Is New York City haunted? Readers told us their close-to-home ghost stories. (2024)

We’re not saying ghosts are “real” or not —that’s for you to decide.

But as autumn settles on a city that’s been around for more than 400 years, it’s not unreasonable to feel that the place is a little bit … haunted.

Amanda Melhuish gets it.

When the 31-year-old comedian moved from California to New York City in 2015, her first job was at the Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain, a restored ice cream parlor built in the space of an early 20th-century drug store.

She was responsible for closing on certain nights, and when fall set in, she started shutting down earlier.

“It’s an ice cream store, so you can understand that in autumn, it’s not our busiest time,” she said.

One night, Melhuish was putting away ice cream sandwiches and cranking an early 2000s pop-punk playlist on Spotify when she said a door slammed shut behind her. She said she told herself it was the wind, even though she knew there was no wind blowing inside the shop.

That’s when she said the ghost appeared.

“I saw in one of the big ornate mirrors this ghostly figure of a woman in a long 1920s-style apron dress,” said Melhuish. “Then the music turned off.”

She said other employees had told her about the ghost —one even said she communicated with her through a Ouija board. Their take was that the ghost was an old waitress who was harmless but less than receptive to change. So, she haunted the soda fountain, letting her presence be known when she didn’t like something.

“Usually we played time-appropriate music, because it’s meant to feel like this old-fashioned experience,” said Melhuish. “But no one was there, so I was having some fun. I think that, honestly, she simply did not like that playlist.”

She said it was her first and last time encountering a ghost, and now she has no intention of seeking out supernatural activity. But it also didn’t scare her away from New York.

“I’m not afraid of ghosts, but I’m afraid of driving,” Melhuish said.

She’s not the only person in the city allegedly coexisting with ghosts. We asked our Instagram followers and Early Addition newsletter subscribers about their supernatural encounters.

Here are a few stories from our readers, which were lightly edited for clarity.

Rachel Klingberg in Manhattan

In the mid-90s I lived in an apartment on Waverly Place, an 1840s building complete with a dumbwaiter, fireplace and sealed-up gas jets.

One night, I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep when I noticed a man sitting in the corner of my bedroom. He was sitting in a wooden chair with his chin on his hand, a slight smile on his face, emitting a strange sepia glow. Even more bizarre was that the chair was sunken a few inches lower than the floor, cutting him off at about mid-calf.

I was terrified, and buried myself under the blankets, willing him to go away. But when I mustered up the courage to look again, he had broken up into various floating elements, like his lips were floating around along with other body parts. I was too scared to move, hoping the blankets would protect me. That was the only time I saw him clearly, although I sometimes saw a kind of hanging mist in the kitchen.

Later, I found out that Edgar Allan Poe had debuted “The Raven” at that location, where there was once a literary salon. But this was in a building that had previously stood on the same lot. I think that is why he was sunken into the floorboards — he was haunting the building that had previously stood on the same site. I don't expect anyone to believe me, but I am convinced I saw the ghost of Poe. It looked just like him.

Brooklyn resident, who asked their name not be shared

My three roommates and I lived in a haunted apartment in the East Village. The ghost would rattle pans stored in the kitchen cupboards, which was fine, but it also terrorized one of my roommates by shaking her door handle all night. It even manifested a blob of something like plaster that just appeared out of nowhere and fell to the floor of her room with a clatter.

With me, it was more of a helpful prankster. It once made my hair stand on end like the Statue of Liberty's corona. I was able to walk across the apartment to show one of my roommates my hair standing up in distinct points before I patted it down.

I was in my 20s when I lived in this apartment, was a very deep sleeper, and notoriously shut off my alarm while half asleep, often oversleeping and being late for work. I remember my alarm going off one morning when I, half-awake, hoped I had hit the snooze button instead of off, and said out loud, "If I oversleep today, I'm going to be pissed," then immediately fell back asleep.

Turns out, I had turned my alarm off. But right when I should have been getting out of bed, I hear a very loud knock, knock, knock on my door. "Come in!" I croaked, as I woke up and saw what time it was. I got out of bed and went looking for the roommate who had knocked on my door to thank them for helping me be on time for work. No one was home. I opened the hallway door to silence in the building.

Caesar Mendez in the Bronx

My mother bought this over-80-year-old house in the late 1980s and brought my younger brother and I along for the "ride.”

One day, I was alone in the house when we were still settling in. I was organizing my bedroom closet, which was on the far end of my room. The door was open, and I had a view of the hallway and the entrance of my mother's bedroom.

