13 Most Haunted Sites in New York City

Dig into the city's sordid history and you'll find hotels, private residences, museums and more NYC spots with spine-tingling stories and ghosts that just won't let go

October 23, 2013, Emily Nonko

With Halloween looming, thoughts naturally turn to New York’s ghost stories of yore. As you might guess in a city founded in 1624 — and one which has seen its fair share of violence and mayhem, at that — there is no shortage of hauntings reported in each of city’s five boroughs. Some ghosts date back as far as the Revolutionary War, while others are a product of more recent, grisly deaths. Travel with us as we roam New York City and reveal 13 spooky haunts where New Yorkers, dead and alive, still roam.

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Algonquin Hotel, inset: Art Samuels, Charlie MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott, aka, the Algonquin Round Table (Photos: The Algonquin, Thyra/Wikimedia Commons)

Algonquin HotelThis well-regarded Midtown Manhattan hotel is famous for the celebrated group of writers and actors, known as the “Algonquin Round Table,” who congregated there regularly for lunch in the 20s. It’s also famous for ghost stories with reports circulating that the Round Table members still haunt the hotel grounds today. Dorothy Parker, a founding member of the group, tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide in the hotel in 1932. She died in 1967, and some say her spirit has been hanging around since. 59 W. 44th St., 800-627-7468, algonquinhotel.com

The Dakota, inset: Yoko Ono and John Lennon (Photos: Tristanreville/Flickr CC, Central Press/Getty Images)

The Dakota Although the Dakota is famously known as the murder site of John Lennon, the historic co-op building in the Upper West Side also has a very long history of ghost stories and lore. Lennon himself saw the “Crying Lady Ghost” roaming the hallways of the building — a spectral figure of a woman who wailed down the building corridors. Residents and building workers also report reoccurring sightings of a little girl in turn-of-the-century clothing, as well as the ghost of a young boy. Reportedly Yoko Ono, along with other residents, have seen John Lennon’s spirit periodically in the building. W. 72nd St., 212-362-1448

A bedroom in the Morris-Jumel Mansion, inset: Madame Eliza Jumel (Photo: Elisa.rolle/Wikipedia CC)

Morris-Jumel Mansion This Washington Heights mansion is Manhattan’s oldest house and was George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War. It’s also haunted by the actress and prostitute Madame Eliza Jumel. Jumel was driven into bankruptcy and divorced by her second husband (and third Vice President of the United States) Aaron Burr; eventually she lost her mind and died in the mansion at age 92. There are reports she roams the building and taps on the windows and doors. In 1962 a mysterious woman asked a group of visiting school children to quiet down, despite no living person living inside. That’s not the building’s only haunting — the ghosts of Aaron Burr, a maidservant, a Revolutionary War soldier, and Stephen Jumel, Eliza’s first husband who died a mysterious death, are also reported to roam the grounds. 65 Jumel Ter., 212-923-8008, morrisjumel.org

White Horse Tavern, Dylan Thomas circa 1950 (Photos: Wallyg/Flickr CC, Hulton Archive/Getty Images)



White Horse TavernMost famous for being the bar where poet Dylan Thomas died in 1953 — collapsing outside the bar after a reported 18 whiskey shots — the historic White Horse Tavern also holds a nostalgic place in the West Village‘s low-key bar scene. Thomas’ haunts can’t hurt its popularity; patrons say they’ve seen him sitting at his favorite corner table in the bar, or wandering outside. It certainly helps that the wooden bar looks nearly unchanged since it opened in 1880 (today old porcelain horses and portraits of Thomas decorate it). In memoriam, the bar serves the poet’s purported last meal in the back room every year on the anniversary of his death, Nov. 9. 567 Hudson St., 212-989-3956, facebook.com/pages/White-Horse-Tavern/106004742836371

Kreischer Mansion (Photo: Thomas Good/NLN/Wikimedia CC)

