Urban Legends of NYC w/ Greg Young of The Bowery Boys
/NYC has a long history, filled with (unsurprisingly) MANY ghosts. So we called in an expert to tell us about them: Greg from The Bowery Boys discusses his favorite ghost stories and urban legends from over 18 (!!!) years of podcasting about the history of NYC!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, murder, organized crime, child endangerment, kidnapping, ableism, and animal death.
Guest
Greg Young is the co-host and producer of The Bowery Boys, a podcast exploring the rich and sophisticated history of NYC, everything from the arrival of Henry Hudson to the shores of Mannahatta to the arrival of hipsters to the shores of Williamsburg.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And I am delighted to be joined by Greg Young of the Bowery Boys Podcast for special New York City ghost stories and urban legends extravaganza. Greg, welcome to the show.
GREG: I'm honored to be on this show. I was just saying early that I—I only seasonally get to talk about ghosts and ghost stories. So to break the season and return to this is a pleasure. So thank you for having me.
JULIA: It's our pleasure. Anytime we get to talk more about ghosts, I'm always delighted. And I get to do that pretty much every week.
GREG: Yeah, good.
JULIA: So, it's kind of fun. Tell us a little bit about— for people who might not be familiar, tell us about the Bowery Boys a little?
GREG: So the Bowery Boys Podcast started, believe it or not, back in 2007 during the George W. Bush era. I always like to say that, because it's like, wow, that's a long time. Um—
AMANDA: You know, that was effective, Greg. I thought, wow, that was a long time ago.
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: That's exact— unbelievably long ago. So me and one of my best friends the time, named Tom Myers, we just started this podcast. It was very formative, it's about New York City history, and every episode is about some element of the city, as you would imagine, like Times Square or Union Square, or Robert Moses or —or whatever. So we're up to 451 episodes.
JULIA: Exciting.
GREG: So that one, 451 will be on the New Yorker Magazine—
AMANDA: Woah.
GREG: So it hasn't come out yet, that's announcement. And so—and then our 450 was on Harlem and the Jazz Age. So that's kind of that. We're just doing kind of a Jazz Age loose mini series right now. But in that first year in 2007 back then, the shows were like 15 minutes long. But in that October of 2007 is when we did our very first ghost stories of New York City Podcast. I don't recommend anyone really listen to that for an enjoyable ghostly experience. Like over the years, there's much better produced and the stories are longer and the sound effects and music, but that first one, that was when it started, it started with our show. So I mean, it's incredible that, like, we can say that, like, we've recorded 18 years of ghost story shows, because that first one was, like, in that first few months.
JULIA: That's incredible. What was your favorite story from that little collection there?
GREG: So in most of them, we redid them in later years. It's actually full, like, more full fledged. I think, like the classic, like, when you ask people like of any interest in New York City ghost stories, one of the top five they'll always talk about is this Corinne, this flapper named Olive Thomas. And she was a dancer at the New Amsterdam Theater. She was in a lot of shows there, and let's see, it was Jack Pickford. So Mary Pickford's brother, kind of troublesome brother. She married him, they go to Paris. She— she dies, she drinks like a poison or something. So—but for whatever reason, her ghost then haunts the New Amsterdam. It doesn't haunt over there, and it's an extremely famous, I mean, a legend and many people who work there, I think Aladdin is there right now, I believe so.
JULIA: Yes, I believe so.
GREG: And when you walk in, there's a gigantic portrait of all of Thomas in the lobby. So it's kind of part of the allure of the place. And I mean, you know, this is the fun part about telling ghost stories. Like when I was there, when I saw Aladdin, I was standing on the steps, and then, you know, and Olive knows I'm coming [4:07] telling your story for years. And so I was standing on the steps, you know, going up into, like, the mezzanine, and all of a sudden, like, a light bulb above me burst. I mean, got like, little pieces of, like glass of my— in my hair.
AMANDA: Oh my gosh.
GREG: It was an injury, but I was just like—and I would happen to be there with Tom at the time. And he's like, that's Olive, she knows you're here. So that was one of the first stories that was told in that one. And so, you know, ever since then, every October, we've done at least one, sometimes, occasionally we've done two shows, just like plunging, going to the all five boroughs, just looking for ghost stories, great and small. And you know, that's a awful lot of stories, at least 4 um a year for 18 years. So you know, we're—we're getting to some real obscure stuff now on the show. But believe it or not, it's actually not difficult to still find them.
JULIA: No, because New York's such a historical city that you're going to always have some sort of ghost sighting, some sort of haunted building, some sort of urban legend about the city itself.
GREG: I mean, the wonderful thing about New York is that it is five boroughs. Meaning that, like it's always been a dense urban center, but it's always also been suburban and very rural. Every kind of life that you can imagine in America has been in the five boroughs, and as a result, you get all sorts of different legends that come from living in a big city or living out in a farm on a desolate road. And then, of course, the other thing being an old city, of course, they'll accumulate. And people from all these different places come to New York. And so then they bring traditions, and so then those get kind of like blended up and sometimes turned into ghost stories as well. So it's a unique place, like lots of cities have ghost stories. I mean, there is a whole cottage industry, as you know, of ghost tours in like every city, like New Orleans has thousands of ghosts that seemingly pour through there. But, I mean, I find that New York City seemingly has as many as, if not more, than, really any other American city, which is—which is great.
AMANDA: So Greg, have you guys been approached to lead a ghost tour in New York City? If not, why not?
GREG: So, believe it or not, this is crazy, because we have a tour company, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
GREG: Bowery Boys Walks, that's doing really well. We have um— I think it's like 12 active tours now.Believe it or not, none of them are ghost tours.
AMANDA: Why not?
GREG: Well, one of the reasons is that— I mean, more practically, we're friends with someone who's like, you can't really, actually do it better than them. The company is called Boroughs of the Dead, and they have, like, a ton of cool—and it's like, I believe it's year round, but of course, Halloween is there. They're a big time, and I would be interested, I've gone on one of their tours before. You know it's challenging because a lot of ghost stories, they're all just scattered. So like, what a walking tour would be is very fascinating. I think in the West Village, you could probably piece together four or five good ones. And also, the streets are very atmospheric. But we haven't done one, and we don't actually, because we're so busy with the podcast and all the other like implementation stuff that we're doing that we don't actually lead a tour. But it is a good idea of maybe, like a one off.
