The Ghostly Inhabitants of New York City

At one of NYC’s oldest theaters, The Belasco Theater 111 West 44th St., there have been sightings of the builder and namesake, David Belasco. He lived in an apartment above the theater before he died in 1931. His ghost supposedly interacts with actors, offers kudos and handshakes. Many people have also reported hearing footsteps and the sound of the disconnected elevator running. There have been sightings of a Blue Lady who may have been Belasco’s companion.

One would think that a hospital might be safe from unexplained happenings, but then when we think about it, how many people don’t suffer and die in hospitals and how many severely injured people pass through them every day. At the Beth Israel Medical Center at First Ave. and 16th St, people have reported hearing unexplained footsteps, noises, and voices throughout the hospital.

The Brittany Hotel at 55 East 10th St. is now a New York University dorm NYU Brittany Residence Hall. Here people have reported hearing mysterious music, unexplained lights, and sounds of footsteps. Some claim to feel like someone is watching them.

At Chumley's 86 Bedford St. a West Village speakeasy, the former bar mistress and owner has never left the building. Henrietta Chumley comes for a Manhattan cocktail and likes messing with the restaurant's jukebox.

Have you ever wondered what becomes of people who die tragically in front of their place of residence? Well, Mickey, a sailor who lived in The Ear Inn at 326 Spring St. when it was a boarding house was killed when hit by a car in front of the Inn he chose to stay in his place of residence.

It appears that the Empire State Building on Fifth Ave. is supposedly haunted by all the suicide victims who have jumped from the building's observatory. In spirit, they are still very much a part of the city.

The brownstone at 14 West 10th Street was constructed in the 19th century. It has unfortunately acquired the name of The House of Death. The house is believed to be haunted by the people who died there and by author Mark Twain who lived there from 1900 – 1901. He is rumored to be haunting the stairwell of the house. Attorney Joel Steinberg lived in this house in 1987 when he was accused and later convicted of beating his 6-year-old adopted daughter Jessica Steinberg to death.

A young woman named Elma Sands was murdered when this area was Lispenard Meadows in December of 1799 and then dropped into a well. Today, you'll find the restaurant Manhattan Bistro at 129 Spring Street, where there was once a meadow. The woman's supposed murderer was her fiancé with whom she had gone sleigh riding.

Levi Weeks trial became a sensation with a defense team made up of two big-name lawyers Aaron Burns and Alexander Hamilton. He was acquitted despite substantial evidence. Now the poor woman's spirit haunts the bistro, supposedly expressing her anger at what happened. Ashtrays are knocked off tables, plates broken on the floor, and bottles flying from shelves. Some people have also spotted a young woman in a dirty dress with moss and vines, which would be logical if her bruised body had been found in a well.

A Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl Olive Thomas who committed suicide by overdosing on her husband's syphilis medication, has been seen on stage and in one of the dressing rooms at the New Amsterdam Theatre at 214 West 42nd St. She wears a green beaded Follies dress with a beaded headband and a sash. She is supposedly holding a blue glass bottle, which contained the pills that killed her. Typically, she appears after audiences have left but has been rumored to appear when her contemporaries are in the theater.

A wealthy merchant’s daughter Gertrude Tredwell is believed to haunt the home that her father built in 1832 the Old Merchant’s House on 29 East 4th St. which is now a museum. Gertrude never married, and shortly after the birth of an unwanted baby which her family strongly disapproved of she died in an upstairs bedroom in 1933. Her ghost is most often spotted in the kitchen and also seen in her former bedroom. Gertrude appears as an elegant, petite woman dressed in mid-19th century clothing.

What is fascinating at the restaurant One If By Land, Two If By Sea at 17 Barrow St. is that it is haunted by the ghost of Aaron Burr, a former vice president of the United States who is famous for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The restaurant is located in what was once Burr’s carriage house. Visitors and employees have seen flying dishes and chairs have been pulled out from under customers. Burr’s daughter, Theodosia Burr Alston en route to visit her father in New York, vanished off the coast of North Carolina, and it is rumored that she has found her way to her father and haunts the carriage house. She is rumored to have removed earrings from female patrons at the bar.

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas liked drinking in the White Horse Tavern at 567 Hudson St. at West 11th St. On November 3, 1953, he celebrated his 39th birthday here, at which time he consumed 18 shots of whiskey. Afterward, feeling ill, he returned to his room at the Hotel Chelsea, where he collapsed and slipped into a comma. Four days later, at St. Vincent’s Hospital on November 9, 1953, at around 1 PM, he died. His spirit returned to the White Horse Tavern, and supposedly he appears from time to time and rotates his favorite corner table.

If ghost hunting in old cemeteries is more your style you should visit the following places:

Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral 263 Mulberry St. where the city’s oldest Catholic Church’s cemetery is haunted by a slave who founded, with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, one of New York City's first orphanages, and helped raise funds for the city's first cathedral in the 19th century. His name is Pierre Toussaint and the ghost of Bishop Dubois, who is buried below the entrance to the cathedral and has been seen quite often in the church.

St. Marks-in-the-Bowery Church 131 E. 10th St. is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Peter Stuyvesant, the 17th century Dutch Governor who apparently roams around the chapel. He was buried in a vault under the chapel in 1678.

St. Paul’s Chapel Burial Ground Broadway and Fulton St. this burial ground of the Episcopal Church is haunted by the headless ghost of an English actor. His name is George Frederick Cooke who died in September 1811. He was buried headless because he had donated his head to science to pay doctor’s bills and his skull was used in numerous productions of Hamlet.

At Trinity Church Broadway and Wall Street there is supposedly a tombstone in the graveyard that many people claim when passing to have heard laughter.

Washington Square Park West 4th and MacDougal St. was used as a hanging ground during the American Revolution and also as a burial ground. Today 15,000 bodies remain buried there. Now and then an occasional one can be seen hanging around.