Kreischer Mansion
The Kreischer family, which made its fortune in brickmaking, built two mansions in Charleston, Staten Island, in the 1880s (one of which later burnt down). After the family’s brick factory burnt down, the family fortunes diminished and mansion owner Edward Kreischer committed suicide in 1894. Staten Island residents have spotted a spectral couple — possibly Edward and his wife — wandering the grounds. There are also reports of wailing coming from the home. Many years later in 2005, a mob-related murder took place here (it involved stabbing, strangling, drowning, and then chopping up the corpse and putting the pieces into a coal-burning furnace). Now the rundown property is a popular destination for Staten Island kids on Halloween. 4500 Arthur Kill Rd., Staten Island, no phone

The “House of Death” at 14 West 10th Street, Mark Twain (Photos: Beyond My Ken/Wikipedia CC, Library of Congress)

“House of Death”This 1856 Greenwich Village townhouse has been dubbed the “House of Death” thanks to a reported 22 former residents that have haunted the building over the years. A number of these tenants died mysteriously in the home. One of the reported ghosts is Mark Twain, who lived in the house in 1900 and appeared as  a ghost in the ground-floor apartment in the 1930s. In 1987, the home made headlines after former New York criminal defense attorney Joel Steinberg beat his 6-year-old daughter to death in the second-floor apartment. 14 W. 10th St, no phone

McCarren Park Pool, pre pool (Photo: Chad Nicholson/Wikimedia CC)

McCarren Park Pool
After many years of disuse, McCarren Park Pool is a newly revamped and working public pool, but the massive crowds who have turn up for the past two summers likely don’t know this place’s dark history. The pool first opened in 1936, and during its golden age there were a series of tragic deaths. Those include a drowning, as well as shooting and stabbing incidents. When the pool was empty (it closed in 1984), passerby claimed to hear the cries of a young girl during the night — the story goes that the ghost of a girl circled the pool crying for help. The Paranormal Investigation of NYC visited the site back in 2004 and reported dramatic temperature drops at the site. They also claim to have taken photographs of mysterious orbs around the pool.

Interior of the abandoned Seaview Hospital (Photo: H.L.I.T./Flickr)

Seaview Hospital and New York Farm ColonyFirst a poor house, then a tuberculosis hospital, now a decrepit and abandoned New York City landmark, Staten Island‘s Seaview Hospital and New York Farm Colony has a history of haunting. The farm colony/poor house (designed as a means of rehabilitation for the mentally ill) was established in the 1830s and the hospital opened in 1913. The complex has sat in decay since 1975, but due to a landmark designation in 1985 nothing can be torn down. Workers of the hospital claim to have seen old patients wandering through the hall; now it’s a rotting asylum left to the elements. It’s also close to the former Willowbrook State School for mentally disabled children, which was exposed for shocking abuses by Geraldo Rivera in a 1972 expose. Brielle Avenue and Walcott Avenue, Staten Island, no phone

Brooklyn Public Library (Photo: Library of Congress)

Brooklyn Public LibraryIn 1977, 6-year-old Agatha Ann Cunningham visited the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza with her classmates, disappeared, and was never found. Both employees and patrons have heard mysterious noises, like a girl’s laughter or sobbing, coming from the library’s basement stacks. In 2011, a few interns looked a little further into the haunting, and published a convincing video (misc.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/mipmap/post/2011/11/03/The-True-Story-of-Agatha-Cunningham.aspx) 280 Cadman Plaza W., Brooklyn, 718-230-2100,bklynpubliclibrary.org

Belasco Theater, David Belasco between 1898 and 1916 (Photo: smichael/Flickr, Library of Congress)

Belasco TheaterThe Belasco Theater, in Midtown‘s famed Theater District, is said to be haunted by the theater’s namesake, David Belasco. He started writing plays in the 1880s and died in 1931 — with no scandalous or tragic stories attached to his death — after a celebrated career. Despite his sunny life, his ghost has been spotted by theater workers in the upstairs apartment and offices of the theater wearing a cassock and a clerical collar — they dubbed the ghost “The Monk.” He’s also been seen standing on the balcony, observing the shows that go on in his theater. 111 W 44th St., 212-239-6200, shubertorganization.com/theatres/belasco.asp