JULIA: Yeah, a seasonal one perhaps.
GREG: Yeah, that's what we do. But we do, do our Joe's Pub show, which I don't know if you want to talk about that now. We actually do them live. I would say they are done in a way of maximum spookiness, because it is at Joe's Pub and with music—
AMANDA: Spooky venue.
GREG: Yeah. Well, they has—we can talk about those later. But we've— we have maybe experienced the ghosts of the Public Theater. But, um, since 2018 we've been on—we've taken that show and turned it into essentially a storytelling cabaret.
AMANDA: Cool.
GREG: You know, we have a music director and we have a singer and, like, we sort of flesh out the ghost stories. They can be very scary because they have, like, a great light and sound system there. So we can incorporate a lot of stuff, Very haunting, but sometimes funny, you know? So I guess that's the closest that I've gotten to doing—
JULIA: Your haunted walking tour. Yeah.
GREG: —tour. It's like, I just stay in one place. I just tell you where they are, over there and over there.
JULIA: I don't hate that, though.
GREG: Well, as someone who likes to drink, you get to have a cocktail—
JULIA: Exactly.
GREG: While you’re doing it, so.
JULIA: I like that a lot. So, 18 years of doing these ghost stories, what is the story that still haunts you to this day?
GREG: Well, I mean, the stories that haunt me are the ones that people don't know as well and that we find in newspapers. So there's this incredible phenomenon, which I know that you two are familiar with, especially in the late 19th century, early 20th century. Sometimes ghost stories would be reported like the news. You know, it's—and it's, we have distance, so it's like, it's—you don't necessarily know if like, is this being reported seriously, as this being reported like sarcastically, or or what have you. But especially in the late 19th century, during the Gilded Age, you'll find like, like a ghost story will be covered in like eight or nine newspapers from different perspectives. And to me, that's more chilling, because it feels like, oh, did—so all of these people saw this, and all these people experienced this? Where today, I mean, often when you hear people tell ghost stories that they're usually like by themselves or like with just a few people, and it's hand me down, kind of, you know, urban retellings where back then, it's all these newspapers. So I find all of that very chilling. Oh, and then the other big thing is that, if you know, New York kind of churns buildings out, so sometimes it'll be a haunted house that's like, whatever. In Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, there's a great story about one, but it's gone. I mean, the house hasn't been there for 200 years. So it's like, what does that story mean? Well, so over in Brooklyn, this neighborhood called Clinton Hill, there is a very, very old house with like, these kind of, like Roman columns in front of it. That was the site of this extremely disturbing ghost story. I think it's like, I want to say 18, like 70, so I can't remember up the top of my head. And it involves this doorbell that kind of—it kept ringing for— for, like, apparently, weeks.
AMANDA: Oh no.
GREG: And then—but it's like, back then, what they did is they called the police. And so in the story, it's this family's being really tormented by like, this ringing doorbell. And then it would escalate that the windows would shutter, and at one point, like the window shattered and a brick kind of whipped through it, but there was no one out there. And, I mean, these are things that are like, if this was in a movie this—those wouldn't be necessarily scary. But the fact that like this happened for several weeks was reported in all of these newspapers, then at one point, because this is also the era of like, mediums and everything. A medium came over and said, this isn't a ghost, this is the devil. And so for like a day in like, more than one newspaper was reported that the devil was in this house.
JULIA: That wild.
GREG: So to me, like so but you can walk down that street today, it's like, almost near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and walk by that house, and I don't know if anyone lives there. Because the story has permanently affected the real estate, but all of that, to me, is just like that is even more chilling than perhaps a more flamboyant ghost that is a little bit more unmoored to any sources. Like for me, to find that amidst a bunch of actual reporting makes it a kind of compelling kind of story for me.
JULIA: Yeah, I was very— when you first brought up the newspaper reportings my my thought instantly went to how popularized spiritualism during—was during that time.
GREG: Yeah. Uh-huh.
JULIA: And how like people were covering it, like it was real news, and not just like, oh yeah, you know these— these sisters upstate, they're saying a lot of stuff about a lot of things, about ghosts. But I really like that. And also your—the idea that like haunting affecting real estate, always makes me laugh personally, because we're Long Island girlies, so we grew up with the Amityville Horror house which—
GREG: Oh, of course, oh my god, one of the most famous of all time.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But still sold, like, you know, 10 years ago for over a million dollars. So I'm like, well, you know?
GREG: So there's a funny aspect to this, because I think that up until like, maybe, like, 20 years ago, ghosts brought down the price. In fact, one of the stories I can— oh my gosh, I'm not getting the facts right. But a couple years ago, we extended our ghost to the Hudson River Valley, and Tom told a story about a very famous haunted house in Nyack.
JULIA: I know exactly which one you're talking about, it's the Ghostbusters Case house.
GREG: Yes.
JULIA: Yes.
GREG: Right. But it involved, like, information that you have to share—
JULIA: Right.
GREG: If you're se—buying or selling a house, and how ghost stories are actually pertinent. And it is true, not whether you believe in the ghost or not, it doesn't matter, but the fact that a ghost story is affixed to a house means a lot of different things. It means like, well, there could be ghosts. But number two, it means that, like a lot of people may come by and, like, check out the house, which would be really annoying.
AMANDA: Like me and Julia in our driver's ed cars, where they took us explicitly past the Amityville Horror House to practice highway driving.
JULIA: They used to make us parallel park outside of the Amityville Horror House. It was ridiculous.
AMANDA: Looking back, I'd be very annoyed if I lived there.
GREG: You know, I mean, at a certain point, I think they have to lean into it. There's a place in Staten Island called the Chrysler Mansion. It's sort of near the South side of Staten Island. And I mean, just the story itself, it doesn't need a ghost story, but it has one, because it was these two twin houses. They looked exactly the like, and they were built for two brothers. And it was, I think he was linoleum or concrete king. Anyway, there was a lot of—
AMANDA: Classic.
