Feed Drop: The Bowery Boys - Ghost Stories of the Five Boroughs
/Julia’s out on vacation, but to get you prepped for spooky season, please enjoy these ghost stories from all across NYC from our friends over at The Bowery Boys! Fun fact! Every single one of these ghost stories was sourced from actual newspaper and magazine reporting from their respective eras!
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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
JULIA: Hey, ConSpiriters. It's Julia here. It's the beginning of September, which means one thing, I have entered a chrysalis made of cobwebs and skeletons in order to manifest into my true spooky form. Just kidding, I'm on vacation. But to get you into the mood for spooky season, we're dropping an episode from our friends over at the Bowery Boys Podcast. You might remember the chat that we had back in April with Greg all about the urban legends of New York City. Well, if you liked that episode, you're going to love this one. It's their Halloween special from last October, and is all about ghost stories from all across New York City's five boroughs. Enjoy and we'll see you next week with a whole new episode of Spirits.
[theme]
TOM: There sits an old cemetery upon a lonely hill in Staten Island within the neighborhood of Concord, a high place called Emerson Hill, named for William Emerson. If that name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps you've heard of his brother, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived with William and his family here in 1843. The Emersons are long gone, but the cemetery survived.
GREG: Back in the year 1921, a trolley line ran by this burial site called Old Clove Cemetery, a place that was already so very old by this time. The trolley motorman John Haynes guided his trolley by on its nightly journey through Northeastern Staten Island. One night, while passing through the neighborhood, Haynes thought he saw some kind of apparition floating out of the cemetery.
TOM: The human-like specter was holding a tombstone in its hands. However, it was holding it behind its back, its ghostly arms hidden behind it, as though to conceal its activities. Haynes thought his eyes had just been playing tricks on him, and decided to think nothing of it.
GREG: In the early morning, right at dawn, however, Haynes saw the figure again. When he guided the trolley past the cemetery a second time, the vehicle broke down. As Haynes got out to investigate, he saw the spirit again, and this time it stepped into the front car of the trolley.
TOM: Quoting from the New York Times, August 27th, 1921, "It flitted right along sort of misty and sad-looking, and through the closed window in the rear. That was too much for Haynes' nerves, and he let out a yell."
GREG: By chance, a group of young watchmen were nearby and quickly came to Haynes' rescue. Quote, "When the youths ran down the hill, they said they found Haynes so frightened that his knees knocked together. The ghost wandered around, and the men followed, throwing anything they could pick up. In the midst of the racket, the Reverend John Mix of St. Simon's Episcopal Church came out and asked the young men to please stop making so much noise and go home. He didn't think so much of the ghost story."
TOM: But everyone else in Staten Island certainly did, quote, "The ghost has Staten Island all brought up amulets and lucky pieces are being hunted by the people who live about Concord. Housewives go to bed at night with their fingers crossed and a candle burning outside the door."
GREG: Automobiles from the last few nights have been flocking to the cemetery from all parts of the island. And last night and the night before, several 100 men waited with clubs and stones to see if the wraith was substantial enough for a brick to bounce off it.
TOM: The tombstone stealing wraith never returned, but the old cemetery, believe it or not, still exists. Its remaining tombstones broken and in disrepair, a place forgotten to time.
GREG: But Staten Island isn't alone in harboring dark tales of midnight ghosts, remembered in stories passed down from generation to generation and documented in newspaper reporting. While the borough may not be connected to the rest of the city by subway, ghosts have had no problem spreading far and wide to every corner of Greater New York.
TOM: The Bowery Boys episode 443, Ghost Stories of the Five Boroughs.
SPEAKER 3: Now, stay close. Stay close. I know, do exactly as I say. Ready. Ready. Get her! [screams]
GREG: Hi, there. Welcome to the Bowery Boys, and welcome to the Bowery Boys annual Halloween Spookfest. This is Greg Young.
TOM: And this is Tom Meyers. And today, believe it or not, is our 18th annual ghost story episode. That is crazy, Greg, crazy.
GREG: That's right, Tom. The Bowery Boys Halloween Specials are now old enough to vote in the United States.
TOM: And they better be registered.
GREG: They better be registered. Yes, I think it is. And, you know, I'm beginning to experience a bit of— well, I guess I could call it holiday dysmorphia, because—
TOM: Hmm.
GREG: —it is the start of October today, and it just seems like New York has already been celebrating Halloween for several weeks—
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: —already. I even just saw Christmas decorations a couple days ago.
TOM: I mean, have we forgotten about Thanksgiving? Does it not deserve our attention, Greg?
GREG: I know, I don't understand. Where are the cornucopias?
TOM: Well, I hope we haven't forgotten it, because we have got a whole buffet of ghost stories for all of us to feast on today. And with a very special theme this year, Ghost Stories of the Five Boroughs.
GREG: On January 1st, 1898, Greater New York was formed from the union of two big cities, New York and Brooklyn, along with other towns and villages of the region, creating the five boroughs that we know and love today.
TOM: But each of these five boroughs bring their own unique history and personality to the city, and so for this year's ghost stories, we thought that we would give each borough its own spotlight, or rather spooklight, as we highlight the city's landscape from rural escapes to densely populated urban centers in today's stories, because, ghosts, you see, they can manifest themselves anywhere.
GREG: And as we have found from producing so many ghost story shows, the material is actually inexhaustible. There are no shortage of spooky tales about New York City.
TOM: No. New Yorkers have been, you know, knocking their knees together in fright, like old Haynes there in his trolley for centuries.
GREG: Clutching their amulets, Tom. We started this tour actually already with the— that little tale of haunted cemeteries in Staten Island.
TOM: A true tale.
GREG: A true tale from the newspapers. Nelly gave the borough a big spotlight in our look at the Cropsy legend in last episode's semi-spooky show, Urban Legends of Old New York.
TOM: Which we hope that you've listened to, has a bit of a sort of spooky amuse-bouche, if you will. Or amuse-bouche, Greg.
GREG: Bouche.
TOM: Bouche. But we have got four more boroughs to go, and the exciting part is that you have almost certainly never heard the stories that we were about to tell before, because over the years, we have had to move away from the best known New York stories—
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: —which, obviously, we got to in those early years. But through persistent digging through newspaper archives and dusty old books, we have found stories that sometimes I feel these stories haven't been told in decades.
GREG: Yeah.
TOM: Or longer.
GREG: And fortunately, back in the day, newspapers regularly reported on ghost stories, so there's still plenty to choose from.
TOM: I mean, it seems like almost every newspaper in town had somebody on a ghost beat.
GREG: Well, I know some friends of ours who enjoy being on the ghost beats, some of our regular pals here in the studio. Of course, I am talking about Ms. Cheryl Crow, who is with us.
TOM: Hello, Cheryl.
GREG: Peeking over my shoulder, who has made her year round nest on my bookshelf. As you can see, she's getting into a little witchcraft. She's been watching Agatha all along on Disney, and she's getting really into Stevie Nicks. So she's burning some candles. In fact, she burned my copy of the Power Broker over there. She's getting a little crazy.
TOM: But she'd already read it twice.
GREG: Yes.
TOM: I don't see bad Damon back there. Is he okay?
GREG: Well, you know, since we celebrate Halloween earlier and earlier these days, like he's actually still out at the Fire Island Pines for one last weekend.
TOM: Oh, right.