The Octagon’s original staircase from the Welfare Island Insane Asylum, exterior as it appears today (Photos: Courtesy of Historic American Buildings Survey—HABS, Jamescastle/Flickr CC)

The OctagonRoosevelt Island, once an island the city used as a location for corrective hospitals, is rife with ghost stores. The Octagon, a rental building located there, was previously the site of the former New York Lunatic Asylum, famously criticized as a place of suffering and horror. The only remaining architectural element of the asylum is the building’s octagon, which is now the centerpiece of the residential development. The residents report unexplainable incidents and paranormal activity; they also report that pets sometimes refuse to walk up the stairs of the building. The island is also home to ruins of a former smallpox building (declared a landmark in 1975), only adding to the eerie vibe of the place. 888 Main St., Roosevelt Island, 212-888-8692

Van Cortlandt House, inset: Adriaen van der Donck (Photos: Dmadeo/Wikimedia CC, PD-ART/Wikimedia CC)

Van Cortlandt ParkThe Van Cortlandt House is the oldest surviving home in the Bronx, located in a park that’s also said to be haunted. Visitors of Van Cortlandt Park, the site of the Stockbridge Indian Massacre, have heard whispers and seen spirits around Vault Hill, the park’s burial grounds. As for the house, built in 1748, it is the site of hauntings by Adriaen Van der Donck, a Dutch settler who laid claim to the area and later died in a Indian raid, and Jacobus Van Cortlandt, the original owner of the home. Sighting of George Washington have also been reported — he stayed at the home at least twice during the Revolutionary War. Van Cortlandt Park St. between Broadway and Jerome Avenue, no phone, nycgovparks.org/parks/X092/

Merchant’s House Museum parlor, inset: Gertrude Tredwell (Photos: Curiousexpeditions/Flickr CC, Merchant’s House Museum)

Merchant’s House MuseumThe New York Times dubbed this East Village house museum the “most haunted house in Manhattan” –there’s even a dedicated section of the Merchant’s House website for the resident ghosts (merchantshouse.com/ghosts/). The Tredwall family lived in the house for nearly 100 years, and the last living resident of the house, Gertrude Tredwell, is said to still watch over it. She died in the home in 1933, and it became a museum in 1936. Since then, the museum staff, visitors and volunteers have experienced strange happenings — sites of a woman in a brown dress roaming the house, mysterious piano music, and unexplainable flashing lights. Through Nov. 4, the museum hosts a series of “spirited” events in honor of its not-quite-dead residents. 29 E. Fourth St., 212-777-1089, merchantshouse.org

Nightmare family Puccio returns in gripping film

 (centre) leads the sinister Puccio family in Pablo Trapero’s El clan.

By Pablo Suárez 
For the Herald

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El clan, one of the most anticipated Argentine releases of the year, is a study in vileness

One of the most anticipated local releases of the year, El Clan is based on the story of the Puccios, a peculiar family that may surely have a next-door feel while harbouring unspeakable secrets of the sinister kind. And that’s an understatement.

The film is proudly running in the official competition of the upcoming Venice Film Festival, alongside the new films by Marco Bellochio, Atom Egoyan, Alexander Sokurov, and Amos Gitai, among others.

Both a layered character study and a precise crime chronicle, El Clan (The Clan) explores the actions of a family of human monsters, set against the background of the last military dictatorship.

“El Clan focuses on a nefarious family against the backdrop of a military dictatorship. It’s hell within hell itself. Perfect material for a dark and original thriller,” said Agustín Almodóvar, co-producer with his brother Pedro and their company El deseo — and alongside Argentine companies K&S and La Matanza Cine — of the latest film by renowned filmmaker Pablo Trapero.

This well-to-do family from the posh suburbs of San Isidro during the 1980s ran a very lucrative and brutal business. On the one hand, the Puccios were good all Catholics who went to mass on Sunday, won the approval of their friends and neighbours, and lead a seemingly normal life. Alejandro Puccio, the eldest son, was a remarkable rugby player and a handsome charmer. All in all, they were a respected family that everyone held dear.