GREG: — that going on [14;31] Island.
AMANDA: Wow, so Staten Island.
GREG: Like 19th century. So anyway, one of the houses burnt to the ground, and one of the brothers died. And so the other house is still there and is apparently haunted. I mean, is like, like a ton of haunts, or a lot of ghosts are in this. So then no one wanted to live in the house, except for, like, the mafia. So in the 60s and 70s, it was an Italian restaurant, but then there was a mafia connection, and there were these murders in the basement. So then that—on top of the ghost story made this like rather fine, beautiful Victorian house, almost unlivable. So today it is an actual haunted house. It's like on Halloween—
JULIA: Wow.
GREG: —pay admission, and there's spooks and things in it. So you either have to just lean into it. But I think that also—sorry to return to the original point that, like a lot of people might like to live in a haunted house. A lot of people may not be scared of that, or they will, in their own lives, lean into it. And in fact, I have been to a lot of historic houses. I mean, over my many years. And I always bring this up as a fun conversation, because many historic houses here are filled have all sorts of like lore of ghost stories, and many do not. And I talked to the director of one house in upper Manhattan, and she was like, we looked all over for a ghost story, and we didn't find it.
JULIA: We were trying.
GREG: She was like, we can't find one, this house is super old, but it's never been haunted, so.
AMANDA: Like come on, no one saw a flutter of white out of the corner of their eye somewhere?
GREG: Anything like, you know, like a chill, a cold spot in a room, yeah.
AMANDA: Has a mother or a child ever lived here? If so, there might be something creepy.
JULIA: I think, honestly, you could bring just a medium in, and they'll say, yes, there is a ghost here,because mediums always love to find ghosts.
GREG: Well, that is such a good point, I would say around the 50s and 60s. 1950s and 60s, the number of ghost stories in New York kind of doubled because there were all these very famous, you know, like, I'm gonna see it happened into the 70s, a bunch of cheesy TV shows. There was a very famous medium quote, ghost hunter named Hans Holzer. I don't know if that name has popped in to your shows. He is a— he wrote several books on like adventures in New York City, and went into all of these buildings and magically found very elaborate stories of ghosts, you know? And so a lot of ghost stories today, interestingly, trace themselves to the 50s and 60s, even though the houses are much older because they weren't discovered, these stories.
JULIA: I love when a medium just shows up to, you know, maybe perhaps freshly built house, and is like, yes, there's definitely ghosts here, there's been haunting. Not to say that, you know, all mediums are cranks or anything like that, you know?
GREG: No, no, no. The reason you can do this, right, the reason we can all do this is because you don't ever really know. Because if you did really know definitively, then it's just like, not as fun.
JULIA: Right. I know, for me, one of the most haunting stories, technically not a ghost story, more of an urban legend with some basis of truth in it, is the Staten Island story of Cropsey. Like, I think in my mind—
GREG: Oh yeah.
JULIA: You have—you have the alligators in the sewers, you have the Mole People in the subways. You have, like, kind of these classic, quintessential New York City urban legends. But the fact that Cropsey as, like this boogeyman figure, but also has this inkling of truth to it, is something that I think haunts me to this day. Every time I think of Cropsey, I'm like, oh, scary. Don't like, don't like. Have you guys talked about Cropsey before on the show?
GREG: The last—our last year—
JULIA: Wonderful.
GREG: —on our Urban Legend Show. And let me tell you what was so incredible about that. Because I too knew the stories. I was—there was a documentary that was out about 10 years ago, but defined in the documentary was about that horrible crime that happened in the Willow Brook State School. And in that area which I was fascinated by, I could not believe it. So Cropsey is undefined or was not originally in Staten Island. So I read all of this undefined I mean, I love that like in the 60s, there were like, scholars and researchers looking into like actual, like urban, regional urban legends.And so Cropsey was the invention of several—no one can quite place the summer camp, but several upstate New York summer camps, all kind of collectively came up with Cropsey. I even read one scholar that actually traces the birth of the slasher movie to the Cropsey urban legend. Because the CropsEy, it could have—it has several variations, but it's more or less like Friday the 13th. which you know, came out in, like, the late 70s. So there is a kind of through line, because I also imagine that, like hundreds and hundreds of kids went to those camps. Many of them grew up and wrote screenplays, right? So what happened then is, I think a lot of kids from Staten Island went to those summer camps, took that legend down, because Staten Island has that kind of, like rural, overgrown quality in certain areas. And Willowbrook, by that time, was so notorious as this school, you know, where they put people with developmental disabilities. and it was infamous as being horrifying, and then it was closed down, so all of a sudden, you basically had this, like, massive campus and acres and acres of green land with ruins all over it. So if you were a kid in the 70s and you just came back, you're like, oh no, Cropsey lives here. Cropsey doesn't live up there, this is where crops he would live. So that urban legend really quickly then, kind of like became centered in Staten Island. And then when those actual crimes happen in the 80s and 90s, it just sort of goes to show you that, like, it's fun to tell a lot of these stories, but a lot of the things we talk about in these stories are crimes that actually happen in real—in the real world. And so, like, this was like a very eerie parallel.
JULIA: Yeah. I also— I had never heard the upstate New York camp theory, and it's kind of like a pet love and theory of ours when it comes to the spread of urban legends and stuff like that. We call it, kind of like the network of cousins. Like everyone had a cousin that went to sleep away camp and came back with some ridiculous rumor or story or something like that. And I think that the fact that Cropsey might have been a result of the network of cousins is—
GREG: Yeah, a 100%.
JULIA: —incredible.
GREG: You—you imagine that a lot of different stories pass on that way, right? I mean, it's—when— so I grew up in Missouri, in the Ozarks in Southwest Missouri. And the Ozarks have a ton of ghosts and urban legends. I think that's actually where I got my interests from it. It's a very religious area, but it's also a very hilly kind of, in many ways, remote area. People live very far away from each other there. So I think a lot of stories manifest that way. And so like, but like, that was one very famous story. There was, like, this little bridge that we used to go to in high school, to scare each other, or, like, to make out with somebody, whatever he wanted to do. And there was, like, a bridge where, like, oh, this bridge is famous because there was a couple that was making out here, and all of a sudden they heard something on the roof, and the guy went out. And then was a man with a hook. So of course, I was—
JULIA: Classic.
