What you should know
New York is not only the city that never sleeps, but a place full of mysteries and paranormal stories that could scare more than one person. From haunted hotels, resident ghosts of emblematic sites, UFOs and even inexplicable apparitions. Journalist and writer Javier Peinado describes each of these sites in his book “100 Mysterious Places in New York“where he shares with his readers a list of the creepy stories behind these locations. Below we share 5 of the 100 places named in the book from Peinado so you can have a spooky tour if you visit New York.
New York is not only the city that never sleeps, but a place full of mysteries and paranormal stories that could scare more than one person. From haunted hotels, resident ghosts of emblematic sites, UFOs and even inexplicable apparitions.
The journalist and writer Javier Peinado describes each of these sites in his book “100 Mysterious Places in New York“where he shares with his readers a list of the spooky stories behind these locations.
“New York City is considered the most haunted city in the United States, there are others, but in the end I believe that there is no city with more natural phenomena like New York, and in this book there are a hundred examples, which are just That, examples, there are many more,” said Javier Peinado during an interview with Telemundo 47.
Furthermore, Peinado reminds us that these types of stories can be found in the least expected place.
“That’s the good thing, you don’t have to look for a church, a cemetery, or something with a sinister or scary theme, you go to any hotel, you go to a restaurant, you go to a bar and you do a little research and you realize that sometimes part of the official story there is something else, that someone died, and because of that there is a legend that objects move, that this table moves, that glass fills itself, or that strange noises are heard in a hotel, music in a room that is empty. So it is everywhere, on the sidewalks, subway stations, in forgotten tunnels,” Peinado added.
And the best time to live all these experiences is during the fall, just when various events like the Halloween Parade. A season that according to Peinado is his favorite because “as the days get shorter, and night falls earlier, it gives the city a touch that is not sinister, but more gloomy.”
Below we share 5 of the 100 places named in the book from Peinado so you can have a spooky tour if you visit New York.
Five places with dark stories in New York
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
The Empire State Building, which was completed in 1931 and is located on the 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, apart from being one of the most emblematic places in New York, it is a skyscraper that holds “many unpleasant events,” as Javier Peinado pointed out. Events that include accidents such as the one that occurred in 1945 when a World War II bomber crashed into the building and caused several deaths.
Another, one of the best known, is that of Evelyn McHale, 23 years old, who in 1947 jumped from Observatory 86, the most touristy, and fell onto a limousine. It is said that her ghost surrounds the building, “she has appeared in the bathrooms of said observatory, or they have even seen her jump and cross the fence of observatory 86 and jump to her death.”
For other people, as Peinado says, the specter is not that of McHale but that of a widow who died in the building after learning that her husband had died during World War II.
These are some of the facts behind the history of what was the tallest building in the city.
2. HOTEL ALGONQUIN
One of the oldest hotels in New York City is the Algonquin, known for having been the first to have air conditioning and smoke detectors, also one of those that hides dark worlds behind spectral stories.
In this place, located in 59 W 44th St in Manhattan and operating since 1902, a group of intellectuals who were called “The Vicious Circle” met and helped create the cultural and performing scene of New York.
“The vicious circle met here inside the Algonquin at a special round table, which they already kept for themselves. It was made up of intellectuals, very influential people in New York, editors, theater critics like Alexander Woollcott, comedians like Harpo Marx and the poet Dorothy Parker,” Peinado said.
However, the presence of some of them is still felt in the place, especially that of Dorothy Parker.
“I was talking about Dorothy Parker, this poet had a very tortured life and that is why it is said that her energy remains within the walls of the hotel. It is said that the Algonquin collects phenomena such as elevators that move on their own, to tables that move , there have been people who say that they have heard footsteps on the stairs and that no one was there, or in the laundry room they heard noises of someone shaving. It is said that Dorothy Parker is responsible for them,” said Peinado.
3. NEW AMSTERDAM THEATER
Horror stories also reach Broadway theaters.
This is the New Amsterdam theater, which opened in 1903, and is currently the home of one of Disney’s best-known musicals: Aladdin.
This place in the middle of the lights of the show and the magic of its production has its own resident ghost.
“We are talking about Olive Thomas, a showgirl, a real personality. In addition to theater, she was in Hollywood, she made movies, she was named, at one point, the most beautiful woman in all of New York, she was very famous. So that overwhelming personality, she was very diva, and it is said that those features survived her death and are found inside the theater,” Peinado said.
Thomas died of poisoning in 1920 in Paris during her second honeymoon while she was with her husband, Jack Pickford, but her death remains a mystery. What is known is that she Thomas “swallowed a small bottle of pills for her husband’s syphilis.” After that, it is stated that she began to feel and see a ghost that looked like her in the Amsterdam theater, which was one day her performance venue, and “who had her characteristic dress and a little blue bottle that is believed to be the one of the pills that ended his life.
Since then, several events have happened, one of them was when the film premiered in 2011. The Artist, which was a silent film and apparently the employees were talking about how there was a better actress than Olive Thomas, her sister-in-law. Because of that, Thomas apparently became furious and saw a tower of DVDs completely toppled over, as if it had been pushed by an invisible hand.
“This ghost from beyond the grave remains a great Broadway personality,” Peinado added.
4. LANMARK TAVERN
Taverns are also places of mystery, mainly one located in the entire corner of the 46th Street and the 11th Avenue, near the Hudson River. Is about Lanmark Tavern, which was built in 1868 before Twelfth Avenue existed, so it was right on the river bank.
“Well this is the Lanmark Tavern, it’s a very important port tavern in the history of Irish immigration and it was built during the nineteenth century, this was all water, the Hudson River led here, Twelfth Avenue was built later. So “As I say, this tavern was very important among all the Irish immigrants but also for all the dodging sailors and pirates, who found the Landmark Tavern a stopping point,” said Peinado.
In this place, where criminal gangs came and fights were seen, there are three resident ghosts.
“There is talk of George Raft, who is an actor from the 1930s and who moved in the world of gangsters. It is said that his ghost walks through these places. Also of the spirit of a Confederate soldier who is said to have fought in this bar with machetes and a knife and managed to crawl to a bathtub that is on the second floor and died there. And the third is an immigrant girl, an Irish woman, who was fleeing the famine and it is said that she was very sick and well, she was in this bar and went to the third floor and died there. So it is said that the phenomena that are recorded in the Landmark belong to one of these three spirits in pain,” Peinado narrated.
5. DAKOTA BUILDING
The famous Dakota building, a tourist site for being the place where John Lennon lived and was murdered, is considered, according to Peinado, “possibly the most cursed building in all of New York City.” This is due to the history it hides before it was built.
“It is said that before the United States existed as a nation, it is rumored that there were rites around the devil on these lands. And later even individuals as infamous as Aleister Crowley, the black sorcerer, also came here to worship Satan and the dark forces “Peinado explained.
Among some of the Dakota’s stories is that of the ghost of a girl who looks like something out of a horror movie: “she would be playing in the hallway with a red ball and telling people that it is her birthday in a very mysterious way, construction workers “They claim to have seen her, and shortly after that she died, having fallen down the elevator. A resident of the Dakota claims to have seen her, and the girl entered a door, the woman opened the door and it was a closed closet, and the girl was not there.”
In addition, there are other strange stories. Like “the crazy slasher”, who is known for slashing elevators that are difficult to access or all the curses that would have happened to the members of the movie Rosemary’s Baby which was filmed in this place and which many know as the “Devil’s Seed”.
It is said that even John Lennon saw UFOs through the window, flying saucers. “Everything that surrounds the Dakota is not enough for a chapter but for an entire book.”
2023-10-27 21:02:11
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