GREG: You know how he likes to hang from the rafters for high tea at the blue whale. And sorry, but our eight-legged friend, Liza Spinelli was back here a minute ago. I don't know where she went.
TOM: Oh, she's always stepping out. Meanwhile, we've got our usual janky Halloween string of lights up.
GREG: And my little jack-o'-lanterns are flickering.
TOM: And the tray of donuts beckoning. So listener, why not turn down the lights and draw the curtain? And join us in our haunted Halloween mood.
GREG: Spooky voices activated, activated.
[theme]
GREG: So Tom, which borough are we going to next?
TOM: Well, for my first story, Greg, let's go to Manhattan in early March of 1878.
GREG: Okay, so this is peak Gilded Age New York era, just five years before TV's Gilded Age, the era of Agnes van Rhijn.
TOM: That's right. Although this story takes place in a far different part of town. This is more like Agnes van Run.
AGNES VAN RHIJN: You are glad to be ordered to march into hell and to dance with the devil.
TOM: That March of 1878, New Yorkers had become alarmed by reports of an otherworldly apparition, the ghost of an old watchman haunting the abandoned East River piers, for the name of my story is For Whom the Watch Glows. We begin in early March 1878, one night, well after midnight, when Joseph B. Shepherd, a night watchman known as Old Shep, was patrolling the East River piers. According to an account carried a couple weeks later in the New York Times, Joseph B. Shepherd watched everything that needed watching in the vicinity of East 38th Street, and patrolled the neighborhood to keep burglars out of the stores. A part of his duty was to call persons who wished to get up early in the morning. He was an old man, rather small, wore a cap which was always pulled well over his eyes, and carried his hands in his pockets. He was stoop shouldered, kept the ends of his pantaloons stuffed in his boots, and is described, in general by his friends, as a man who would be remembered for 50 years when once seen. But unfortunately, well, quote, "Several weeks ago, Mr. Shepherd went to a house at 39th Street and First Avenue at 1 o'clock in the morning to call on one of his customers. Half an hour later, his dead body was found in the East River at the foot of 38th Street. It was pulled out and taken to the morgue, where it was claimed by his son. The coroner ruled it an accidental drowning, and Old Shep was buried. Two weeks later on a chilly March night, an East Side police officer named Thomas Kilbride [12:38] was patrolling the same area. It was after midnight as he walked along the empty streets near the East River, he passed by tenements and factories, stables, and locked up shops. Along the river front, the water was silent, with waves pushing quietly up against the piers. Some of which had vessels bobbing up against them, while others were empty. Some old piers were even abandoned and half-crumbling into the water. That was the case with the old skeleton of a pier under which Sheppard's dead body had been discovered two weeks before. Officer Kilbride was just passing by its metal ruins when he saw something shocking, quote, "I was looking down at the ground, walking along slowly, when something made me look up. The instant I raised my eyes, I saw Joseph Sheppard's ghost standing within six feet of me. I knew him for many years, and I would recognize him among any number of men. He had the same old cap pulled far down over his eyes, and he was standing with his hands in his pantaloon pockets, just as I have seen him stand in the same place several times. He had his pantaloons stuffed in his boots as usual, and wore the same shabby clothes. He looked just exactly as he always did, only his face looked like a dead man's face. Officer Kilbride was so startled that he froze, but by the time he snapped out of it, he moved toward the ghostly figure, but it suddenly disappeared right before his eyes."
GREG: Good grief. How terrifying. And this was reported in a newspaper?
TOM: In the New York Times, on March 21st, 1878, headline, An East River Ghost. But by the time this article had come out, two weeks had passed, and other papers had already covered it.
GREG: Now, could this officer Kilbride, couldn't he have just imagined this? You know, maybe he was passed out? Just dreamt it all up?
TOM: Some papers had speculated that he had. And in this article, Kilbride denied that he had fainted, and he was backed up by his boss, Captain Murphy of the 21st Precinct, who told the Times that Kilbride was a, quote, "brave man." The captain said that he was, quote, "confident that Kilbride saw the form of an old watchman." All of this attention drew, you know, the city's ghost hunters and ghost curious to the neighborhood. And especially to this broken down pier where groups of them began congregating in the middle of the night, hoping to see the ghostly watchman for themselves.
GREG: New Yorkers have to turn everything into like an event happening. It's like a party over here. It also sounds kind of crowded. Were any of these people visited by the ghost?
TOM: Well, actually, yes. In the two weeks leading up to this article, more than 50 people reported seeing an eerie glowing shape hovering in the water near the very pier where Old Shep's body had been found and where his ghost had appeared to the officer. The Times reported, "Yesterday morning and a few minutes after midnight, persons who were watching at the pier in the hope of seeing Shepherd's ghost, saw a bright light start suddenly out from the base of the pier at the water's edge and swim about near the shore, making circles, squares, and all sorts of eccentric figures. It flew about on the edge of the water and then suddenly made for the middle of the river and disappeared."
GREG: So the ghost of this night watchman, the ghost of Old Shep, had transformed into some sort of, like, a glowing orb?
TOM: That's right. Hovering out over the East River and disappearing before dozens of people.
GREG: Well, that's disturbing, but I want to go back to all of these people, the dozens of people who are hanging out on a broken down pier in the middle of the night. Was this safe? What were the police doing about this?
TOM: Well, the police were in a bit of a predicament. On one hand, they wanted to maintain order and, you know, clear the area. But on the other hand, one of their own, Officer Kilbride, swore that he had seen the ghost, and actually many of them had seen the ghostly orb. Even Captain Murphy had seen it. So late at night on March 21st, 1878, dozens of ghost hunters, again, gathered at the old pier on the East River, and this time among them were two controversial figures who had decided to investigate this spirit, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott of the Theosophical Society.
GREG: Now, we've talked about Blavatsky, rather briefly, many, many years ago in our ghost story show on Hell's Kitchen. But can you briefly re introduce us here to Madame Blavatsky?
TOM: Absolutely. Although, when I do I mean her story sounds like it's something straight out of a Dostoevsky novel.
GREG: Well, so does her name, actually.
TOM: That's true. Madame Blavatsky was born Yelena Petrovna von Hahn into an aristocratic family in today's Ukraine in 1831. She was married at 17, although she quickly abandoned her husband and embarked, according to her, on travels that took her throughout Europe, Egypt, the Americas, even to Tibet. She would make wild claims about those travels, which may well be true, including that she survived a shipwreck and that she fought alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi in Italy. But—
GREG: Hmm.
TOM: —regardless, she eventually found her way to New York City in 1873. And when she arrived, she didn't have any money, so she worked in the garment industry on the Lower East Side. But then her father died and left her a fortune, and so she moved into a fancy hotel. And she also became deeply involved in the spiritualist movement.
GREG: And this is a belief that the living could communicate with the spirits of the dead, an idea that was gaining traction in the 1870s and it was seen by its followers as very scientific, actually, very cutting edge.
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: And so Blavatsky would become a leader in this movement, or something kind of aligned with this movement.
TOM: Right. In 1875, so just three years before our ghost story here takes place, Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society with Colonel Henry Olcott and William Quan Judge. And the group's headquarters was an eight-room apartment that Blavatsky and Olcott shared on West 47th Street near Eighth Avenue. And theosophy attempted to reconcile science, religion, and philosophy.
GREG: And, of course, Blavatsky also claimed to possess psychic and paranormal powers herself.