GREG: — yeah. I was like, oh, well, that's a—that's an Ozark story. And I started telling you it's like, no, that happened in Wisconsin, and someone else was like, no, no, no. I heard that story in Oregon. So, you know, a lot of these stories are like, passed throughout and then they redefined with like, kind of local qualities.
JULIA: Yes, yes. And also, something that we always talk about in the show as well is the idea of the person telling the story always has a certain agenda. So if it's like—
GREG: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: — they went to go have premarital sex, it's a warning about premarital sex. Or drinking as a teenager or stuff like that. I love the little flavor that comes from each retelling and the regionalism of it.
GREG: And another parallel to, you know, the— the slasher movie genre, or like horror in the 70s and 80s, when it became very moralistic in that Reagan era. So but that parallels that with those stories as well.
AMANDA: Yeah, nothing is without context. The—the legends inform what happens in the world and vice versa. And I'm curious, Greg, if there is any examples of those you know, really go to, it happens all over the US, urban legends that have been localized to New York City specifically. Does anything come up when you think about that?
GREG: You know, I would only say—how about—how about this? This is maybe a little bit of outside the box, but I think it could apply. Another kind of genre that I love are like early, early folk tales that are often Dutch. Because New York City, before it was— New York City, was Dutch. There was it was New Amsterdam. And so the Dutch people here were here for about 40,50, years, or whatever. And so there are a ton of stories from that era that then got popularized in the 19th century thanks to Washington, Irving and other kind of folklorists like that. But a lot of those stories are things that happen over in the Netherlands, and then the people came over and like, oh, they'll just—this is a new place, we'll just reapply it here, we'll just add these, you know, these landmarks. I don't know. I mean, there's—there is a certain template to—to ghost stories that does get sort of passed through. And so, I mean, my least favorite ghost stories are the ones where, like, I hear—like, there's—there are certain stories on our show that we haven't told, where I just don't have any other information, which sounds silly, but like, if it's like a he—oh well, a girl hung herself on the second floor, and so it's been haunted. But like, that's the only information I have.
JULIA: You're like, what's her name? When did she die?
GREG: Is there anything we can attach to that? So, but I mean, like, when I was in, you know, when I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, we also had a house up on the hill where a woman hung herself on the second floor. And like, you know, that is not—again, I don't think that was the basis in that either. It was just kids telling kids stories, and then all of a sudden, after two generations, it becomes something so.
JULIA: Yeah. I think there's something to be said about like, the almost suburbanism of that house is different, therefore there needs to be a reason why it's different?
GREG: Uh-huh.
JULIA: Long Island has a lot of those where it's like, we have a lot of tract housing and, like, you know, build communities where you had three options for the kind of house, and if you differed from that at all, people were like, that's a witch's house, that's a murder happening up there.
AMANDA: There's a dark paint color, sounds like a witch.
JULIA: Satanism, sure.
GREG: That's why I'm always interested in when I find a ghost story in an unconventional abode. So in last year's show, we talked about a haunted apartment building, kind of near a flat bush. It was—the building is in an old hospital, like a, like a late 19th century hospital. So you can imagine, like, all the ghosts and things that passed through there. But it was funny telling the story, because all of the quotes and references were like of people 10 years ago. And it would be like the haunted elevator and the haunted this and like— that was so is like modern technology. But yeah, for the most part, it does depend on, like, does the building itself help in telling that ghost story? You know? So, like, a lot of old houses in New York City do have a lot of ghost stories attached to them because they sure do look haunted.
AMANDA: Yeah, we don't have a ton of this Taco Bell used to be somewhere haunted.
GREG: Would love if there was a haunted Taco Bell.
JULIA: Yeah, I want a ghostly chalupa.
GREG: Yeah, of course.
AMANDA: Exactly. My first apartment in New York, I dropped off a suit to get dry cleaned, and then the dry cleaner shut down the next day, and eventually it was turned into a Taco Bell. So that is always my go to of the ghost of my first suit is, is, in fact, buried in the foundation of that Taco Bell.
JULIA: Yeah. RIP to a real one.
AMANDA: I mean, if you look into any like in New York especially, is really fascinating, because now we have kind of an overwhelming amount of research that you could do, if one wanted. You could really look at a place and look at what was there, and look at what was there before that, and, you know, at some point you're going to get to a part of the history, what's probably unpleasant, and things happen. So, you know, it's that—that's when it's like, do you open your mind to more than that? So—
JULIA: Yes.
GREG: Because I used to live in the Lower East Side in a very old tenement that was like, I think it was built in the 1890s. You know, I never thought it was haunt—I mean, I found no stories associated, and I never found it haunted. But I was like, this place should be haunted, like my apartment, like dozens of people have lived here over like, you know, back in the 1890s there were probably 10 or 11 people sleeping in this room, and there was a lot of heartache and pain and—and strife, and you imagine, if all that's concentrated in place for decades and decades, it's got to be like some spooky stories.
JULIA: It would leave an impression.
GREG: Exactly. So to me, there's like hundreds of buildings just waiting for someone to discover their— their little ghost stories in them.
AMANDA: I love that. It's like the spiritual equivalent of the landlord paint job, where a landlord will simply slap another coat of builder's grade white over the same light switch, such that if there's ever a problem, you can't possibly pry it off. It's like that, but with energy, and that's how we do ghosts.
GREG: Yes. I— yes, I think so. I think so. And it only takes— this is why you have to bring in someone who's sensitive to it to really find it. But I— you know, I choose to then support that with actual research to find the stories if you can, so—
AMANDA: Incredible.
GREG: —sometimes you can.
JULIA: Yeah. We will hear more about that research. But really quickly, we got to grab our refill.
AMANDA: Let's go.
