Events, parties and parades in celebration of Halloween are already in full swing. “NYC tourism rarely slows down,” says Damien Duchamp, hospitality and tourism professor and chairperson at SJC Brooklyn. People from all across the world travel to New York for experiences such as the 6th Avenue Halloween Parade and the city’s legendary haunted houses. “I think for visitors it is an experience worth having, especially since many places around the world don’t celebrate Halloween,” he said.
During this unique time of celebration and superstition, there’s no better place to be than NYC. These are our top five haunted places that should be on every New Yorker’s list.
5. The Conference House in Staten Island
Photo via ashcourtz.blogspot.com
The haunting legends of the Conference House have made this spot one of the most ghostly places in all of Staten Island. English Royal Navy officer and former landowner, Christopher Billop, was granted the grounds in 1617 and built the manor by 1680. It is said that Billop murdered his maid at the top of a staircase and abandoned his fiancé, which stimulated her death from a broken heart. People claim the maid’s candlelight can still be seen in one of the windows and his fiancé’s cries are still heard throughout the house. There have also been ghost sightings of British soldiers and Native Americans wandering the house and property at night. Public tours are given every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. If you build up enough courage, take a trip on your own at night to make for an extra spooky experience.
4. Green-Wood Cemetery
Photo by David Shankbone
Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn has developed a reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the prestigious place to be buried. Attracting 500,000 visitors a year, it is only second to Niagara Falls as the nation’s greatest tourist attraction. The hills of the property were the front line of the Battle of Brooklyn, one of the biggest battles of the Revolutionary War. The cemetery invokes the spirits of the dead with prehistoric tombs and mystic old headstones. Also referred to as “Brooklyn’s Gangster Graveyard,” the grounds is home to notorious gangsters and murderers. To get the scoop on each high-profile corpse, hear tales of murder and mayhem, and feel the presence of spirits surrounding you, purchase tickets to a guided tour. Prices range depending on the tour selected.
3. The Gravesend Inn Haunted Hotel
Photo via time Out New York Kids
Brooklyn’s most high-tech haunted house returns for its 16th year this Halloween season. Produced by students in the Theatreworks program at New York City College of Technology (City Tech), this theme park quality Halloween attraction is filled with skeleton pirates, talking paintings and a grisly bathroom. Participants trigger the hotel’s spooky surprises with a series of hidden sensors that respond to the audience’s movements. The Gravesend Inn is open for the season at scheduled times and dates until Halloween. It is located in Downtown Brooklyn at the Voorhees Theatre, 186 Jay Street — north of Tillary. Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 for students with ID and group sales.
2. New York Haunted Hay Ride at Randall’s Island
The Haunted Hayride at Randall’s Island, N.Y., invested in by Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban, has become one of the most popular Halloween attractions in the county. It returns in 2016 for its second year with the addition of the House of Shadows and a Purgatory Haunted Village. The hayride is comprised of a tractor-drawn hay wagon that makes its way through the haunted Halloween world of ghostly apparitions, backwoods hillbilly country, terrifying clowns and more. The Today Show, Bloomberg News, Fortune, Forbes and FOX have referred to this as “A Halloween Icon.” The hauntings will run on several days until Halloween. Tickets range between $32 for general admission and $995 for a private wagon for you and up to 30 friends.
Photo via New York Haunted Hayride Facebook page
Photo via merchantshouse.org
The Merchant’s House Museum is thought to be the most haunted house in all of New York City and was voted “Manhattan’s Most Haunted House” by The New York Times. This national historic landmark was owned by the Tredwell family from 1835 to 1933, a wealthy merchant-class family. Many believe the youngest of the Tredwell’s eight children who was last to live in the house, Gertrude Tredwell, is still watching over the home. She was born in an upstairs bedroom, never married and lived her entire life there until she died at the age of 93. When the house opened to the public as a museum in the 1930s, strange sounds, sightings and smells have been reported.
The museum offers “Spirited October Events,” such as Candlelight Ghost Tours — a 50-minute tour of the dark and ghostly mansion by flickering candlelight. Throughout the tour true tales of unexplainable instances, creaky floors boards and doors, shadows and voices in the gloomy atmosphere are told. Tour dates and prices vary.