TOM: She did, which brought her both fame and notoriety. A reporter described the group's Hell's Kitchen headquarters as a place where, quote, "The rooms were littered with curios of the most varied description, huge palm leaves stuffed apes and tiger's heads, oriental pipes and vases, idols and cigarettes, manuscripts and cuckoo clocks."
GREG: I mean, I wouldn't mind hanging out there, honestly. It sounds pretty fabulous, on a Friday night. But back up Midtown East here, this ghostly watchman—
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: —who had transformed into a floating orb. Well, this sounds like something right up Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott's alley, actually.
TOM: Yes. And they were eager to communicate with his spirit. So first, Blavatsky and Olcott visited the police station to speak with Officer Kilbride, you know, the man who had actually seen the ghost. The Times reported, "At 11:15 o'clock last night, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott drove to the door of the 21st Precinct Police Station, and in a few minutes afterward, these two, Captain Murphy and five reporters started for the foot of East 39th Street on a ghost hunt. The two representatives of the Theosophical Society had seen accounts of the ghostly visitor in the evening papers, and were determined to unravel the mystery, unless it should prove too deeply tangled for even the most modern of modern sciences to unloose. When questioned about her experience in the returning of the departed spirits to the earth, Madame Blavatsky replied that the spirits of men of great genius might return to the spirits or souls of their friends. "But this man was not a genius,' was replied. 'He was a decrepit old man, and something of a bummer.' 'That is just the reason,' said Madame Blavatsky, deftly rolling a cigarette between her fingers and lighting it, 'why his spirit returns in this shape. If he had been possessed of a great mind, he would not have returned in bodily shape. He would have come mentally.'"
GREG: Hmm, a little derogatory towards Old Shep there. And did they just call him a bummer?
TOM: It appears so. But anyhow, this large group headed off into the night, down the dark street toward the East River. The midnight air blew at them from across the water as they made their way down to the wharf, which was about eight or 10 feet lower than the street. All about them were wooden posts rising silently from the river. And, quote, "On the left, jutting out from the wharf is the skeleton of an old pier. It was under this pier that the body of the watchman was found lying upon its face on a great rock. It is from under the old pier, too, that the lights are said to have come. They stood and waited and watched. Madame Blavatsky stared into the night sky, eyes searching and smoking. They waited until 1am, but neither Shepherd's ghost nor the mysterious lights made an appearance. Some in the group mumbled that it was useless. Some laughed it off as a hoax, but Madame Blavatsky sternly corrected them. Quote, 'You mustn't laugh while you're waiting for a ghost. Seriously, you never can see any spirits when you laugh. This is a good night for a phenomenon. The moon helps it, and it is dry. You never can see any sights on a wet night.'" And so they waited, but nothing. That's the end of the article.
GREG: What? That's clearly not the end of the story, though.
TOM: Not quite. The next day's paper, March 22nd carried a follow-up. "The East River ghost has been caught and it is now lying on its back in the cabin of the police boat Seneca. It is a piece of inch board, about 30 inches long by eight inches wide, well water soaked with a tin lamp from a ship's lantern securely nailed in the middle. On the bow end is a little wooden figure, somewhat resembling a child's jumping jack. It is supposed that some of the mischievous boys that infest the neighborhood invented the ghost to frighten the superstitious night watchman and operated it with a string from a convenient board pile. Several days ago, as a boat's crew from the Seneca were pulling ashore, this machine was seen floating in the water, and one of the men picked it up near the foot of East 39th Street. Nothing was thought of it at the time, but when in yesterday's New York Times, the story was told of the fright over mysterious lights floating in the river. An officer from the Seneca went to police headquarters and explained the puzzle."
GREG: I'm sorry, are you suggesting that this ghostly floating orb was, in fact, just an old lantern that floated and could be operated by a string and it's that that spooked the old watchman?
TOM: Which caused him to fall into the river and later spooked dozens of witnesses as it floated about the river.
GREG: This just seems a little too tidy. Dozens of people watched this from the shore, and none of them thought, "Oh, that's a lantern." They actually thought it was a ghost.
TOM: I can see you're not buying it, Greg.
GREG: No.
TOM: And you're not alone.
GREG: Well, I probably share the same views with a certain theosophist from Hell's Kitchen, who I am sure was not taking the story.
TOM: Oh, no. Madame Blavatsky was actually angered by this. And until the end of her life, she shrugged off this floating lantern theory and held fast to the belief that it was the ghost of Old Shep that had haunted the East River.
GREG: Well, I mean, for one thing, even if the police explained the floating light aspect of this—
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: —they never explained the actual ghost of Old Shep that had appeared to Officer Kilbride.
TOM: True. And Madame Blavatsky continued to believe that Old Shep could have come back in both ghost and glowing form. Seven years after this episode, in 1885, The Times published a profile of Blavatsky, who was by then living in Europe. When she was asked about the ghost, she told the reporter, "It is likely, in the case of Old Shep the watchman, that he does not know he is dead. And his last thought was probably that he was going his rounds. So he will continue to go his rounds until that thought fades away. And under certain conditions, he will be visible to the physical eyes of those around him." By the time this article came out, Blavatsky had helped establish more than 120 Theosophical Society lodges throughout the world. She continued to write and publish. But during the flu pandemic of 1890, she became sick, and she died on May 8th, 1891. But her ideas lived on and influenced generations of followers, and even the development of what we now call New Age philosophies.
GREG: Well, needless to say, this was not a straightforward ghost story in our usual traditions. But I do have to ask you, Tom Meyers, do you think that there is anything to this story or was it really just a floating lantern on a string?
TOM: Well, something that Madame Blavatsky told The Times in 1885 jumped out at me. She said, "The phenomena that are presented are perhaps often frauds. Perhaps not one in 100 is a genuine communication of spirits, but that one cannot be judged by the others. It is entitled to scientific examination, and the reason that scientists don't examine it is because they are afraid. The whole universe is filled with spirits. It is nonsense to suppose that we are the only intelligent beings in the world. So maybe the floating glow was just a prank. Maybe it was just a lantern on a string, but maybe it wasn't. I'd suggest that the next time that you're out walking along the river late at night, keep an open mind. Look out over the dark waters where the city lights shimmer and dance. And who knows? You might just catch the glow of Old Shep still making his nightly rounds."