At the same time, the Puccios would kidnap wealthy businessman or their relatives — sometimes even Alejandro’s own friends — hold them in their house for ransom and then murder them instead of letting them go after their ransoms were paid. Talk about duality.

This is the first time in 17 years that an Argentine film is featured in the Golden Lion competition — the last one was Fernando “Pino” Solanas’s La nube. It’s not the first time for Trapero, who, back in 1999, presented his debut feature Mundo grúa (Crane World) and won the Critics’ Week Prize. In 2004, his Familia rodante (Rolling Family) was featured in the Orizzonti section. Trapero also sat on the jury in 2012.

In a really striking performance filled with nuances, with a masterful command of the subtlest gestures, popular TV, theatre and cinema actor Guillermo Francella plays the lead as patriarch Arquímedes Puccio, an icy man with a hell of a temper, almost completely unaffectionate and very stern. A man who felt neither guilt nor remorse for his crimes and, in fact, not once admitted to having killed any of his victims.

This is the type of man who would constantly wash his home’s sidewalk in a seemingly casual manner, but with a hidden agenda: he’d do it to find out if the yelling of the kidnapped victims coming from his house — he would lock them in a bathroom — could in fact be heard by passers-by. And Francella embodies his traits just as well, if not better, as when he played an alcoholic assistant in a police investigation in Juan José Campanella’s Oscar winning film El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes).

Young singer and actor Peter Lanzani makes his film debut as Alejandro, the eldest son of the clan, and delivers a performance that may not be as nuanced as Francella’s but is yet convincing and well-tuned enough to deliver a character with a dark soul, a good looking façade, and a perverse relationship with a heinous father. Although father and son were the actual perpetrators of the crimes, the mother, two daughters and two other brothers were, to some extent, accomplices — just like the retired colonel Rodolfo Victoriano Franco and two other men.

First, during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, Arquímedes Puccio was a member of the SIDE, the Triple A, and provided “room and board” for those disappeared by the military. But when the military left the government and democracy returned, Puccio could no longer claim the immunity he had enjoyed before. So he started “working on his own” and targeted his future victims, that is to say, rugby player Ricardo Manoukian, engineer Eduardo Aulet, businessman Emilio Naum, and businesswoman Nélida Bollini de Prado. The woman was the only survivor.

El Clan accomplishes several things at once. First, it’s an accurate metaphor for the evil of those obscure years, with one family and their demons closely connected to those of the infamous military dictatorship. Just like the Puccios held their victims in a bathroom and passers-by didn’t know what was going on — or at least pretended they didn’t, or most likely both — the military held illegally detained prisoners in clandestine centres and society at large didn’t know what was going on — or didn’t want to know, or most likely both. In many ways, it’s impossible to think of the Puccios without thinking of the military dictatorship.

Secondly, Trapero casts a very comprehensive gaze upon the duality of this family. It would have been very easy to portray them as out-of-these-world monsters, but it wouldn’t have been true. The nature of the Puccios was far more complex that what could be seen at first sight, and the switching between their family life and their criminal one is meticulously expressed in seemingly minor signs. You have to remember that the evil is in the details.

And thirdly, while El Clan is a solid thriller, you can also see it as a horror feature, one where the monster lurks behind a familiar and friendly façade. A study in what sinister is all about, if you will.

When and where

El Clan (Argentina, 2015). Written and directed by Pablo Trapero. With Guillermo Francella, Peter Lanzani, Lili Popovich, Gastón Cocchiarale, Franco Masini, Giselle Motta. Cinematography: Julián Apezteguía. Editing: Pablo Trapero, Alejandro Carrillo Penovi (SAE). Running time: 108 minutes.

@pablsuarez

Puccio crime clan continues to intrigue Argentina

The story of the Puccio family, whose members abducted wealthy Argentines for ransom and hid them in their house before killing them, is making headlines again, 30 years after their convictions.

Irene Caselli reports from Buenos Aires.

3 September 2015

The story of Arquimedes Puccio, who kidnapped four people in the 1980s, continues to fascinate Argentines

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It was 1985 and Argentina was coming to grips with its newly restored democracy.

