Haunted U.S.A.: New York City Part 1

New York City. What can be said about the greatest city in America that already hasn’t? Not much, but one area that doesn’t get a lot of attention is the various hauntings and paranormal events that have occurred in it. It makes sense that NYC would be the back drop for Ghostbusters. The city was even dubbed “The Most Haunted City In America” for a time and we have the stories to prove it.

Every single street is steeped in history, and in the four-hundred-plus years of cycles of expansion, construction, destruction, and rejuvenation, you're bound to hear more than a few legends and tales of the otherwordly.

Let’s dive right in to pesky poltergeists, hot and cold running chills, and ethereal entities, shall we?

1. The Morris-Jumel Mansion

65 Jumel Terrace
New York, NY 10032

One of the oldest houses in Manhattan, this stately Georgian mansion in Washington Heights was built by Roger Morris—a colonel in the British army—in 1765. It served as military headquarters for both sides of the Revolution, with George Washington retreating here after the disastrous loss of the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. In 1810, the house was bought by Stephen Jumel and his wife Eliza, and after his suspicious death, she remarried in 1832 to a haunted figure in his own right: Aaron Burr, the former Vice President and killer of Alexander Hamilton. Since at least the 1960s, rumors of the supernatural have persisted, when a group of rowdy schoolchildren allegedly saw the ghostly visage of Eliza Jumel, who told them to quiet down before gliding away. Other sightings include a talking grandfather clock and a Hessian soldier who’s been known to emerge from paintings on the wall, someone better call Hogwarts.

2. The Dakota

1 West 72nd Street
New York, NY 10023

We must admit, even just walking past this building when we visited NYC in 2016, it gave off a aura of foreboding even the Haunted Mansion would envy. The Dakota is renowned for its featured role in Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror classic Rosemary’s Baby and as the site of John Lennon’s assassination, but the legendary Central Park West building has a long history of supernatural encounters in its own right. Over the years, workers and residents have reported seeing a friendly little girl dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing, an adult with the face of a small boy, and even the ghost of Lennon himself.

3. 57 West 57th Street

57 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

In 1922, Albert Champion, a former cyclist and inventor of the spark plug, married showgirl Edna Crawford. The May-September romance quickly soured when Edna took the younger, dashing Frenchman Charles Brazelle as a lover. In 1927, Brazelle allegedly murdered Champion in a Paris hotel, but Edna and Brazelle convinced authorities he died of a “weak heart” and were set to inherit his fortune, with which she and Brazelle bought the penthouse at 57 West 57th Street. Brazelle was jealous, keeping Edna a prisoner of the penthouse and eventually beating her to death with a telephone, after which her bodyguards threw him out the window. The penthouse lay vacant for years, but subsequent owner Carlton Alsop claimed to hear Edna’s clicking high heels and the couple’s violent arguments, and his guests often reported seeing horrific, unexplainable sights. His wife left him, his dogs had nervous breakdowns, and things got so bad for Alsop that he eventually had himself committed, before abandoning the penthouse forever.

4. The Campbell Apartment

15 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, NY 10017

A few years ago, our friends at Eater reported on the supposed haunting of The Campbell Apartment—the lavishly appointed cocktail lounge in Grand Central Terminal, which was once the office and salon of financier John W. Campbell, who died in 1957. According to owner Mark Grossich, employees have felt strange presences, including something pushing them from behind and bursts of cold air, and some have even reported seeing “an old, fashionably dressed couple sitting and having a cocktail on the balcony when the place was completely closed.”

5. The House of Death

14 West 10th Street
New York, NY 10011

This beautiful townhouse on quiet West 10th has been called the most haunted building in New York, with as many as twenty-two ghosts calling it home, earning 14 West 10th Street the sobriquet “The House of Death.” Mark Twain lived here from 1900 to 1901 and claimed that he himself had experienced supernatural incidents. Throughout the twentieth century, 14 West 10th was the site of several gruesome incidents, including a murder-suicide and the beating death of six-year-old Lisa Steinberg at the hands of her adopted father, prominent attorney Joel Steinberg, in 1987. The specter of Twain himself—white suit and all—has been seen ascending the staircase.

6. 12 Gay Street

12 Gay Street
New York, NY 10014

Located right around the corner from bustling Sixth Avenue, Gay Street is arguably one of the most picturesque blocks in New York, and the quaint brick townhouse at number 12 is no exception. The building served as a speakeasy called The Pirate’s Den during Prohibition and was purchased by the corrupt (yet wildly popular) Mayor Jimmy Walker as a home for his mistress, Ziegfeld girl Betty Compton. Neighbors insist that ghostly flappers and the Gay Street Phantom—a dapper gent in a cloak and top hat—still lurk around late at night, and if that’s not creepy enough, the property was later bought by Frank Paris, the creator of notorious hell-puppet Howdy Doody.

That does it for part 1 of NYC. Yeah, we know, there’s a lot more haunted places to venture to in the City That Never Sleeps. So we will be breaking up NYC into a few parts for ya for easy reading and short attention spans.