I heard a creaking noise from the direction of the hallway. I turned toward the noise and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a woman in a dark scarlet 19th-century dress walking quickly into my mother's room. Now, this was a quick side view of this figure's back end, so I didn't see her face, only her light skin, brunette hair up in some bouffant style and the dress. I immediately followed this figure into my mother's room. But of course, the room was empty of anyone but myself.

I felt no fear, but I was surprised. I can't say I was not influenced by previous comments, because before we moved in, my mother had said she had a dream or image in her mind of a supposed previous occupant of the home.

And yes, it was of a young woman in an old fashioned red dress. This was the first of several experiences I had directly in that home and several I heard from my mom and my brother. The home no longer exists, as I sold it and it was torn down to make way for an apartment building. But before all that, the house had long lost any energy or aura of the supernatural.

Margaret Indiana in Brooklyn

I was living in a two-story, 1910 house in Williamsburg on the ground floor, which had been converted into an apartment. The owners sold the building to a developer and it was slated to be torn down.

About a month before I was being forced to move out, I was woken up in the middle of the night by voices whispering in the basement. I could also see the light was on, shining through the floorboards. I laid awake trying to hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t make it out, and eventually I went back to sleep.

In the morning, I asked the landlords (who lived above, an elderly couple) if they had been doing work in the basement the night before. They were confused and said no. I told them someone might have gotten in, and we all went down to investigate. Nothing was amiss in the basement, no evidence of someone down there. The light was still on so we turned it off.

The same thing happened the following night. I woke up and heard two people speaking in low voices right under where my bed was, and I could see the light was on. I was more awake this time and listened for the sound of anything else, but I heard nothing — just intermittent whispering and muttering. No words were clear.

I was more pushy with the landlords the next morning. We went into the basement again to inspect. The basement had a dirt floor. There were no footprints anywhere, other than our own. I stood under the space where my bed was, no dust disturbed, nothing amiss. The entrance from the street was a sidewalk grate with a rusted padlock. There was no other way in.

The following night, I'm woken up by voices again, the same level of speaking. I’m awake for two hours. The voices eventually fade out. I’m sitting in bed facing my bedroom door, which opens into my room and is about two feet open. Dawn is happening. Everything in my room is becoming illuminated by a soft gray light. I’m wondering what to do about the voices, because they’ve been keeping me up and I’m tired.

All of a sudden, a figure steps into my bedroom and stands at the foot of my bed. She has emerged abruptly from behind my door, as though she were standing behind it, all in one movement. She’s a woman with long hair, which swings lightly from side to side in response to her quick movement. Her shoulders are hunched. I can’t see her face. She’s in silhouette. She then evaporates.

I sit bolt upright. I wait a beat and crawl to the foot of my bed to peek around the door. When I do, I’m staring into the living room at my cat, who is frozen in full freak-out mode, hair all standing on end.

Linda Pricci in Queens

I was working for the National Academy Museum, which at the time occupied a historic townhouse a few doors down from the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue. It had been the home of sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and philanthropist Archer M. Huntington, who donated the house to The National Academy of Design in 1940.

I worked alone in a single room structure that was built on top of the townhouse and was only accessible through a freight elevator and a rear closed-off stairwell that ran the height of the building (the sounds of howling wind through that stairwell is another scary story in itself). This structure was Anna’s sculpture studio during her life. Archer had passed first, so Anna continued to live in the townhouse after it was donated until she passed in 1973. I had heard a few stories about spooky things happening in the basement, but I usually stopped the storyteller in their tracks because I’m a scaredy cat who didn’t need anything else to fuel my imagination.

I spent my days alone up there, many times in silence as I worked on my computer. My computer was in the corner of a square room, so I sat with my back to the rest of the space. One day I was sitting at my desk, typing away on my computer in the silence being on top of building provided. That’s when I heard—CLEAR AS DAY—the sound of an exhale of breath in the right ear. My brain immediately made a connection to what the sound was. It was—without a doubt in my mind—the sound of someone exhaling slowly, but with some force, from their mouth. I spun around quickly and panned the room but nothing was there. The stairwell door was closed and the freight elevator was still. The windows were closed and nothing was moving. I sat completely frozen, scared to even breathe, scanning the room for any signs of movement. When I finally got the nerve to move, I ran down the stairs (I was not waiting for the elevator) and took a long lunch.

From that day forward, I never worked without the radio on because the silence was deafening.

I truly believe it was Anna, visiting her old studio. After I left the company, I heard that the strong, stocky maintenance man had been doing some work on the roof outside my office. No one was working there at the time, but he clearly saw someone walking around. I was told he never visited that office again.

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Is New York City haunted? Readers told us their close-to-home ghost stories. (2024)
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