Secrets were slowly emerging after seven years of military rule during which as many as 30,000 people had been forcibly disappeared.

But the story of one family shocked the country.

Unlikely criminals

On the face of it, the Puccios seemed like an unlikely crime clan.

They lived in the wealthy suburb of San Isidro, north of Buenos Aires.

Their house was only two blocks from the cathedral and they attended mass every Sunday.

One of the sons was a famous rugby player.

So the discovery during a police raid in August 1985 of businesswoman Nelida Bollini de Prado in the Puccios' cellar was met with disbelief.

Ms Bollini de Prado had been kidnapped a month before.

Rodolfo Palacios, author of a biography of the Puccio clan, said that initially many of the Puccios' neighbours came out in their defence, refusing to believe the accusations.

"The story remains full of mystery. We still don't know what really happened inside the house," he told the BBC.

What is known is that between 1982 and 1985, Arquimedes Puccio, with the help of two of his sons and three acquaintances, kidnapped four people and killed three of them.

Dark past

It is believed that Mr Puccio helped the secret service kidnap people during the dictatorship, when tens of thousands of those suspected of opposing the military were abducted.

He eventually started to work independently, choosing wealthy victims to kidnap for ransom.

Rugby player Ricardo Manoukian and engineer Eduardo Aulet were killed after their families had paid up.

Businessman Emilio Naum died in a struggle with members of the clan as they were trying to abduct him.

Businesswoman Bollini de Prado was the only one who survived after police grew suspicious and raided the Puccio home.

Mystery

El Clan is competing at the Venice Film Festival

Thirty years since Arquimedes Puccio was sentenced to life in prison, a film called The Clan has become a box office hit, with more than 1.5 million viewers in the two weeks following its release in Argentina.

"It's a seemingly normal family that is completely outside the norm," the film's director, Pablo Trapero, told the BBC.

The film focuses on life inside the Puccio house, especially on the bond between Arquimedes and his son Alejandro.

Alejandro, who at the time of the kidnappings was in his early 20s, is the eldest of the five Puccio children.

A successful rugby player, he was something of a celebrity in San Isidro.

The first victim, Ricardo Manoukian, was a teammate of his.

In the film, Alejandro is portrayed as a young man who does not dare confront his father and who remains tormented by his choices.

Hard to recreate

With many of the family members now dead or not speaking publicly, recreating what happened was no easy task.

Arquimedes Puccio died two years ago of a stroke.

Like his father, Alejandro was sentenced to life in prison. He died of pneumonia in 2008 while on parole.

The whereabouts of Daniel, who was also convicted but only served a few years in prison, are unknown.

The third son, Guillermo, left Argentina in the early 1980s, never to return.

Silvia, the second eldest child and a local art teacher, died of cancer in 2011.

The fifth and youngest of the children, Adriana, was a teenager when her father and two brothers were arrested.

She and her mother, Epifania Calvo, are alive and still own the house where the family lived and the kidnap victims were held.

Ms Calvo, her daughters and Guillermo were never charged, even though many questioned how they could have been unaware of what was happening in their own home.

Documentary evidence

Film director Trapero says he did his best to recreate the family relations through "photographs,
letters, interviews with friends of Alejandro's, or people who had visited the house and lived in the neighbourhood".

Screenwriter and director Luis Ortega, who is behind a soon-to-be-released TV series about the Puccios, encountered the same problem as Mr Trapero. He also decided to concentrated on the family dynamics.

"There are some who know, some who don't know, some who enjoy what they're doing, some who enjoy it but feel guilty," he says.

What Mr Ortega, Mr Trapero and Mr Palacios all agree on is that the Puccio case was only possible in the Argentine context of the 1980s.

"People didn't ask too many questions because it was better that way," says Mr Ortega of the years during and after the dictatorship.

"Arquimedes [Puccio] is not a crazy guy that decides to start kidnapping people out of the blue," says Mr Trapero.

"He slowly became who he was within the Argentine political context," he says. "He was a symptom of that time."