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JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the refill. Let's start, as always, by thanking our patrons, like our supporting producer level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah). And of course, our legend level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And hey, you can get cool rewards, like ad free episodes, new urban legends episodes each and every month that are a bonus on top of the urban legends episodes that you get every month, recipe cards for every single episode, and much, much more. And if you wanted, like, I don't know, a little free sample of that, we're currently doing a seven day free trial. So you can check out what our Patreon is like for seven days and see if you want to continue. I think it's cool. Check it out that is at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, to sign up or sign up for the seven day free trial again. That is patreon.com/spiritspodcast. I also want to tell you about another show here at Multitude, Wow, If True. Wow, If True is your one stop internet culture shop explaining how, what's happening online shapes the real world. And they are the internet experts and real life besties to unravel it, tech culture journalist Amanda Silberling and science fiction author/attorney, Isabel J Kim Esquire. More importantly, they're the only podcast that will mention Neopets and also horizontal mergers in the same episode. They're asking and answering your burning questions about the internet, like, who is Bigelow Stickolas, and why are Silicone Valley Bros bio hacking their mouths? I don't know. Why are YouTubers locking people in grocery stores, and just how many secret babies does Elon Musk have? Elon Musk has so many secret babies. So check out, Wow, If True, wherever on the internet you find your podcasts. With new episodes every other Wednesday. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Now here's the thing, mental health awareness is growing, but there is still a lot of progress to be made. 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey said that they avoided seeking mental health support for fear of judgment. And let me tell you, there should be no judgment about seeking help for your mental health. When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them, it impacts their families, their workplaces, their entire communities. So this mental health awareness month, let's encourage everyone to take care of their well being and break the stigma. Because the world is better when people are healthy and happy. And one of the best ways of doing that is by going to therapy. I know I've benefited from therapy, and I think that Better Help is a great way to seek help through therapy. Better Help has over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapist from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties. Better Help is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. It's easy to switch therapist anytime, at no extra cost. We're all better with help. Visit. betterhelp.com/spirits to get 10% off your first month. That's betterHELP.com/spirits.
ASHLEY FLOWER: Some mysteries can be solved by looking at the facts, but in some cases, answers lie in the unknown. I'm Ashley Flowers, and each week on my podcast, So Supernatural. We explore some of the world's most bizarre occurrences and unravel their possible explanations, no matter how strange. Because sometimes to get to the truth, you have to look beyond what we know to be reality. Listen to So Supernatural now, wherever you get your podcasts.
JULIA: And now let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: We are back and Greg, one of the things that we love asking our guests is, what have you been enjoying drinking lately? Whether that is cocktails, mocktails, coffee creations, what has been your drink of choice?
GREG: Well, I mean, I wish I could say I have some inventive Old School New York cocktail for there are many. I guess. I mean, I drink a lot of Manhattans.
AMANDA: There you go.
GREG: That is the quintessential. I guess it's not exactly very creative, but I recently, there's a brewery in my neighborhood. So this is an exciting answer, but it's a very—it's like, I've kind of adopted this place because it's like, it has a one I can work in it. So there's like, this golden era of, like, golden time between like, five and seven, where I'm like, I can have a beer or two. So I've been getting a lot into, like, very, very specific craft IPAs thanks to this particular place, because it's like a nice, warm, friendly environment where I can both work and but also if I want to have friends. So I guess that's— that's been my latest thing.
JULIA: If you don't want to dox yourself, understandable. But if you want to drop the name of the brewery, please go ahead.
GREG: Oh, sure, it's a Strong Rope. They have a couple locations, so you know.
JULIA: Nice. So you're not doxxing yourself. Great.
GREG: But no—but they're great. So that's what I'm having.
AMANDA: Beautiful.
JULIA: I love that. We always like to when we're talking about local urban legends, we like to plug a local, like brewery or bar or whatever. So that was actually the perfect recommendation. Thank you very much.
GREG: Well, let me just go one further then, because, of course, you know, there are lots of haunted taverns in New York City.
JULIA: Of course.
GREG: And again, I would say one of the most famo— famous is the Ear Inn, which is in, you know, it's like, was it like Far West Village? What a Hudson Square area, almost Tribeca. It has a very famous, stupid ghost story [34:51]
JULIA: Great. Tell us.
GREG: Which is— okay, so this is a house. The building is almost, it's over 200 years old. And in fact, it's so old, like the waterfront used to be, like, right next to it, but like, there's all this landfill, so it's a little bit further. I think it's like a block away from the water, or block and a half. So anyway, so it was always like a kind of, like a Longshoreman's bar, like in the 20s and 30s. And then in the 70s, it became known as the Ear Inn. The word bar, like they scraped off some of the words, what's the [35:27]
JULIA: The bubbles of the bee?
GREG: Yeah, exactly. And I think it was like an alternative magazine or some artist or whatever. All of a sudden, a ghost story appears. I've never been able to trace where it came from, but the ghost is Mickey. His name is Mickey, and he's a dead sailor.
JULIA: Okay.
GREG: But, um, very, very, um, rambunctious and mischievous. And so they say that like if you are— if you look over and your drink is gone, it means that Mickey is taking your drink. Now that sounds really stupid, but I'm telling you that over the years, like paranormal investigators have, like, done the whole building and have found other kind of ghostly presents. It's a very small building, it's only like, two floors, but everyone there is just like, oh, Mickey. Like they all— all have, like, a funny story. And again, back to a theme that we said earlier, this place is so old school with all this crazy stuff on the walls. I mean, like old historical vintage stuff, it just looks—it would be not right, if there was not a ghost.
JULIA: Greg, I'm gonna be honest with you, that sounds like a story that was made up so that the bartenders could cut people off, but still charge them for drinks.
AMANDA: Yeah, they're like, hey, bar backs just clear, aggressively, clear, aggressively.
GREG: Right. But—but who can say?
AMANDA: No one.
GREG: A ghost—ghosts don't lose their personality—
JULIA: That's true.
GREG: —when they cross over. So maybe Mickey was quite a handful.
JULIA: Greg, you've done a lot of research on ghost stories, and now, like the question that's in my mind, is, how many ghost stories do you think are made up for publicity? Because you're like, I've—you know, I couldn't figure out where this came from. All of a sudden it just appeared one day in like, the 50s or 60s. How many do you think are just like businesses being like, yeah, we're haunted, come on by ghost haunting, whatever.
