locale. It hasn't worked, so far.

As is our wont, we stopped for a beverage before inquiring about a room. The room was nice, the crowd friendly, and the bar tab for a C.C. and soda was $15. We continued on our search. We wonder if NYC has any hostels?

Hey, there's another joint. We'll try our luck here, at the Hotel Chelsea on West 23rd Street. It was built in 1883 as an early co-op, and it sports a guest list of cutting edge artists a mile long.

In fact, Leonard Cohen penned a song about it, "Chelsea Hotel," and Andy Warhol was inspired by its muse when he filmed "Chelsea Girl." There are at least 50 references to the Hotel Chelsea in films, songs, and books, according to Wikipedia.

As Janis Joplin said: "A lot of funky things happen at the Chelsea." Maybe she was alluding to actress Sarah Bernhardt, who used to sleep in a coffin when she lived there. But most of the funkiness can be attributed to its cast of artists who checked in, but never checked out of their NYC home. It's said that half of its rooms host a spectral presence.

John Ritchie, better known as Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, may or may not have knifed his lady in Room #100 of the hotel in 1978, but he's stayed on. It's said that you can share a ride with him occasionally on the building elevator, even though he died of a heroin OD in 1979.

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas spent his final days on the planet in an alcoholic daze. He died in the hotel after drinking himself into a stupor at the nearby White Horse Tavern and being carried back to the crib by his bar room buds. Local lore claims that his soused specter haunts both spots now.

The spooks of writers Eugene O'Neill and Thomas Wolfe have also been reported as loitering in the Algonquin. Its bar, the Star Lounge, has troubles with its electrical system, noises clattering from its back room, and lights that flicker on and off that it blames on the paranormal. And, according to a visiting psychic, it has it's own spook, an unhappy older lady that left life but couldn't bear to part with her lounge lizard friends partying downstairs.

Maybe we'll pass on this place, too. Looks like we'll spend the night curled up in the back seat of the ol' clunker. We don't think there are any spooks there, except maybe for the ghost of a Primanti Brother's sandwich.

The Ellis Island expedition? Nary a spirit to be found. Just the residual phenomena of children's laughter and crying, voices, and footsteps are all that's reported from those hallowed halls. It seems like everyone was in such a hurry to get on with their new life that they all moved on, body and soul.

Too bad. I really would have liked to have one more chat with grandpap Rocco.

New Paltz - Haunted Library and more...

Village of New Paltz

Hey, we're taking another trip outside the friendly confines of Pennsylvania today to visit the village of New Paltz, about 35 miles northeast of Milford in Ulster County, New York. It seems there's been a spook thumbing through its ghost books, according to the New York Times:

New Paltz Journal
The Librarians Call It an Anomaly (It Wasn’t Rattling Chains)

by LISA W. FODERARO
April 20, 2008

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — It appeared as a meandering shadow in the Elting Memorial Library, pausing on the wide plank floors in front of a bookcase with titles like “A Gathering of Ghosts” and “Still Among the Living.”

Was it was a spirit looking for something to read in the middle of the night? Or was it, as some killjoys suggest, just a spider?

A surveillance tape picked up the image about a week before Halloween, and the mystery has deepened rather than dissipated with time. The video, called “Ghost in the New Paltz Library,” has been viewed on YouTube by some 4,385 people so far, while library employees and patrons continue to debate the possibilities and recount the coincidences.

Not only was it almost Halloween. Not only did the “anomaly,” as the library officially calls the shadow, appear in the oldest part of the building, where the shelves are filled with ghost stories.

But the library had erected a temporary altar, or ofrenda, used in celebrating the Day of the Dead in Mexico. “Some people say that since we had an ofrenda here, maybe that conjured up some spirits,” said John A. Giralico, the library director.

For a while, the story of the enigmatic shadow stayed among the stacks. Some library workers came down on the side of a spider that somehow slipped under the dome and, at such close range, might appear blurry. Others argued for a ghost or at least some unexplained electrical energy.