"I think the Puccio clan would not have been possible without the military dictatorship," says Mr Palacios.

"They ultimately used the same methods."

Take in a Film in a Pagoda at La Pagode Cinema

01/10/2013 at 11:57 am Posted In Architecture, Paris by anna blair

La Pagode Cinema is a small cinema housed in a pagoda. Doesn’t just this description make you want to go right now? Better yet, it completely lives up to expectations. Curiously, La Pagode has a connection to Le Bon Marché. The director of the department store had it constructed as a gift for his wife, in 1896, around the same time Mr. Ching Tsai Loo constructed his pagoda in the 8th arrondissement. It wasn’t enough to save the marriage of the Bon Marché director, apparently, as his wife left him for his business partner the same year. Nonetheless, she used the interior salon for entertaining up until 1927.

La Pagode became a cinema in 1931 and has played a big part in presenting cutting edge French cinema to the public. Jean Cocteau held the premiere of Testament d’Orphée here in 1959, and La Pagode Cinema played an important part in promoting the films of Ingmar Bergman and Sergei Eisenstein in France. Their programming remains interesting now, with a monthly Japanese film screening and discussion group.

The architecture of La Pagode Cinema wasn’t as I expected. I had thought it would be a kitschy pagoda, a sort of novelty device, but it was very beautiful. There isn’t a lot of space between the fence and the building, but a lovely garden has been fit into the area in front of the pagoda with chairs, creating quite a lovely little area to sit while waiting for the film. The trees also create dappled light which plays very prettily upon the building.

The small space and the foliage make it hard to see the La Pagode Cinema in its entirety but the details are impressive, with subtle colours. There are lovely painted flowers alongside incredibly intricate carved wood. There’s just the right amount of geometric framing that the sinuous shapes and natural imagery aren’t overpowering.

There are two screening rooms inside La Pagode Cinema, one of which is in the pagoda’s original interior and the other of which is underneath it. As you can see in the photo above, the screen looks a little out of place in the ornate interior, but in the best possible way. I imagine it would add an extra beauty to whatever was on the screen. The light fixtures snaking up the walls are so beautiful.

Marcus Loew noted early in the twentieth century, before La Pagode was a cinema, that “people buy tickets to theatres, not movies.” This cinema is a reminder of just how incredible a place to see films can be, but it’s also very understated, as I didn’t expect prior to visiting. La Pagode Cinema is beautiful in a substantial, not superficial, way.

Get in touch with the author @annakblair and see more content from her website Flappers with Suitcases.

The 10 Creepiest Places in NYC (Friday the 13th Edition)

06/13/2014 at 10:00 am
Posted In Architecture, Featured, Guides, New York
by Untapped Cities


In addition to it being Friday the 13th, it’ll be a full moon above the clouds (a combination that won’t happen again until 2098!). We’ve pulled together some of the creepiest in New York City in honor of the occasion. From mass burial grounds to abandoned psychiatric hospitals to haunted townhouses, this is an “architectural” version of a most haunted list. And if you want more, join our tour, Murder, Scandal & Vice: Crime & Corruption in 19th Century NYC, with Boroughs of the Dead this Saturday evening.

1. Hart Island

Rikers Island inmates performing adult burials on Hart Island. Photograph by Joel Sternfeld via The Hart Island Project

Located near the Bronx, Hart Island is a 101-acre island burial ground, the city’s last potter’s field, for those who are either unclaimed or whose families couldn’t afford a funeral. The island is uninhabited today, but more than 800,000 dead has been buried there since 1869, making it the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world. There are also some “notable” people buried at Hart Island, discovered after death. Bobby Driscoll, the Disney child actor is buried there. He was the voice of Peter Pan in the animated film and stared in Disney’s Song of the South. He died unknown, thought to be homeless, so was taken here. The grave of the first child to die of AIDS is also on Hart Island.

The island is also home to a crumbling women’s lunatic asylum and had areas used for drug rehabilitation. Read our interview with someone who lived there for two years in the 70.s

2. Many Parks in NYC Were Once Graveyards

Surprise! A large number of the famous parks you’ve been to in New York City were once graveyards and potter’s fields. This includes Bryant Park, Washington Square Park, Madison Square Park, Union Square, City Hall Park and more. Another potter’s field is the land under the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which of course has the abandoned, secret train platform even further below.

