Beyond its eight and a half million inhabitants, the Big Apple is home to countless beings that have wandered its streets for decades. There are ghosts in New York, yes. Their stories are well documented. At least in popular folklore. It is said that the ghost of the American poet Dorothy Parker continues strolling the corridors of the Algonquin Hotel, where the famous writers’ roundtable was held in the 1920s. There are reports of Gertrude Tredwell appearing in the house where she lived, now converted into the Merchant’s House Museum. And some Broadway actors claim to notice during rehearsals the presence of the spirit of the producer David Belasco in the theater that bears his name.
The trail of specters can be very fleeting but it can be followed on several New York ghost tours. One of them is Ghost City Tours, which, as its name indicates, specializes in this topic and operates in different North American cities. This year they started in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. “It’s a neighborhood rich in stories, but not all of them are true.” We spent three years preparing the tours because we didn’t want to do what everyone else does and we discarded many absurd legends, explains to Condé Nast Traveler Tim Nealon, a businessman who wears many hats and who is behind a fleet of ghostly guides that began in Savannah in 2012.
The circuits they have set up in New York take place, of course, at night and they offer a version for children in which some of the grittier details are skipped. Our meeting point is the Jefferson Market Garden, a beautiful building that rises on Sixth Avenue. It was built in 1877 as a courthouse and today it is one of New York’s most remarkable public libraries. You can sit down to read a book in its neo-Gothic rooms or also in the idyllic garden that sits on the same block. But it shouldn’t be at dawn. It is possible that a woman dressed in white will appear to you and then vanish among the greenery. That small green park, called Jefferson Market Garden, was a women’s prison, many of them LGBTQ+, between the 1930s and 70s. Its spirits have not left the place and they are our introduction to this tour.
On our stroll through the Village, while people rush to reach reservations at charming restaurants without knowing the chilling stories hidden in its streets, we come across a cemetery that passes completely unnoticed. It is located on 11th Street and belonged to the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. Its last burial took place in 1833. It is the smallest cemetery in Manhattan and there is a reason for that. The growth of the city and the laying out of the famous street grid split the land, and this is the only corner that remains. It is not at all surprising to feel a shiver when you see it.
