“SHAKESPEARE’S GHOST” AT 437 HALSEY (1889)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** The Brownstone Detectives investigates the histories of our clients’ old houses. In the process, we have come across no small number of incredibly juicy stories featuring the houses and their lineage of occupants. Every once in a while, those stories – as stories sometimes do – feature a topic we rarely wade into – the paranormal. While most properties we investigate do not involve the supernatural, it is even rarer still to find an old brownstone that comes with a thoroughly debunked ghost story. No. 437 Halsey Street – in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn – is one of those houses… ***************************************************************************************************** In late 1889, during a strong snowstorm in the City of Brooklyn, word began to get around about the “haunting” of an apartment house at the corner of Halsey Street and Lewis Avenue, along with its complement of frightened and fleeing former residents… “…the snow was blowing everybody in doors yesterday,” started the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, setting the scene for its readers of “an ambitious little ghost story-started out on its career of making trouble. The “trouble” mentioned in this story was the reaction that the rumor of ghosts in the apartment house had engendered. It brought to the sole remaining occupant of the structure a whole host […]
THE GHOST OF 281 STUYVESANT AVENUE (1901)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** “At last Stuyvesant Heights revels in the proud possession of a genuine haunted house.” This was back in 1901, when Stuy Heights was relatively young, the houses newish, and the ghosts scarce. But Stuyvesant Heights had everything back then – “a Republican Club, an amateur dramatic society,” and even “several asphalt streets where bashful maidens learn to wheel at night.” So why not a ghost? THE HAUNTING AT NO. 281 STUYVESANT AVENUE The Griffins, who had lived in the apartment house at the ground floor were terrorized by their electric bell ringing at 2 o’clock every afternoon. But they also heard “hollow groans,” “creepy sidesteps on the staircase,” and “unexpected trips from room to room of pieces of furniture.” It all got to be too much for the Griffins to handle, and so they fled. The Griffins moved to Williamsburgh. PERFECTLY GOOD EXPLANATIONS Some of the other tenants blamed the wind. A young woman who lived in the second floor apartment told an Eagle reporter that everything was perfectly explainable. “This house, you know, stands alone and the wind, when it sweeps into the vestibule, often comes hard enough to blow the whistle in the kitchen tube,” she explained. “Then it’s a fact that the pictures do move, but that’s caused […]