GREG: We catch the midnight ferry from Manhattan to Queens right after this.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, it's Julia again, and welcome to the refill. I hope you're enjoying this episode. We love the guys over at the Bowery Boys, and we think this will really help you start to get into spooky season, while we also transition into spooky season. Thank you so much to our patrons, especially our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And of course, our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Scott, and Wil. You, too, can head over to patreon.com/spiritspodcast and get stuff like ad-free episodes, bonus urban legends episodes, and so much more. Check it out. That's patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Hey, because it is spooky season, we are so excited to be bringing you extra spooky urban legends, but we need your help in order to do that. Send us your urban legends, even if you've been sitting on them for a while, even if you think they're not that scary. I would love to read them. You can email them to us via our website at spiritspodcast.com/contact. You can email them us directly at spiritspodcast@gmail.com, or you can leave us a voicemail, that is 617-420-2344. And if you want to, like, send us a voice memo, you could also send that via email. That's again, spiritspodcast@gmail.com. We need your urban legends, so please, please, please send those in. And of course, I want to tell you about another show here at Multitude. I think you would really like This Guy Sucked. Not only because I am editing This Guy Sucked, and so I hear every single episode, but I think if you love the history aspects of us here at Spirits, you would love This Guy Sucked. This Guy Sucked is a History podcast for haters, by haters. Join Dr. Claire Aubin and a new expert every week to pull back the scholarly curtain on some of the world's biggest bummers. No dead person is safe, and the show's guests prove that the best part of understanding the past is criticizing it. You can get new episodes every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. I think you would really like— again, if you're a fan of Spirits, you would really like the Alexander the Great episode. Did you know that Alexander the Great just really, really badly wanted to be Achilles? It's true, and part of the reason why he was so obsessed with going to war. Check it out. This Guy Sucked is so much fun, and you can get new episodes every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. And finally, this episode is sponsored by Blueland. Are you scared of microplastics? Me, too. Me, too. There's a reason why I've made the switch to Blueland across all the cleaning products around my house. Their products meet the highest standard of clean. They're effective yet gentle on my family and the planet. Blueland was also named an EPA Safer Choice Partner of the Year, from cleaning sprays to toilet bowl cleaner, to dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets, Blueland's formulas are 100% microplastic-free, made with certified clean ingredients free from chlorine bleach and harsh chemicals that are safe to use around my family. I love not having to choose between the safe option and what actually gets my house clean. And Blueland is on a mission to make it easy for everyone to make sustainable choices. They believe that hardworking, clean products can be the norm, not the exception, so that you can do better for your family and the planet at the same time. I am a huge fan of their toilet tablets, as I've talked about many times before. I call them toilet bath bombs. They are wonderful. And they are proven to work on a range of stains, including rust, mineral deposits, lime scale, and hard water. So Blueland has a special offer for listeners. Right now, get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com/spirits. You won't want to miss this, blueland.com/spirits for 15% off. That's blueland.com/spirits to get 15% off. And now, let's get back to our show.
[theme]
GREG: Tom, we are next turning our attention to the borough of Queens. And in fact, even more exciting, let's return to the neighborhood of Flushing in North Central Queens, which was the recent focus of a Bowery Boys Podcast back in April. In fact, our producer Kieran Gannon and I hit the streets of this very old village that traces itself back to an old Dutch settlement situated along Flushing Creek.
TOM: It is such a unique and diverse place, right?
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: With old 17th Century landmark buildings that stand just a few blocks from one of the most bustling intersections in all of Queens. And it's also home to one of the fastest growing Asian communities in the world. Not to mention its proximity to Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, which is the former home of the World's fair.
GREG: And currently the home of the triumphant New York Mets. Okay?
TOM: Yeah.
GREG: So it is like a modern place. It is an active place. But let me take us back to a time before the Mets, before the park, before Flushing was even a neighborhood. When it was a proper town located in Queens County, well before it was a borough. Let me take you to the year 1888, that's 10 years after the events of the last story.
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: And to a Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter who arrived into Flushing town to ask about ghosts. Under an article titled, quote, "Some Haunted Houses," the reporter started asking around, and was met at first with some unease. Quote, "Old residents of Flushing shake their heads and turn away when asked to give their opinions regarding certain houses in the environs of the village that are said to be haunted," unquote.
TOM: Hmm. Sounds like they were unwilling to talk about ghosts, or maybe too frightened.
GREG: Perhaps, but the reporter did eventually find one person to speak, quote, "A most trustworthy lady who has lived there for several years." Well, this lady just spilled the beans on Flushing's otherworldly past, telling several stories to the reporter. One was of a lovestruck young woman buried in her lavender silk wedding dress, who haunts the house where she was to have lived in domestic bliss. Another story featured a man who had his throat cut. Quote, "He lived at the head of the vly," said the old lady. "The house is said to be haunted by his ghost."
TOM: I'm sorry, Greg. The head of the vly?
GREG: The vly, yes. Remember the Dutch roots of Flushing, okay? Or should I say Vlissingen?
TOM: Hmm.
GREG: As we learned. Vly is Dutch for swamp, and the old lady in this case was referring to Old Flushing Meadow.
TOM: Got it.
GREG: There's even a playground today which honors that old Dutch name. So that's just a cool history nugget there. But the lady just kept spilling the story. She talked of a ghost of a rich man who wandered the streets at night and of a Miss Van Rand. [37:33]
TOM: Hmm.
GREG: Whose body was eaten by rats and whose spirit tormented a family who lived in a house years later. I mean, she just went on and on and on. She was filled with so many stories that this Brooklyn Eagle reporter basically fled from her bewilderment. They had had enough.
TOM: Wow. I wish we would have gotten a chance to talk to this lady. We need more stories.
GREG: I know. We could just fill a whole podcast.
TOM: But earlier, you said something about the people of Flushing being unwilling to talk about ghosts.
GREG: Yes.
TOM: You know, like many of them were shying away from the reporter. Why were they so unwilling?
GREG: I believe it was because of an incident which occurred a few years before this interview, in the year 1884. And a story so frightening that this, quote, "most trustworthy" lady, the one who divulged this whole catalog of Flushing ghost stories, couldn't stop talking, even she avoided speaking of this one. Because this incident was connected to the very history of the town of Flushing itself. For the name of this story is The Dancing Spirits of Flushing Queens.
TOM: So I mean, it sounds like we're going to have to rewind to get back to the very beginning of Flushing's history.
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: When it was a Dutch settlement. Which takes us, as I learned on your show—
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: —to the John Bowne house.
GREG: Yes. The home of John Bowne is still standing. In fact, it is one of New York's oldest historic structures and one of America's oldest landmarks to religious freedom, because John Bowne and his wife Hannah, were Quakers.
TOM: And they were Quakers in a Dutch colony. In essence, they were religious refugees in a European settlement that was dominated by the Dutch Reformed Church. And while the Dutch government tended to be more tolerant or lenient toward other denominations.
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: As long as they weren't too disruptive or too loud. The Director-General, Peter Stuyvesant, attempted to clamp down on their alternative form of worship.
GREG: Which led to the drafting of the Flushing Remonstrance in 1657, which was a petition to the Dutch government by the residents of Flushing, proclaiming their freedom of conscience and belief. Now, as we explained in that Flushing show, the Dutch did side against Stuyvesant and the Quakers were free to practice their religion as they saw fit. And for many, many years, from the years of Dutch occupation, you know, into the English years here, Quakers came to the John Bowne house to worship.
TOM: But with so many more English settlers in the colonies by the end of the 17th century, John Bowne's house was a bit inadequate, right? Especially—
GREG: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
TOM: —as it was a family home, in addition to being this house of worship.
GREG: They clearly needed, like, a bigger place. So in 1692, Bowne and the other worshipers acquired some land just a short distance west to build a new meeting house, which opened for services in 1694. Today, it's two blocks west of the Bowne house on Northern Boulevard, and is known as the Old Quaker Meeting House. As described by the New York Landmark Conservancy, quote, "The esthetically simple building is constructed on a frame consisting of 40-foot hand-hewn timbers, each created from a single tree. The steeply pitched hipped roof is reminiscent of medieval Dutch structures and recalls New York's origins as New Amsterdam. Simplicity is the keynote, both outside and inside, as the friends desired that no worldly ostentation should distract their attention from worship."
TOM: It is almost otherworldly today, this simple wooden structure in the Dutch style sitting on busy Northern Boulevard. But here inside, all is quiet, and has been quiet since services began in 1694.