AMANDA: Sure, why not.
GREG: I feel like—so there's— yeah, there's like phases of ghost stories where I could say—so pre, like, pre 1850s they're all pretty much urban legends, like, and like, none of them like, it's impossible to know if they are, quote, true. Then in the Gilded Age, this era of the mediums and but like, of reporting, it becomes a little bit more unclear to me, because it's like, wait a minute, if I believe these newspaper articles, literally dozens of people saw this happen. So maybe? And then you get to, like, the early 20th century, and there's a little bit more skepticism into it, and you don't— you don't find quite as many, and they tend to be more urban legends again. And then 50s, 60s, 70s, happened where it's mediums come in, it's an explos—all of a sudden, we're all seeing UFOs around the same time, right? So then there seems to be more proof. So it really, you know, I guess it comes down to—sometimes you can tell that a ghost story comes organically, just based on like, you know, I mean an old building or a tragedy that happened when people may feel something or they may feel sad, and all of a sudden something happens. And then you get to stories like the one I just told in Flatbush, which, when I started to dig into it, we find that the tenants were in like a rent dispute with the owners of the building, and they thought they came up with a ghost story that maybe that would like reduce the rent, or whatever. What you'll also find, and we do cover this on the show, sometimes we will—sometimes a ghost story will have a punch line, because what will happen going, you know, into this, like skepticism that newspapers had in the early 20th century,they'll—they'll tell the whole ghost story, very straightforward, and then at the end, it will be like, well, it was just drunk Charlie walking around with a sheet on his head.
AMANDA: Drunk Charlie, classic.
JULIA: Classic.
GREG: You know? I mean, like, there would always be, like a something at the end. And so we occasionally our stories, we will report the ending, because, in a way, it tells you as much about the— the history as the story itself. I mean, there was a very famous one of a hotel in Coney Island that was just so famously haunted that they basically closed it, and then, like a reporter, like, went into the building and discovered that it was just like, apparently a branch that was, like scraping against the glass or something. I mean, again, like, is that all it was? But yeah, so there's—there is a lot— because again, and I think even then, I mean, I think people were generally haunted and scared of ghosts back in the late 19th century. But there were just as many, like, people who liked to play and have fun, right? There's a couple extremely famous examples of, like, phony ghost stories, of just some kids, like, there was a train going through Brooklyn, kind of down, going out—down to Coney Island. And passengers used to see like a veiled woman as the—as it was, because back then, was very rural, there was like almost no, it was they were passing through a veiled woman around this town of Mapleton made all the newspapers. And then, like, four days later, it's like, culprit caught, it was just these, like, five kids who'd like, strung up their mom's nightgown and would like, dangle it and, like, with the flashlight, or like a flame underneath it to make it glow. And, you know, back then, people were like, not as used to, you know, it could have very well been a ghost, you know?
JULIA: Yeah. I mean, some of our most famous urban legends and, you know, cryptids and stuff like that, probably were the result of just a hoax, like the fairy photos from around the same time period.
GREG: Oh, sure.
JULIA: Nessie, probably a hoax. Bigfoot photo, that's classic, probably a hoax.
AMANDA: People were bored. And I honestly applaud the initiative of these—these kids living in rural, you know, like Brighton Beach, whatever, being like, you know, what would be fun, let's fool the people on the train.
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: As long as they didn't harm anyone, the train did not get into an accident, as far as I know. I mean, I would love to know. I mean, you know, we—at some point, we're gonna have to, like, go further outside the region, because we will have exhausted so, I mean, I— I really want to do a New Jersey, a whole episode of New Jersey shows, because I am dying to research the New Jersey Devil.
JULIA: Oh, yeah.
GREG: For that very reason of like, where did that come from? That to me, seems like a layer upon layer of like, like an old folk tale that then people played off of, which scared people even more. And so— and the Mothman is another one. [42:10]
JULIA: We love the Mothman here, we love the Mothman here.
AMANDA: Listen, if you want to come do a Jersey Devil episode with us, and we can do a Mothman episode with you, more than happy to create.
GREG: I'll take you up on that offer, because I've been— I've been yeah, New Jersey has got a— just a lot of choice stories that like we've only not told because we're— the border is the Hudson River, but I think we're going to make that effort soon so.
JULIA: But I mean, speaking of stories that were told in the newspaper as truth, both of those stories are classic, told in the newspaper as truth. And I think you'll— you'll get a real kick out of reading the original articles, because they are something.
GREG: And here's the other thing, by the way. I don't know how far back they go, but assuming— assuming it was like mid 19th century, late 19th century, another thing to remember is like the world is going through such a, like, a scientific revolution. And every day in the newspaper, they were discovering new different kinds of animals and creatures. Like, you know, I mean, even in the early 19th century, most Americans had never seen the elephant.
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: So, like, who knows? Maybe it was some kind of devil creature, maybe a Sasquatch, you know, like, when you realize that, like, it's just that people didn't know as much. I mean, we may know more now, you know? And so we can say, well, those— those things, have not popped up since, but back then you could—you can understand why people really believed those things.
AMANDA: There were dinosaurs, there are germs, why not? Why not a naturalist, like, honestly.
GREG: I mean, when they pulled the first Pterodactyl out of the ground, whether you know— like, that's a devil. So, like, when you see those, you know it's— it's not a far stretch to say that there's— those type of things could live out in the woods undetected for decades.
AMANDA: Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's what we get dragon myths from, pretty much too.
JULIA: The idea of, like, we found dinosaur skulls, and we were like dragons, I guess? I don't know.
GREG: You know, I have to say, I mean, this is, I'm just intercepting this here. My favorite ghost stories are actually in New England, and you'll love this. So I was almost 20 years ago, I think, like, almost 2018, 19 years ago, me and Tom and his sister and sister's boyfriend at the time, spent three days punting for ghosts. Like, specifically, back then it was like Map Quest and like websites, you know? I printed out all these graveyards and all these places to go to for like, three days. We just, like, went through all these different places and had the best time one—but we did, like we were in Vermont, and it was like, because it was Halloween, and it wa— for some reason, like it was our last night, we stayed in this, like abandoned house. No one was— it was like, it was like this little cottages. It was the last night we were the only people there, and it snowed, all of a sudden in the middle of the night. And then, of course, we scared ourselves out, but, but by reading the legends of this area—
AMANDA: Oh, you must.
