Ghosthunting New York City by L’Aura Hladik

I love it when these books are displayed in the store in the month before Halloween. Each chapter is about some charming NYC landmark, and the spirit that lives there at night. In all of the city’s historic houses, there are spirits that move the pictures, pet the cats, or steal pints of beer. The part about McSorley’s Ale House, now there’s history involved in that one, and I bet the owner and patrons all have stories to tell. The old bars in the Village, they’ve been around since the 1800’s, long before all the colleges sprang up in the city. Back then, New York really was diverse, and the patrons weren’t all college students, actors, musicians, teachers, and bankers. There were a lot of unsavory characters.

Hart Island is many things; cemetery for the unclaimed dead, site of an old Nike missile base, resting place for the old Ebbet’s Field bleacher seats, to name a few. North Brother Island was an isolation zone for Typhoid Mary, and later an institution for teenage junkies. I can imagine the ghosts of all those dead kids roaming the island at night. Typhoid Mary’s ghost is probably crying like a banshee from the solitude. If I had to live on an island all by myself, I’d be crazy too!

The haunted NYC theaters didn’t surprise me, because the Drury Lane theater in England is said to be haunted too. But with or without the ghosts, the authors have brought up all kinds of superstitions I never knew about. For starters, never wear green or yellow on stage, the limelight cancels it out. Never whistle in the theatre, because the stagehands were ex-sailors and they’d signal each other by whistling. Whistle the wrong tune, and the curtain might drop at the wrong time. Did you know that green and yellow are considered bad luck on stage? They used to be the colors of the devil in old plays. Never let the theatre go pitch black, because the spirits will run amok.

Here’s the bottom line; New York City is one of the oldest communities in the USA. Old cities, like ours, and New Orleans, Boston, and Philadelphia, they’re bound to have lots of ghosts. Happy Halloween!