GREG: Except for one period during the Revolutionary War, when the quiet was harshly broken by the cries of war. During the Battle of Long Island in 1776, the Meeting House was taken over by the British and turned into a storehouse for hay and also used as a hospital. We have no exact number of the British troops that were treated here, and no count of those who died within the walls of the Old Meeting House. The Redcoats fled at the end of the war, and services once again resumed here starting in 1785, but this tragic moment in the building's history seems to have left some kind of scar.
TOM: So when did supernatural things begin happening here in the Old Meeting House?
GREG: Well, believe it or not, we need to jump ahead almost exactly 100 years later, to the year 1884. Flushing, which is now a town in Queens County, has been drastically transformed, very notably across the street from the Old Meeting House is Flushing Town Hall, built in 1862, a beautiful Romanesque Revival building that is still standing today.
TOM: And in its early years, I mean, it was the location of many notable public appearances in Flushing, from Frederick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant to even P.T. Barnum, who passed through with Tom Thumb.
GREG: Uh-hmm. Well, in the year 1884, it was still very much the center of civic life in Flushing town. The police headquarters, sort of around the corner, as were the offices of two local newspapers. It was a bit past midnight when one newspaper reporter left the office, and while walking to the trolley station, you know, on his way home, he happened to pass the Old Meeting House. And there he saw something most peculiar, an apparition all in white, floating aimlessly on the Meeting House grounds. And on the spirit's side hung an old sword, something that might be seen in a museum or an armory. The reporter panicked, quoting from the New York Times on April 20th, 1884, quote, "The reporter at once ran to police headquarters and informed Chief Hanse that the devil just came out of the Quaker Meeting House. It was about 1:00 in the morning, and the chief, who knows, or pretends to know something about ghosts, was surprised that any kind of respectable ghost would be out at that unusual hour. He called his men and hastened with the reporter to the Meeting House. As they approached, the chief was astounded at the sight that met his gaze. It was a moonlit night, and he could plainly see the strange form disappear in the Meeting House. They approached the house cautiously, but found the doors and windows fastened. At this time, the party had increased by 10 men, and one of them looked through the keyhole of the front door. He had only looked for a second and ran at breakneck speed through the vacant lot adjoining the house. They caught up with him at the monument on Broadway and demanded an explanation. He was out of breath, and it was noticed that he was turning deathly pale. One of the party had a small flask of water in his pocket, and it soon revived the rapidly sinking man. When he came to, he said,
'My God, let us go home. After what I saw through that keyhole, I never want to go out again after dark.' 'Well, tell us what you saw,' said the chief of police. 'What I saw,' exclaimed the man, 'I saw three big men dressed in white and with swords hanging to their sides. When I looked in first, they were close together, and one of them seemed to be explaining something to the other two. Then they commenced to dance, and I ran away. Please, let us go home.'"
TOM: Whoa. So there were three ghosts in white with swords who were dancing.
GREG: It's all a bit of a mystery. It's confounding, and terrifying, and unexplainable. Quakers, after all, dressed quite plainly by the tenants of their faith, and I doubt that they would be wearing white in the middle of the night in their Meeting House.
TOM: Or clinging to swords, right?
GREG: Yeah.
TOM: I wish that he had gone back for another look.
GREG: Well, Tom, that is a very popular shared desire, where throughout the next several days, people came in from all corners of the countryside, because the story, you know, quickly spread around, and so everyone came into town to have a glimpse of the Meeting House. In that Flushing podcast from a few months ago about the history of Flushing, Kieran and I chatted with Jason Antos of the Queens historical society, about how much of Queensborough was then still farmland and very rural in character, even in the late 19th century. And so, you know, how going into Flushing was essentially going into town.
TOM: Yeah. Because of, you know, inadequate roads, it was certainly easier to go into Flushing than going into the cities of Brooklyn or into New York.
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: So Flushing was a destination. You know, it had its own hotels and department stores, and theaters.
GREG: And now ghosts. According to the New York Tribune, quote, "The Old Quaker Meeting House was the center of attraction yesterday. Farmers from the surrounding country drove into town, bringing their wives, daughters and sweethearts with them to have a look at the old frame structure. A venerable member of the Society of Friends, aka the Quakers, said to a reporter, "Oh, brother, why dost thou believe in such nonsense? Unquote. And it seems the chief of police tried to backtrack a little bit here, perhaps a little bit out of embarrassment, because they had received a lot of attention. And he was quoted as saying, "The men who claim to have seen the ghosts have had a little too much Flushing corn juice on board," unquote.
TOM: Flushing— I'm sorry, Flushing corn juice?
GREG: Yeah.
TOM: Was that a thing?
GREG: I guess so. It sounds refreshing.
TOM: But it doesn't sound like anybody was drunk, right? When they saw these spirits. I mean, the newspaper reporter is the one who saw it first.
GREG: Yeah. The New York Press often characterized Flushing and other towns and Queens as kind of provincial backwaters.
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: Podunk, you know, in the press. But even though those big city reporters were sort of covering this in a bit of mockery, people were attempting to divine the identity of these mysterious spirits. A New York Times reporter wrote, rather, tongue in cheek about the encounter on April 22nd, 1884, quote, "Public opinion in Flushing is convinced that the three ghosts are Quakers. We must then believe that in the other world, Quakers became so addicted to gorgeous white clothing, that they wear swords and presumably use them, and that they become so worldly and reckless that they actually dance. However, the Flushing ghosts may be the ghosts of three deceased pirates, who buried money in Flushing and thereby, contracted chills and fever. And the dancing in which they are said to have indulged may have simply been involuntary motions which ghosts suffering from chills are wholly unable to control."
TOM: Okay. A little bit of mockery there, but they still hadn't answered the question.
GREG: No.
TOM: Who were these three ghosts, right? There has to be some explanation.
GREG: I believe I have the answer, and it involves a part of this puzzle that, Tom, I have not yet described for you, holding it back for dramatic purposes.
TOM: Oh.
GREG: Because behind the Meeting House on a plot of land, you know, concealed from the street, sits a graveyard, and one which dates back to the late 17th century. It's believed, in fact, that John and Hannah Bowne from the Bowne house, those important Quaker leaders I mentioned earlier, that they are buried in the graveyard. However, nobody really knows for sure, because before the year 1820, the Quakers never used headstones. And in fact, even after this period, those headstones that were used were very small, and many have been grown over and are untraceable.
TOM: But before 1820, a great many people were buried here. It could be hundreds of people. And if I recall, that would also include the period during which the Quakers were not actually at the Meeting House. The years that the Meeting House was occupied by British troops during the Revolutionary War.
GREG: Now, there was an elderly man named Ewbank who lived just behind the Meeting House, and was interviewed by the times, and he gave a very eye-opening detailed account of the situation here. Quote, "When I was a boy, about 50 years ago, I remember very well that there was a real ghost in the Meeting House. You see, where the Meeting House now stands, was also a burial ground during the Revolutionary War, and there were over 500 Hessians buried there."
TOM: Hessians, German soldiers who fought with the British army against the American cause.