GREG: —and the witches that used to live there, and then how the witches would ride you in the middle of the night, like, if you couldn't breathe, you'd wake up and would a witch riding you. So we told ourselves those stories, and then, like, I mean, I swear I remember it, like in the middle of the night, I looked up and there was, like, someone standing in the hallway. And then the next morning, we all got up and the door of our cottage was wide open.
AMANDA: Wow.
GREG: And—and snow was like coming in the door. And so I don't know.
JULIA: I don't know.
GREG: [45:21]
JULIA: Did anyone have weird dreams that night? Did anyone have a little sleep paralysis?
GREG: No, I think we all had weird dreams. Of course, we attributed to the—the witch that we had just read while we were having too much wine. So, anyway, um, anyway. But those—there's nothing like a New England ghost story, especially, so—
JULIA: Yes. I love a New England ghost story. There's just, like, there's something about the, like, the New England Gothic that is very appealing. And also, like, you know, the witch hunt and the kind of scar that they left on and even live the area, I think, lend itself to a lot of very interesting stories.
GREG: Areas that are heavily biblical in their like, you know, that area in particular where was so much religion that went through it that there was, of course, a lot of darkness that went with the religion that people believed, so—
AMANDA: It's also an old area and a relatively densely populated area as US colonization was expanding, which leads me to ask, Greg, what do you think are, or what are objectively the most haunted neighborhoods in New York City?
GREG: Okay. So it's funny, because I have— spent a lot of time talking about Brooklyn. And although I wouldn't necessa— Brooklyn just a very spread out area, I would say, I would have two candidates for this. One of them, I think, is the aforementioned West Village. It's a very old neighborhood, and it's sort of the heart of the ghosts to me is Washington Square Park.
AMANDA: Of course.
GREG: Which is West. So West Village is basically to the we—to the west of the park. But the park, you know, I mean, during the Dutch period, and then into the colonial era, it was a potter's field. And to this day, there are most likely dozens, if not hundreds, of bodies. I mean, they have found, like, in recent years, crips with bodies underneath the park. So, you know, through this dichotomy of like, of like life and like activity with the scary, like, you know, like sinister secret underneath. But the neighborhood is, like, you know, 300 years old, and so it is—because the streets are so extra narrow, there's something that lends it even a more spookier presence than any other show, and the houses are older. So as a result, you get all sorts of ghost stories. And those are not even—many of them are old, but like you know, one of—another really famous New York ghost story is at the White Horse Tavern, which is heart of the West Village and is famous for Dylan Thomas, the, you know, the poet, the writer who did not drink himself. That's the funny thing. He apparently haunts the White Horse Tavern. Everyone has Dylan Thomas stories. He didn't die there, he just drank a lot there, and then died shortly thereafter. I like how that happened, sort of with all of Thomas, it's like they didn't die there, but they just did a lot of stuff there, so they tended to go back.
AMANDA: They didn't die there. As long as they lived there, that's where the ghost will be.
GREG: Exac— yeah, yeah. And then, you know, yeah. So there's a ton in the West Village. I would also as a candidate, sort of, generally as sort of upper, I'll say Upper Manhattan, let's say like Hamilton Heights up to Inwood. There's a lot of fun stories there. Again, many of them trace back to the Dutch, because that was—
AMANDA: That was a country.
GREG: —not only was it all—Yeah, not only was it all country, but there was also, you know, maybe a few massive mansions and estates that were up there. And, you know, it was also like the site of the, like Revolutionary War battle. So there was a lot of deaths up there, but you'll have places like the Morris Jamel Mansion, a beautiful—how George Washington headquarters for a couple weeks, a very beautiful house, I would recommend people visit, it's amazing. But they kind of embrace they're like they embrace their ghost stories, because there's a lot of stories associated with that house from many eras. And in fact, the Jamel, Eliza Jamel, who was, I think, at the time, like the richest women in New York, so early 19th century. She believed it was haunted too. And in fact, like when she bought the house with her husband, she had them knocked down the price because she'd heard these stories already.
AMANDA: A business woman, that's how you get to be the richest woman in New York.
JULIA: [50:19]
GREG: Oh, no, no, exactly. She marked it down, but she still wanted to live there. I mean, it was one of the nicest houses, so.
AMANDA: I mean, come on, there's a price for everything.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I was just gonna tell the story about my mother in law, who my husband's grandfather bought their house while there was still blood on the walls from the AX murder that had happened a month prior. Got a good rate on it, though. Got a good rate on it.
GREG: Something kind— I won't— I won't get into the details. Something kind of similar happened to my sister about 15 years ago. She got— she got into a duplex for a strangely reduced rate for a similar reason.
AMANDA: I do it. This economy, come on, how am I gonna own a house otherwise?
JULIA: That's what we're saying.
GREG: Good point.
JULIA: Incredible. Greg, I—I had one more thing. Have you heard about this artist, his name is Joseph Reginella, who has done a series of art installations about basically fake New York City urban legend. How do you feel about that? Because I thought they were really, really fascinating. There's several that he's—he's done these, like, basically created statues for events that didn't happen in New York City. Such as the the sinking of a Staten Island Ferry, because—
GREG: [51;36] [51:38]
JULIA: Yes, the octopus disaster. There's the Brooklyn Bridge elephant stampede, the New York City UFO, tugboat abduction, all different kinds of things. How do you feel about someone who is kind of muddying the waters a little in terms of the urban legends of New York City?
GREG: On I mostly like it. I mostly like it because it's— I mean, he's just playing—he's doing kind of what we're doing, in a sense, really playing with this idea of, like, what urban legends can be in an urban, actual urban landscape. It gets slightly annoying when then I will have someone email or send, like a make a comment saying, why haven't you done like the Rat King or show like, isn't that's a real thing. I'm like, that's not a real thing. It's like he either made it up or, like it was, like a cartoon that he turned into something, you know?