3. The Quaker Cemetery in Prospect Park

The secluded 10-acre Quaker cemetery in Prospect Park. Source: New York Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

In Prospect Park, off of Center Drive, there are 2000 gravestones and buried bodies older than the park itself. This property, the only private one in the park, is a cemetery owned by the Religious Society of Friends, aka the Quakers. Burials on the land date as far back as the 1820s and is still an active cemetery site. Buried here is Montgomery Clift, the star of “From Here to Eternity.”

The cemetery is surrounded by high fences topped by barbed wire to keep the Montgomery Clift-obsessed public out, as well as those who, according to rumors, used to practice devil worship or Santeria within the cemetery. (If these practices ever took place, they’ve moved slightly outside the cemetery, if the decapitated goat and dismembered chickens found in Prospect Park in recent years indicate anything).

4. Hangman’s Elm in Washington Square Park

As previously mentioned, Washington Square Park was once a potter’s field, and is home to approximately 20,000 bodies. It was also a forum for public hangings, and it’s said that the tree in which prisoners were hung, known as the “Hangman’s Elm” still exists in the northwest corner of the park. Although some historians dispute if this was the site of hangings, local lore states that the last hanging here occurred in 1820 when Rose Butler, a slave, was executed for burning down her master’s home. During the Revolutionary War, it was said that traitors were hung from the tree. In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette even claimed to witness the hanging of twenty highwaymen there. Whatever tales hold true, the dark aura of the Hangman’s Elm’s past nevertheless has aptly led to its rather gruesome naming.

5. North Brother Island

Abandoned buildings on North Brother Island. Source: Christopher Payne

Just 350 yards east of the Bronx, an uninhabited island known as North Brother Island lies in the East River, sealed off from the world. Before it became off-limits to the public in 1963, the city-owned island served many purposes since the 1880s. Some are more unsettling, such as quarantining victims of diseases and treating drug-addicts, and some more practical, like housing returning second world-war veterans.

A chilling depiction of confined life on North Brother Island. Source: Kingston Lounge

It was here in 1907 that the notorious Typohid Mary was confined. Mary didn’t exhibit symptoms and refused to admit she was a carrier, leading to her exile after outbreaks in the places she worked. After two decades of quarantine, she died on the island in 1938, followed by the hospital’s closure shortly after in 1942.

6. Creedmor Psychiatric Center

The sprawling Creedmoor Pyschiatric Center was constructed in 1912 in Queens Village as the Farm Colony of Brooklyn State Hospital, one of hundreds of similar psychiatric wards erected at the turn of the century to house and rehabilitate those who were ill equipped to function on their own. By 1960, Creedmoor’s population swelled from 150 in 1918 to over 7,000. As late as 1984, the violent ward of Creedmoor Psychiatric Center was rocked with scandal following the death of a patient, who was struck in the throat with a blackjack by a staff member. (The man was restrained in a straitjacket at the time.)

The campus continues to operate today, housing only a few hundred patients and providing outpatient services. Many of the buildings at Creedmor have been sold off. Others, like Building 25, lie fallow. Building 25 is notoriously filled with piled of pigeon poop while building 70 has the remnants of a former NYPD narcotics office filled with fake blood.

7. The House of Death at 14 West 10th Street

Located down one of the most picturesque blocks in New York City stands a building with a notoriously dark history. Nicknamed the “House of Death,” 14 West 10th Street is supposedly haunted by 22 ghosts, the most famous of which is Mark Twain, who resided there from 1900-1901. The brownstone was also home to a real life demon—Joel Steinberg. A former New York criminal defense attorney, Steinberg was charged with first-degree manslaughter for beating his 6-year old, illegally adopted “daughter” to death.