GREG: That's right. Now, who knows if there were actually 500 Hessians buried here, but we do know that there is a burial ground, and we do know that the Meeting House was used as a hospital, where many on the British side may have perished from illness or from their injuries. Tom, I went investigating this possibility, and I found some illustrations of Hessian troops, all in white uniforms with blue coats and pointy gold caps. They were, of course, all equipped with swords with brass hilts and long slashing blades. And, yes, these German mercenary soldiers did also, at times, dance so often, in fact, that there was a colonial era dance called the Hessian. So it seems that these spirits were not Quakers, but rather they were Hessians, ghosts of the most ruthless fighters during the Revolutionary War. Men who may have died during the war and were possibly buried at the Meeting House and may, in fact, still be there, waiting for another clear moonlit night to perform their unusual ritual, opening a portal between Flushing and the spirit world here within New York's oldest surviving house of worship."
TOM: We've got ghostly Tales from the Bronx and Brooklyn right after this.
[theme]
TOM: For our next stop on this five-borough spookfest, Greg, I'm taking us to the Bronx for something terrifying that haunted dozens of people there in 1915. In 1915, by the way, pop quiz, was how many years after the Bronx became part of New York City?
GREG: Hmm, let's see, 1950. Now this, you're trying to trick me because Bronx didn't join New York like the other boroughs did in 1898, because it joined New York in two parts.
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: The first part is 1874.
TOM: That's right. West of the Bronx River in 1874.
GREG: Okay. And then east of the river in 1895.
TOM: Well done.
GREG: Yes.
TOM: And so my ghost story now takes place 20 years later, in 1915.
GREG: Okay. So a time when the Bronx was experiencing really intense growth, essentially being transformed from towns and farmland into— kind of rapidly into an urban landscape. It's transformation that was greatly assisted, of course, by the borough's recent connection to Manhattan. You know, it was the first one to be connected to Manhattan, first by railroads and then by subways.
TOM: Exactly. And by this time, in 1915, the Bronx had become easily accessible to commuters who worked in Manhattan, but it also drew visitors from all over the area to its own attractions, including one, the New York Zoological Society or the Bronx Zoo.
GREG: Hmm.
TOM: Which had opened in Bronx Park in 1899. And it was here in the Bronx Zoo, where my ghostly tale takes place
GREG: Oh, the Bronx Zoo. There's a lot of tales at the Bronx Zoo.
TOM: Hundreds, thousands of tales.
GREG: But ghostly tales, I never had considered this possibility.
TOM: Oh, yeah. For weeks in September of 1915, the zoo's workforce was absolutely spooked by a calling, a whistling, and a whispering that haunted the dark corners of one of its most important animal houses. For the name of my story is Who Whispers in the Snake house.
GREG: Oh. Hold on, because I love the Bronx Zoo, and I have to say that it kind of strikes me as one of the least haunted places in New York. There's some scary animals, but like I find it kind of a friendly place, so I can't wait to hear where the spooks are hiding here.
TOM: I hear your disbelief, Greg, and you would have fit right in, initially, with all of the other doubters who were working at the Bronx Zoo that September. And those working, specifically, at the reptile house. Today, it's called the World of Reptiles, but it is still housed today in that original 1899 building. It's a building that has beautiful classical flourishes, right? It's surrounded by handsome columns. And back in 1915, as you stepped into the glass ceilinged interior, the temperature rose several degrees as you strolled under the palm trees and other exotic plants and gazed down at the reptiles slithering before you. On September 13th, 1915, The New York Times reported that for weeks, the zookeepers at the Reptile House had become frightened by an otherworldly whistling sound that would suddenly emanate from a shadowy area in the southeast corner of the building. They couldn't figure out who was producing it, and it tended to pierce through the silence early in the morning when workers were all alone with the reptiles. At first, most of the workers thought that one of the guards was probably playing a joke on them, but over the course of two weeks, everyone working in the Reptile House had heard it, and it became much less funny. It seemed to always be the same, early in the morning when the guards had come inside to inspect the building and were walking the aisles alone with the crocodiles and snakes. The room would be silent, just the slow rustling and slithering of animals. When suddenly the silence would be broken by this frightful, unnatural whistling. [whistles]
GREG: A whistling ghost. I think this is a new one for the podcast, a whistling ghost. I mean, could it have been anything else, someone else, like a visitor, like, whistling to the guards?
TOM: That, in fact, was the only logical explanation, right? And, after all, they kept a small window open to let fresh air in near that dark corner, so maybe somebody, like a, you know, really eager guest was whistling to them inside, you know, to see when they'd be unlocking and opening up the Reptile House.
GREG: Although, I mean the same visitor whistling every morning for two weeks, this sounds like a little bit of a stretch.
TOM: Well, that was all that they had. So the head of the Reptile House, a man named Charley Snyder, spread this explanation throughout the zoo that it was a guest, that was whistling from the outside. However, one day another zookeeper in the Reptile House, a Mr. Toomey called Snyder aside. The Times reported that Toomey, quote, "Told him that he believed the whistle was the cry of a haunt. He explained that he had heard more than a whistle, but did not want it to get out, for fear his associates would make fun of him. 'I heard a cry like [1:01:14] Toomey confided to Snyder.
GREG: [1:01:22] What? I'm sorry, [1:01:25] What [1:01:28]
TOM: [1:01:28]
GREG: My good— that is very specific. I don't know what language that is, but it's— that's pretty creepy, especially if you're hearing it where you're surrounded by snakes and crocodiles. Okay. So what did the head zookeeper do here?
TOM: Well, Snyder tried to calm Toomey down, but apparently, this ghost was quite talkative, because soon several other guards heard creepy things as well. And soon everybody in the zoo knew about it and was talking about it. The Times reported that, quote, "The story of the haunted house spread until it reached even gate men minx at the West Farms entrance, and that's equivalent to saying that everybody in the park had heard about it.
GREG: Oh, yeah. When even old minx heard of it. The word is out. Did the spirit say anything else? Did he emit any other bizarre syllables?
TOM: Oh, it did. Another zookeeper, a man named Deckert, whom Snyder described as a, quote, "very sober-minded man," reported that he'd been working alone in the Reptile House early in the morning, walking past the cages and tanks and under the palm leaves when he heard a voice whisper in his ear, "Say your prayers." Others were being haunted in their dreams. Curator Raymond Ditmars told Snyder that he'd had a very disturbing nightmare in which several of the zoo's reptiles had started to speak. He explained how, quote, "The Big boa and the West African crocodile had held an animated conversation." Zookeeper Snyder told The Times that at that point, even though he was not a superstitious person, he decided to take action because, quote, "the whole thing began to get on my nerves. And like the other men, I imagined that I heard all sorts of strange voices." And so zookeeper Snyder went to a fortune teller.
GREG: What? What was that for real? Like a clairvoyant?
TOM: Yes. This was all reported. Snyder did not reveal her name. He only said that she was a, quote, "lady friend" who possessed special powers.
GREG: Okay.
TOM: The fortune teller told him that, quote, "a dark cloud had descended upon the place of many snakes." To this, Snyder agreed. The fortune teller diagnosed the case as, quote, "disturbed oriole," meaning the radiance surrounding a body. Asked how conditions could be straightened out, she replied that, quote, "a little one with a pompadour, a wizened face, and whiskers could turn the trick." Asked who this personage was, she crooned, "Man or beast."
GREG: A pompadour and wizened face could certainly be man or beast, but whiskers? I mean, what kind of whiskers? Like what was she referring to?
TOM: Well, Snyder was pretty sure he knew right away. She was talking about a Humboldt Saki.
GREG: What?