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: And so, like, would it be wonderful if we had some sort of, like, steamship that was attacked by a creature? Sure. I mean, I'm always looking for, like, some kind of sea monsters. I mean, there was, like, the— as you— you guys saw the Montauk Monster.
AMANDA: Of course.
GREG: Which was, you know—but that's, like, that's really the only kind of sea being that I've been able to come across in this era. But no, I mean, they're— like, keep them coming.
JULIA: Yes. It's fun. It's fun to kind of play with the what's real, what's fake. And I really do like that he is taking, like historic things and just giving them a little twist. Like the name of the boat that he picked for the weird octopus ferry thing was a real ferry, it just [53:16]
GREG: Yeah. Oh, that's right. [53:17]
JULIA: [53:18] you know.
GREG: Blend fact and fiction. I mean, that's what happens in real life, right? With stuff so—
AMANDA: And that's the beauty of a city like New York, where there are hundreds of years of layers and layers of civilizations and people and families with their, you know, hopes, dreams, beliefs, superstitions, agendas and the landlord paint job of the energy of it all.
GREG: That's why I'm always surprised when I— when there's like, come across a place and it has no ghost stories associated with it. I mean, like, there's ghosts in Grand Central, there's ghosts at the Empire State Building. But as far as I've— there's no ghosts associated with City Hall. A lot of spicy things are happening in City Hall right now, so you're just like, cert—and have over the past decades, you would think there'd be a ghost story so—
AMANDA: And it's too active. And the ghosts are like city politics were enough during my life, I'm good.
GREG: [54:09] poisonous, yeah. I was—I think that there's a ghost story associated with Gracie Mansion, but I haven't—
AMANDA: Yes, I've read that.
GREG: I haven't— I have— haven't found enough to actually tell it on our— on our show, yet, but yeah, you know, there's a few places that— that are essentially ghost free for some reason in the city.
AMANDA: Which of the ghost free places most deserves a ghost?
GREG: Alright. Well, I think it would be really fun if the High Line had a ghost.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Hell yeah. I'm into it. I'm down for it.
GREG: So the High Line was originally this elevated freight railroad. So that's in, like, the meat packing district, today's Chelsea, and that was very industrial, and it was also by the waterfront. So there was a lot of, like, shipping, but a lot of manufacturing done. So the—High Line was built as a train that literally went in and out of the—of these various buildings. Like there was a big Nabisco plant that where the Oreo was invented. So it goes through the building, and then kind of continues, and then they offload it. So then, you know, what was it like 20 years ago, it became this park, which everybody really loves, but it's also like you could still see the—even though they've done a lot of work on it, and it's a very modern looking park, they also embrace the history with like the rusted tracks, and it still goes through all of those buildings. So—and it's a train.
JULIA: It's beautiful.
GREG: Ghost love trains.
AMANDA: Ghost love trains.
JULIA: Ghost love train.
AMANDA: It was an historical queer cruising, neighborhood and site. And so there—there's a lot of just, like feeling and persecution and desire. Like there—there is so much there, and I love. I love.
GREG: I think so, right.
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: So there is— there is.
AMANDA: Okay.
GREG: So that's a place that there needs to be—
AMANDA: Alright.
GREG: — a ghost I think.
AMANDA: Maybe the ghost —
JULIA: We can workshop this.
AMANDA: —maybe the ghost of an influencer trying to get the perfect like, follow me day in a life, my life, you know, the shot.
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: Again, it might be. The problem is, it's so—it's, it continues to be very popular. Maybe it's just that it's too many people—
AMANDA: It has the original paint job still.
JULIA: Yeah.
GREG: It needs to— it needs to get roughed up a little bit before— before that can accumulate [56:18]
JULIA: New Yorkers can start turning it into ghost stories.
AMANDA: Well, let's uh— let's reconvene in a good 5,10 years and see if any progress has been made on this.
JULIA: We gotta lay the foundation.
GREG: I'll do my best. I'll do my best. I'll dig through the archives to see if, you know, like somebody died while loading, you know—
AMANDA: Oreos.
GREG: —beef patties, or Oreos into a train or something. Maybe some haunted cows. There was actually a very huge abattoir over there.
AMANDA: There you go.
GREG: Weirdly enough, they had slaughtered thousands of [56:48] cattle over here, and then they slaughtered them here. So I bet there's— if you're a bovine ghosts, it's probably the destination for them.
JULIA: I think a ghost cow could be really good, or just the like ghostly scent of Oreos on the breeze. We could also make that happen, that could be a thing.
GREG: Not a scary—it could be haunting, but not scary.
JULIA: Doesn't have to be scary, could just be a haunting. Sometimes ghosts are nice.
GREG: That's true. There's more of a Hydrox smell.
JULIA: A little bit of a knockoff.
AMANDA: Incredible. Greg, thank you so much for joining us. It has been an absolute pleasure, and I'm sure the first of a few collaborations to come.
GREG: Oh, please. Like, yeah. I mean, look, I could just rattle all of these things off, and it's February, so, I mean, I—they—they don't—they don't really leave my brain. Again, like, this is a great way to— the reason we started telling this ghost stories is it's an ulterior motive to get people to get know their real history. Because almost every ghost story we tell, we tell the story of the real thing. And then like, oh, and then switch gears, and it's like, oh, now here's the ghost story part, like, whether you believe that or not, we just told you the history of the Brooklyn Bridge or the history of Chelsea, or whatever. So— so we're gonna keep— keep doing it because, you know, we like telling it ghosts— we love telling history straightforward or otherwise.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: Incredible. So folks, listen to the Bowery Boys Podcast. If you're ever visiting or live in New York City, check out the Bowery Boys Tours. My professor, Brian Waterman assigned us one of your walking tours—
GREG: Oh, Brian, yes.
AMANDA: —in 2010 when I started at NYU, site of the former potters field and current potters field.
GREG: Yep. Uh-huh.
AMANDA: So just incredible, and thank you again.
GREG: Yes, thank you. Well, have a great New York week.
JULIA: Yes. You as well. And remember listeners next time you are walking through a park that may or may not be haunted. Stay creepy.
GREG: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.