8. Staten Island Farm Colony

Greenbelt’s unruly forest surrounds Farm Colony structures. Image via Abandoned NYC

Throughout its history, the Staten Island Farm Colony was often associated with society’s unwanted. The colonial farm era in the 19th century witnessed a bout of construction developments catered to housing the poor, infirm, mentally ill and developmentally disabled. On a rather disturbing note, a 1920s abduction and murder of a seven-year-old boy toccurred on the Farm Colony’s grounds. The Farm Colony community claimed they saw an old man and young boy walking in the woods on the day the child went missing, and fingers pointed to legendary serial killer Cropsey as the one to blame.

In another story, Andre Rand, a man who allegedly lived in the tunnels underneath the abandoned site, was responsible for a string of child murders during the 70’s and 80’s. In 1987 the body of Jennifer Shwweiger was found not far from where he set up camp.

9. Fraunces Tavern

This Revolutionary-era tavern, still in service today, was the site of George Washington’s farewell address to his army officers at the end of the war. Other people have bid farewell there as well–though not voluntarily. The tavern was the site of a murder/suicide in the 1790′s, when a man stabbed his cheating wife and then himself. In 1975, Puerto Rican nationalists bombed the building, killing four. Workers and patrons have reported hearing footsteps and unexplained noises. Today, the first floor of Fraunces Tavern remains a tavern and restaurant, and the second floor is a museum full of Revolutionary War relics including George Washington’s tooth!

10. Police Plaza and Former Sugar Refinery Site

A former sugar refinery was located at 1 Police Plaza during the Revolution and it is commonly said to have housed a British prison, although one historian believes it to be an urban myth. It’s rumored to be haunted by the prisoners who starved here during the war. Nonetheless, other notorious sugar house prisons were located nearby housing prisoners in terrible conditions. The refinery here was demolished in 1892, and today is the NYPD headquarters. One window of the original refinery remains, and is integrated in the current building.

This article has been collectively written by Catherine Ku, Will Ellis, Benjamin Waldman, Lauren Lorey, Will Ellis, Joyce Lam and Vivek Shah.

A Ride On Heathrow's Self-Driving Pods

05 SEPTEMBER 2014 | BY: RACHEL HOLDSWORTH

READ ORIGINAL POST HERE

If you want a taste of the future, head to Heathrow Terminal 5. We're not talking about Richard Rogers' swooping design, but rather something that's very easy to miss: a little fleet of self-driving cars.
The Heathrow pods have been running since 2011 but they're tucked away as a shuttle between the terminal and the business car park. It's still a mode of transport in London, however — anyone can ride them. Just go to T5 and climb in for free. The destination may not be all that exciting but it's all about the journey — so when the operators asked us if we wanted to go take a look, we were all over it.
The pods are electric and autonomous. You tell the system where you want to go using touchscreens at the station. If a pod isn't waiting, one will arrive quickly (the average wait time is less than 10 seconds) and you're off. They travel along guideway tracks, navigating laterally using a laser at each wheel so they don't bump into the barriers. And they're in complete control of the journey; the central system programs the route and its relation to other pods before it sets off, but once the pod is under way it's 'thinking' for itself. There is a manned control room if you want to speak to someone or if something goes wrong, but ultimately you're pootling along in your own little capsule and it's just cool.

Which is all well and good, but 'cool' in itself doesn't explain 'why'. Heathrow wanted something to help it meet its emissions targets and the pod system replaces the hopper bus between the car park and terminal, removing the need for around 70,000 diesel-burning, getting-stuck-on-the-perimeter-road journeys each year. The pods are zero emission (though obviously how the electricity is generated to charge the battery packs is another issue). It's also completely wheelchair accessible.
And other applications? Ultra Global PRT, who designed the system and now run it, think the main function for London is in 'last mile connectivity' — for example, it won't replace the Northern line, but once you're at Morden it could shuttle passengers off to different destinations, rather than a bus.
Ultra Global also seem serious about looking into the possibility of using pods to 'extend' the DLR. They predict future systems could carry 2,500 people per hour per direction, which is exactly the same capacity as the cable car. And whereas the cable car cost £60m, the Heathrow system cost £30m (and future systems will probably cost less).