A Glorious, Spooky Autumn Day

I can't believe I haven't posted to this blog since Labor Day! I thought autumn was slowly chugging along.

Today, I led my ghost tour of the Upper West Side. The morning was rainy, a bit foggy -- perfect spectral weather! Sandy Sanford, my charming husband and (ta-da!) lovely assistant, told a great story about crime in the Majestic Apartments and things got spookier as we went along. We explored Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, the Naumberg bandshell, a stand of ancient American Elm trees, statues, and a series of story-book carvings by Jacob Wrey Mould. (You can see some of these images on my Facebook page, "Dering Walking Tours.") Later, we wound our way through a hushed and eerie part of the Ramble. I ended the tour across from the New-York Historical Society Library with a favorite story of a bookish ghost.

Witch Designed by Mould
Photo by Maria Dering

Eerie moans and screams were provided by the haunted house that was part of the Pumpkin Festival at Bethesda Terrace -- saw lots of families carving pumpkins, Park Rangers displaying giant papier-mache spiders (or maybe they weren't just paper ...), children having their faces painted, and everyone enjoying Central Park.

Next week is my final public ghost tour of the season: 11 a.m. on Hallowe'en! I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful autumn!

Windows

Last night, I attended an interesting talk on the book Distracted by Maggie Jackson at the New York Society Library, a centuries-old institution on East 79th Street in Manhattan. Toward the end of the talk, a warm golden glow captivated me, shining out from the tall windows of the apartment house across the street. The lights of the Library bounced back, creating a nimbus around the window frames.

A vignette from long ago: Gaslight streams from windows in an expensive flat. The family sits down to dinner now that Father is home from business. The older children dine with their parents as servants bring the courses, one at a time. Mother is still young and beautiful, her hair in a Gibson. Night moves in. A baby cries, cranky and colicky. The meal continues as Mother becomes alarmed about the ferocity of the baby's cries. Then, silence -- the nursemaid must have calmed the fretful child. Mother speaks in a low voice about nothing much; father replies; the baby cries again, louder.

Now Father is restless, unnerved by the noise. The older children watch him and then turn to Mother as she rises from the table. "I'll go tend to Baby," mother says. "Perhaps she is feverish." Custard is served but Baby's cries become stronger. "Fetch Dr. Clark," Mother says as she rushes back into the room. "Fetch the doctor now." Father runs out the door as the older children sit still and silent. "Hurry," Mother says.

Oh, the street was full of ghosts last night.

A Very Persistent Child

Every now and then, I collect a ghost story. This one is from the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Thirty years ago, a newly-married woman -- let's call her Prim -- moved into a spanking new apartment building on the Upper West Side. Her study windows faced a much older building, the Dakota, a gem from the 1880s. The problem with the bright new building was that it had a very old, not-so-pleasant ghost.

Eating toast in her kitchen one morning, Prim smelled smoke. She ran into the living room where she saw the cut-crystal cigarette lighter shooting flames into the air. Prim ran to the coffee table, snapped the lighter shut, and opened the window. The faint sound of children playing calmed her down, and she continued on with her day.

The next afternoon, Prim heard her bicycle bell ringing. The bike was upended and stored in the hall closet, surrounded by the usual clutter. The tinkling stopped as soon as Prim opened the door. After that, the tiny bell would ring again and again, usually in the morning.

Finally, Prim decided to move. On her way to look for packing boxes, she stopped for coffee in a long-gone pastry shop. One of her friends asked what was wrong -- poor Prim must have looked spectral herself. She told her friend about the fire, the bell, and strange knocking sounds in the living room. "Time to move," she said. "My husband never hears these things, and he thinks I'm going crazy."

Her friend stared. "Wait a minute, don't you live near the Dakota?" "Why, yes," Prim replied. "You know that." "But you didn't tell me that you were so close!" "Uh, no, why would that matter?"

"Because, silly, your apartment must be on the spot where the playground was! I've heard about this before -- the children in the Dakota were very upset when they lost it."

"Maybe so," Prim answered, "but this child is beyond upset. He's getting malicious!"

"It's the little girl," the friend said. "She tripped and fell over some bricks and hit her head when the new building went up. I don't think she ever was the same afterwards. Her parents took her away, upstate, and I think she died in Syracuse."

"Well, what's she ... I mean, her ghost ... doing back down here?" Prim replied.

"Probably wants to go out and play."

"So what do I do?"

Her friend smiled. "You need to ask her, politely, to leave you alone. Perhaps she'll respond to kindness. Maybe you need to tell her that you didn't take her playground away."

Prim still lives in that building. Every now and then, she hears the faint sounds of children playing from somewhere deep in the alleyway between the buildings.