“It’s definitely not a spider because you can see right through it,” said Avery Jenkins, a library volunteer. “If it was a solid object like a spider, there’d at least be a dot you couldn’t see through. I just think some people don’t want to believe.”

Carol Johnson, coordinator of the library’s local history and genealogy section, the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection, unearthed information about two deaths that occurred in the Main Street house, where the library took up residence in 1920.

Oscar C. Hasbrouck, who owned the home, died there in 1899 of what was then called consumption. Charles V. Auchmoody, a boarder in the house, died in 1908 after suffering “a stroke of paralysis.”

New Paltz was founded in 1678 by 12 Huguenot families who had fled religious persecution in France, and may be home to other spirits.

Every Halloween, Historic Huguenot Street, a nonprofit group, gives a haunted house tour of its National Historic Landmark District and its seven original stone houses, the earliest built in 1705, and burial ground.

The tour director says that every home there is haunted.

At the Abraham Hasbrouck House, the ghost of a man dressed in colonial garb with an axe has been sighted going through the yard, according to locals. He wanders around the outside of the house with his dog, the pair leaving nary a foot or paw print in their wake.

The man then enters the house by going through the door and quickly reappears in a window, holding his axe above what is believed to be a sleeping and apparently unsuspecting occupant.

The house door features witches' marks, customarily etched on the hardware to ward off evil spirits. Doesn't seem to be doing much good, though.

A word of warning - another source says the axman wears a black cape and tall silk hat with a black hound trailing him, and was spotted at the Freer House. So keep your eyes open at both spots. We're not sure if there are a lotta mad hatchet spooks running around New Paltz or exactly who's spooking who on Haunted Huguenot Street. Hey, it's more fun that way!

The spook of Elizabeth Hasbrouck is said to haunt the nearby Jean Hasbrouck House (The Huguenot Museum.) Yah, there were quite a few Hasbroucks back in the day. Still are, it seems.

Then there's the Deyo House, which is considered the most haunted house on Huguenot Street. The portrait of Gertrude Deyo, a young girl of about 20 who died of tuberculosis in the 1840s, used to hang on the second floor of the house with her parents’ portraits.

During a makeover of the house a few years ago, her parents’ portraits were moved to the first floor, leaving Gertrude's behind. Her portrait mysteriously fell on several occasions and was discovered on the other side of the hallway flipped over.

Her picture was brought downstairs to rejoin her parents' paintings, and has hung happily ever after, so we're told.

A couple of lady apparitions have been reported in the Locust Tree Inn. One is supposed to be the shadow of Dina DuBois Elting. And speaking of DuBois, the DuBois Fort - it still has gun ports, though it's said they were never used in anger - has a wraith or two.

One is the headless ghost of a woman in a brown dress. Maybe she's the one who had the run-in with the Abraham Hasbrouck House axman. She shares the grounds with the resident "ghost in a nightgown" spectre, who roams around the Fort at night.

Another DuBois - lotta them, too - bit of lore is the suicide of Annie Dubois in the 1931. Following the death of Hugo Freer, her dreamboat who died of appendicitis, Annie went AWOL. She was found at the bottom of a well that still stands on Huguenot Street, at the Bevier-Elting House.

Her ghost has been reported, wearing a white nightgown, with long, dark hair. She holds her hands close to her, looking out towards the driveway, and makes a sobbing noise.

The Old French Church, known now as the Crispell Memorial, burial grounds, and other homes all have a tale to tell, too.

A reader adds that "The New Paltz Cinema, a small movie theater that's about 100 years old, is also haunted by a little girl. Employees have heard her laughing and playing."

And as an extra treat, New Paltz is right across the lake from the Mohonk Mountain House, a 265-room castle that was used as a backdrop in Stephen King novels "Thinner" and "The Shining."

So if you're getting tired of the same old spooks, jump in the car and head towards Poughkeepsie and the Hudson Valley. You'll run into New Paltz and all the spirits you can handle.


The perp on tape.