TOM: A Humboldt Saki, Greg. A long-tailed monkey that had just arrived at the zoo from Peru, and it had received some acclaim, because it got a major write-up in the Zoological Society September bulletin, which I actually have a copy of right here.
GREG: You're on the mailing list.
TOM: Of course, from 1915.
GREG: Clearly.
TOM: Yeah.
GREG: Well, that— so this sounds like a big deal. So the zookeeper of the Reptile House, Snyder, had been directed to use a Peruvian monkey to help bust the ghosts here.
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: Could— I mean, could he just borrow the monkey? Just go over and pick up the monkey and bring it?
TOM: Well, as luck would have it, the monkey was, at that very moment, being treated in the hospital that was connected to the Reptile House. So Snyder paid him a visit. He told the New York Times, "I decided to test his psychic powers. What increased my willingness to attempt the experiment was that the monkey got to looking at me as if to say, 'Give me a try, old chap.' So I tried him, but nothing happened. Perhaps the Saki might have discovered the cause, but the tamed iguana scared him so badly that he ran back to his cage and could not be persuaded to leave it, even though I removed the iguana."
GREG: You see, these are the issues one encounters when trying to hunt ghosts with a monkey, right? Well, a monkey with a magnifying glass.
TOM: Right. They're not afraid of ghosts, but they are totally freaked out by iguanas.
GREG: Sure, sure.
TOM: Actually, there was more to the story, according to other witnesses there. The monkey was apparently chased up a palm tree and then almost fell into a snake bed, and the story goes on and on.
GREG: That is a very rough day for the monkey, and must have been very discouraging for Snyder.
TOM: Yes, and also maddening, because the ghostly callings started up right away again. A couple of days later, on a Saturday morning, two of the keepers, Toomey and Deckert, were hosing down the amphibian cases over in the corner, cases that contained sphagnum moss, when suddenly the ghostly whistles sounded louder than ever. Toomey was so startled that he dropped his sprayer, and then collecting himself, both men gathered around the cases, their hearts racing as they waited in silence. They waited, and then the whistle screeched again. [whistles] According to the paper, "It was an uncanny sound that ended in a sort of sigh. It arose from one of the smaller cases." These men had been haunted by these noises for weeks, and now here they were staring dumbfounded at a small, empty animal case. There was nothing there. Nothing but some moss and a high screeching call. [whistle] Quote, "Deckert began to dig in the moss. The search revealed a single, narrow-mouthed frog from Trinidad."
GREG: A frog? How had they not seen this?
TOM: Quote, "It had escaped the nightly roll call, which was not surprising when you consider that the narrow-mouthed frog is about the size of a postage stamp. And so they placed the frog in another part of the building, where, when the men came in and started watering that part of the Reptile House, the frog started whistling again. [whistles] The zoo's curator, Mr. Ditmars, told The Times, quote, "As the habits and songs of these tropical amphibians are little known, we added an interesting note to our observations. That frog sang every morning because it was glad to see us." And Greg, just in case this all seems a little farfetched to you, I encourage you to flip through the September 1915 Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society, and there, on page 1274, you'll find the whole story. Put down in this most official of records, under the heading, Solving a Mystery. It's all there, all— except for that fortune teller bit, which did make the newspaper. But some things are better left off the official record.
GREG: Well, Tom, that story put a frog in my throat, I think.
TOM: Well, finally, it was a story where nobody croaked.
GREG: And now for my final story, we've arrived in Brooklyn. And I thought I would take a page from my tale of the Haunted Quaker Meeting House and head to another old neighborhood with Dutch roots. In Brooklyn, that would be Flatbush.
TOM: Ah, in another neighborhood that we have discussed in length on the show. A couple years ago, we recorded a two-part show on Flatbush and the commercial district within Flatbush that is today known as Little Caribbean. Those are episodes 390 and 391.
GREG: Flatbush is a central Brooklyn neighborhood, southeast of Prospect Park. Now, like Flushing, it also has a very old house of worship, the Flatbush Reformed Church, which was built in 1793 but that congregation goes back much further to the days of New Amsterdam and Peter Stuyvesant, who I conjured up earlier in the show.
TOM: Yes. It is a very old place.
GREG: And like Flushing, Flatbush also has a historic town hall. It was built in 1875. And just as Flushing sits near Citi Field today, the home of the Mets, the residents of Flatbush also once had a classic sports venue of its own, Abbots Field, the former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
TOM: But if you're bringing up these history comparisons, Greg, then Flatbush must have something else in common with Flushing, the presence of ghosts.
GREG: And in this case, the ghosts may be wearing white as well, not military garb, but rather the uniforms of ghostly nurses, where the name of this story is The Ghostification of Caledonian Hospital. Okay, so we're going to the southeast corner of Prospect Park to Parkside Avenue at the intersection of St. Paul's Place to a large, seven-story apartment building with beautiful views of the park and just steps away from the historic center of Flatbush and hectic, bustling Flatbush Avenue.
TOM: We actually walked along Flatbush Avenue in Episode 320, exploring the food scene with neighborhood activist Shelley Worrell. But Greg, nothing around there seems haunted.
GREG: No.
TOM: I mean, except for the churchyard of the Flatbush Reformed Church, you know, with its old Dutch and colonial era graves. Are you telling me that the ghosts aren't in there?
GREG: Well, I mean, there may be ghosts in there as well, but the restless spirits which have riled up the neighborhood more recently are up a little bit north of the churchyard. At this apartment building on Parkside Avenue, a building today called 123 On The Park. And unlike the rest of our stories today, these hauntings were reported as recently as a few years ago in publications as diverse as the New York Post and both New York and New Yorker magazines.
TOM: That's quite an accomplishment.
GREG: Yeah.
TOM: Because the press doesn't really— they don't often report on these supposed hauntings anymore, right? But—
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: —you're saying that this was widely covered.
GREG: New Yorkers are just a lot more skeptical and sarcastic today than they were in the 19th century. But—
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: —yes, these were reported. But let me back up, because this building is not as it seems, because it was constructed in the 19-teens during a very interesting building boom on this particular side Prospect Park. Now, when the park was finally completed in the early 1870s, you know, it was dividing two vastly different regions. West of the park were the beginnings of Brooklyn society along Park Slope, while the northern section would be devoted to great institutions like the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, so those are along those edges of the park. But on the south side, in the 1870s, it would have been sparsely developed, even farmland in some places still.
TOM: But all of that changed quickly by the end of the century, thanks to the development of the Brooklyn Bridge, and to, you know, major thoroughfare development, like Ocean Parkway and Eastern Parkway. And eventually, to the consolidation of Greater New York itself in 1898, which transitioned Brooklyn from being an independent city into a borough of New York City.
GREG: And all of a sudden, this land on the south side of the park here became ripe for new development and for new populations to move in and get themselves a brand-new home. A grand entrance to the park at Parkside Avenue and Ocean Avenue was completed in 1904, almost to kind of mark the fact that the side of the park is now more prominent. It became such a built-up neighborhood that by 1910, they needed a local hospital. And it was here on the corner of Parkside and St. Paul's place, that a new neighborhood institution arose, Caledonian Hospital. That's right. The haunted apartment building in today's story was originally a hospital.
TOM: Oh, here we go.
