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Haunted House
Oct. 29th, 2006 12:27 pmCold and windy morning - can hear the wind beating against the apartment like a frantic banshee, wailing, wimpering and whistling. Begging for entry. Inside it's about 64 degrees. Outside 52. And I keep wishing the landlord would turn the heat up slightly. But one of the drawbacks of renting, is one cannot control the thermostat. Suppose I could go buy a space heater somewhere?
Last night, I journeyed into the city to go to a "real" haunted house. It's an old town house located on East 4th Street between Lafayette and the Bowery, called The Merchants House . Saturday was the last night that they were doing "haunted ghost tours of the museum" which consisted of a video compilation of reported hauntings including a blurb from 48 Hours, and a couple other documentaries regarding sightings, a little walk around the house - watching live actors perform little bits of the house's history. And of course ghost stories - personal ones. Personal ghost stories aren't like the one's you read in books or see on film. They are more mysterious, and can at times be explained. They also need to be told orally for the full effect. I love them. A good campfire tale can have the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Particularly if they ring true - and they tend to ring truer when told face to face then written in a book. People's voices can often be more convincing.
True Haunted Houses - usually are ones in which the family has lived in the same house their entire lives, never really left it, and in the case of the Treadwell family, died in it. Even had their funerals there. An old custom was to have the coffin leave the house feet first, otherwise the dead might come back to the house. The Merchant House has three spirits: the old man, Seamus Treadwell, his daughter, Gertrude, and their cook/housekeeper, Bridget Murphy. Odd happenings revolve around all three - a fourth grader ran into the old man on a school trip through the house once. A woman doing a cooking demonstration had stacked china a certain way, only to return and discover the setting rearranged. The currator was closing up the rooms for the night, and turned around to discover suddenly without warning all the shutters on all the windows had closed by themselves, interior not exterior, and that the lights had dimmed. Photographs show a ghostly presence or what could be one. Photos taken at different times, from different cameras, and by different people.
People report hearing a piano playing, when the piano has been broken for years.
Do I believe these stories? Shrug. Did see a woman in white shuffle mysteriously up the stairs, when I got to the foot before anyone else. But they could have easily planned that - three of us saw her.
My guess is they did. Yes, healthy dose of skepticism in my family. Truth is I don't know. I think ghosts could very well be am imprint psychic or otherwise of the energy someone leaves behind when they die. OR our own minds playing games with us. Life and death largely remain mysteries to me, and sometimes, I prefer it that way. Because the answers sometimes are disappointing and mundane. They take away the magic. Sort of like knowing the secret behind a magic trick before you see it or the plot of a book or movie.
Last night, I journeyed into the city to go to a "real" haunted house. It's an old town house located on East 4th Street between Lafayette and the Bowery, called The Merchants House . Saturday was the last night that they were doing "haunted ghost tours of the museum" which consisted of a video compilation of reported hauntings including a blurb from 48 Hours, and a couple other documentaries regarding sightings, a little walk around the house - watching live actors perform little bits of the house's history. And of course ghost stories - personal ones. Personal ghost stories aren't like the one's you read in books or see on film. They are more mysterious, and can at times be explained. They also need to be told orally for the full effect. I love them. A good campfire tale can have the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Particularly if they ring true - and they tend to ring truer when told face to face then written in a book. People's voices can often be more convincing.
True Haunted Houses - usually are ones in which the family has lived in the same house their entire lives, never really left it, and in the case of the Treadwell family, died in it. Even had their funerals there. An old custom was to have the coffin leave the house feet first, otherwise the dead might come back to the house. The Merchant House has three spirits: the old man, Seamus Treadwell, his daughter, Gertrude, and their cook/housekeeper, Bridget Murphy. Odd happenings revolve around all three - a fourth grader ran into the old man on a school trip through the house once. A woman doing a cooking demonstration had stacked china a certain way, only to return and discover the setting rearranged. The currator was closing up the rooms for the night, and turned around to discover suddenly without warning all the shutters on all the windows had closed by themselves, interior not exterior, and that the lights had dimmed. Photographs show a ghostly presence or what could be one. Photos taken at different times, from different cameras, and by different people.
People report hearing a piano playing, when the piano has been broken for years.
Do I believe these stories? Shrug. Did see a woman in white shuffle mysteriously up the stairs, when I got to the foot before anyone else. But they could have easily planned that - three of us saw her.
My guess is they did. Yes, healthy dose of skepticism in my family. Truth is I don't know. I think ghosts could very well be am imprint psychic or otherwise of the energy someone leaves behind when they die. OR our own minds playing games with us. Life and death largely remain mysteries to me, and sometimes, I prefer it that way. Because the answers sometimes are disappointing and mundane. They take away the magic. Sort of like knowing the secret behind a magic trick before you see it or the plot of a book or movie.
