<\/p>\n
Janes notes that over the last several centuries, Staten Island has served, to varying degrees, as a quarantine colony. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
Which international neighbourhood is an absolute hotbed for haunting?<\/p>\n
A paranormal expert says that one of New York\u2019s \u201cmost maligned boroughs\u201d is also the eeriest.<\/p>\n
Andrea Janes is the founder of Boroughs of the Dead, an independent, female-led tour operator that takes visitors on macabre history tours of NYC.<\/p>\n
She said that \u201cif you\u2019re really serious about ghosts and want to know where most of them are,\u201d there\u2019s only one place to boo out: Staten Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wall-to-wall ghosts,\u201d she underscored, noting that the home of Pete Davidson is also dotted with haunted mansions, asylums, forts and fields.<\/p>\n
Part of the ghostly lore comes from the borough\u2019s history as a plague isolation unit: Janes notes that over the last several centuries, Staten Island has served, to varying degrees, as a quarantine colony.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you ask me what is the most haunted place in Staten Island, I would say the entire island,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Quarantine machine<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In 1905, the island\u2019s second-highest point became Sea View Hospital, a tuberculosis quarantine facility. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
In 1799, city officials decided to keep deadly diseases like yellow fever and smallpox farther afield from the city\u2019s bustling ports.<\/p>\n
The resulting New York Marine Hospital, known ominously as \u201cThe Quarantine,\u201d stayed open until 1858, when local opposition, fuelled by fears of contagion, culminated in an attack that burned the complex to the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe that\u2019s why the island is so haunted,\u201d Janes theorised.<\/p>\n
Even with the OG hospital reduced to ash, Staten Island couldn\u2019t stay clear of the quarantine game.<\/p>\n
In 1905, the island\u2019s second-highest point became a tuberculosis quarantine facility. The resulting Sea View Hospital, opened in 1913, offered upper-class patients the prescribed treatment of fresh air, sunlight, and healthy food.<\/p>\n
Of course, no amount of fresh air or fibre could save the doomed patients.<\/p>\n
The College of Staten Island<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A postcard shows the administration building for the Willowbrook State School. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
The hospital sites may be dismal, but Janes shared there\u2019s one place on Staten Island that\u2019s even worse \u2014 and so disturbing, she told The Post, that she never puts it on her haunted itinerary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe College of Staten Island is on the former site of the Willowbrook State School,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a place I wouldn\u2019t go with a tour group because it\u2019s too sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Willowbrook originally opened in 1948 as the largest institution in the world for the treatment of people with developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n
In 1972, Geraldo Rivera documented its deplorable patient conditions in the award-winning expose, \u201cWillowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace,\u201d which revealed children \u2014 some of whom were subject to depraved medical experiments \u2014 left in extreme filth, overcrowding and neglect.<\/p>\n
The conditions at Willowbrook were so horrifying that they allegedly inspired the gory 2012 masterpiece \u201cAmerican Horror Story: Asylum\u201d with Sarah Paulson and Jessica Lange.<\/p>\n
Willowbrook closed in 1987, and a portion of the property became the College of Staten Island in 1993.<\/p>\n
While most buildings have been converted into classrooms and offices, underground tunnels still connect them, and rumours of hauntings understandably persist.<\/p>\n
The Billop Conference House<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Billop Conference House dates to the late 17th century and is an enduring site of unease. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some kind of convergence of psychical activity right over Staten Island that I cannot describe,\u201d said Janes, naming the Billop Conference House as one of the oldest sources of unease.<\/p>\n
The house, which dates to the late 17th century, served as a meeting place for peace talks between American colonists and the British in the fall of 1776, but the \u201cconference\u201d that gave the house its name never led to a resolution, and fighting continued.<\/p>\n
The house may be most famous for the legend of a servant girl murdered by Christopher Billop, the home\u2019s paranoid, crown-loyal patriarch, along with several other rumours of bloodshed and betrayal.<\/p>\n
But none of the connected crimes have been substantiated with historical evidence.<\/p>\n
Still, visitors claim to have seen apparitions of a servant girl, along with the marauding forms of British soldiers.<\/p>\n
Neighbours also attest to hearing a man singing or shouting and a woman screaming.<\/p>\n
Curiously, these apparitions may predate the building itself:<\/p>\n
The Conference House grounds include a stretch of land known as Burial Ridge, the largest pre-European Native American burial ground in New York.<\/p>\n
Fort Wadsworth<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An old postcard shows the inside of Mount Manresa Chapel in Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, New York, in 1900. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
Fort Wadsworth, a 226-acre public park situated on Staten Island\u2019s northeastern coast, holds the record as the longest-serving active military post in U.S. history.<\/p>\n
But that illustrious distinction has given rise to strange sensations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something weird going on there,\u201d Janes attested.<\/p>\n
Visitors to the fort, which was turned into a park in 1994, have reported seeing apparitions of fallen soldiers moving through the walls and even driving old cars.<\/p>\n
Visitors have also reported hearing disembodied footsteps, gunshots and cannon blasts.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the smell of tobacco smoke that seemingly comes from nowhere \u2014 or cooking aromas even though there\u2019s literally no kitchen on site.<\/p>\n
Kreisher Mansion<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For the most haunted spot in Staten Island, Janes calls out the Kreischer Mansion on Arthur Kill Road. Picture: Supplied<\/p>\n
For the most haunted spot in Staten Island, Janes calls out the Kreischer Mansion on Arthur Kill Road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very haunted,\u201d she emphasised.<\/p>\n
German brick magnate Balthasar Kreischer built the gabled mansion in 1885 for his son, Edward.<\/p>\n
But nine years later, Edward was found shot dead behind his father\u2019s brick factory across the street.<\/p>\n
Unsure whether Edward\u2019s death was a murder or a suicide, his grieving family members sought the help of spiritualists, holding seances in the home, which some say opened up portals that would have been better left closed.<\/p>\n
In 2005, the Kreischer Mansion played host to the grisly mobland killing of Bonanno crime family associate Robert McKelvey.<\/p>\n
Along with three other mob members, Young stabbed and strangled McKelvey before dismembering his body and burning his remains in the mansion\u2019s furnace.<\/p>\n
The house\u2019s grim history helps explain some of its alleged paranormal activity.<\/p>\n
Visitors have claimed to see apparitions in the windows and furniture moving of its own accord \u2014 and hear pots and pans clattering in the kitchen, plus a lone, harrowing cry emanating through the home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Janes notes that over the last several centuries, Staten Island has served, to varying degrees, as a quarantine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-378646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}