GREG: From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 10th, 1910, "The object of the Caledonian Hospital Society is to establish and maintain a Scottish Hospital in Greater New York. The equipment of the building will be of the latest and most approved character." The hospital was Scottish in origin, and it opened, in 1911, to great fanfare here in Flatbush. Caledonian was known in particular for its nursing school and held on to its Scottish connections as it grew steadily over the decades. Thousands of babies were born here, tens of thousands of people treated for injury or illness, and countless died here, as happens in any hospital, of course. I could not find anything exceptionally unusual that happened at Caledonian Hospital, anything that would, say, cause a disruption to the spiritual plane. If such a thing occurred, it was covered up and never spoken about. In 1982, Caledonian Hospital merged with Brooklyn Hospital, and eventually, the Caledonian name was removed from the institution. By 2003, it paled in comparison to Brooklyn's other many far superior health institutions. And so at last, the doors of old Caledonian Hospital closed for good. The doors locked, its hallways emptied and its secrets forgotten to time.
TOM: It closed in 2003 but certainly it didn't stay empty for long.
GREG: Well, Tom, it met the fate of so many older abandoned buildings at this time for in that year, 2003, it became a set for the hit TV show Law & Order.
TOM: It comes for every place in New York, it seems, Greg. It has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of episodes at this point.
GREG: Yeah, I think actually over 500 of just the original series, not even counting all the spin-offs. I mean, that's a lot of dong-dongs. But then another inevitable thing happened here, the hospital became a luxury apartment building named 123 On The Park. Brooklyn's most unique and luxurious address, as it was advertised, opened in 2014.
TOM: So none of this sounds shocking. This building has gone on a very familiar trajectory, from civic building to really a symbol of gentrification, but there's no ghost here.
GREG: Which makes all of this even more disturbing. Did something grim happen in the hospital over its many decades? Was it a specific incident or was it just an accumulation of pain and suffering? Or was it the mere fact that this structure, which had for so long been used for the health of the community, was now being shut off to the public, had the conversion to luxury apartments angered something? Almost immediately, the new residents began experiencing minor events, flickering lights, strangely opening doors, unusual sounds behind the walls. Normal phenomena in an old building, perhaps. It was the building's rotating roster of doormen who began to notice something was truly off. Quoting from the 2015 article in The New York Post, quote, "Doormen have been quitting their jobs at a luxury rental building in Brooklyn that was once a hospital," sources said. "Spooked by eerie visions, sounds, and even smells, sparking talk that the high rise is haunted. At least three doormen have left in the past six months, according to a janitor who works in the building." One doorman reported an unwillingness to go down to the basement because of strange voices he heard, seemingly coming from every direction. As he strolled down the hallway with his flashlight looking for the source of these voices, he could hear footsteps behind him, and yet, when he turned around, nobody was there. Another doorman reported watching the security cameras one evening and witnessing the motion sensor lights go off and on, on every floor in succession, the seventh floor, then the sixth floor, and the fifth floor, and on and on. But nothing was there to trigger the lights, nothing that the eye could see. Journalist Reeves Weideman, writing for The New Yorker, found several tenants who had experienced chilling supernatural incidents here, many centered downstairs in the basement. From his article, "Somebody definitely died here," one tenant was quoted as saying, "as she was walking through the sub cellar. She had been among the building's first tenants, and she noticed unexplained events right away. Her bedroom door opened and closed at random, and she sometimes woke at night to noises in the kitchen. To this day, nobody can identify the source of all this mysterious behavior. Nobody has gotten closer to discovering what haunts the former Caledonian Hospital."
TOM: Wow. And this was reported in reputable modern New York magazines and newspapers.
GREG: Yes. And several places, actually. Although these are 21st century publications, which is why there's a bit more pushback than what you might see in a 19th century newspaper. For instance, Lauren Evans, writing for Gothamist, reports under the headline, quote, "Anti-gentrification ghosts haunt luxury Flatbush development," a rather modern reaction to these horrifying spirits. Quote, "Enterprising locals have tried to turn the alleged haunting into a bargaining chip. The front desk manager added that some prospective renters have attempted to negotiate rent breaks on the basis that the units already come equipped with dead former tenants, an inconvenience roughly on par with mice or shower mold," unquote.
TOM: Okay. Well, actually, since we're all celebrating Halloween so early now, as you mentioned, you know—
GREG: Uh-hmm.
TOM: —some people might actually like to live with a ghost.
GREG: Yeah.
TOM: An argument could actually be made that the tenants should be paying more for the opportunity. You know, it's like some kind of an amenity, like a washer or dryer.
GREG: If you want the luxury of living in a piece of New York history, sometimes that luxury comes with strings attached, strings to the other side. But let's not completely dismiss this as some sort of plot by the tenants to keep their rent low. As we've discussed this evening on this show, hauntings come in many different shapes and sizes in the five boroughs. What ulterior motives did the other New Yorkers we've spoken about today have in recounting their brushes with the supernatural? Could all the tenants at 123 On The Park, the former Caledonian Hospital, could they all have coordinated such an elaborate ruse, or did renovation and gentrification disturb something evil, something more sinister that was waiting to be unleashed at this dark corner of Prospect Park.
TOM: Visit our website, boweryboyshistory.com for more information about these very tales, including links to read the original articles that we've been quoting.
GREG: And of course, I even went to a few of the places that we have discussed to investigate Scooby-Doo style. I brought my dog and three friends with me in a Mystery Machine. And I'll have images of some of those places on the website and, of course, on social media, at Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.
TOM: And we would just like to urge you one more time to get tickets to our upcoming Joe's Pub shows, Ghost Stories of Old New York at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, October 29th, 30th, and, 31st 2024. Looks like the 7:00 pm shows are pretty much gone. But if you do want to join us this year, we encourage you to hurry up and get your tickets, because those shows are probably going to sell out, too. So head over to publictheater.org, click on Joe's Pub, and you will see us there.
GREG: Now, over on our Patreon-only exclusive show, side streets, this week, we're going to give you a sneak peek behind that live show, so like a little sneak preview. But also, we've got some behind the scenes tales to share with you about what you just heard. Because I don't know, Tom, I had— you know, because we decided to do five boroughs, and so we went—
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: —through each burrow and went through it. Had a list of stories, and some of them didn't quite make it for one reason or the other. So it might be kind of fun to go through our lists of Almost Rans.
TOM: Uh-hmm.
GREG: Which might make appearances in future shows, but we'll talk about some of those other ghost stories there.
TOM: Yes. I will be telling you about the ghostly owl that was haunting the folks up in the Bronx. It was— I headed down to a frog or an owl.
GREG: Wow. Well, I had it down to another Prospect Park, one of— a seance, which occurred there in the mid-19th century. We'll talk about that—
TOM: Hmm. Sounds [1:27:08]
GREG: —and why I didn't choose it.
TOM: Yeah.
GREG: Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. Well, anyway, that's Side Streets. You can find it on Patreon. We greatly appreciate everyone who does support us there with a small monthly contribution. Hopefully, you'll join us there. Join us on the phone at patreon.com/boweryboys.
TOM: And be sure to join us in the streets on one of our public or private tours through many of the city's most historic neighborhoods. And head over to the website to check out our new fancy tour calendar on the homepage at boweryboyswalks.com. We have added so many new tours this month, so you'll see them all there, and you can find out how to book a private tour for your office, or your family, or your group. Love to have you join us over at boweryboys walks.com.
GREG: This episode was brilliantly edited by Kieran Gannon.
TOM: Thank you, Kieran.
GREG: Yes. So thank you very much for listening. Have a great New York week, whether you live here or not.
TOM: See you really soon.