Interview with a ghost: Exploring history and hauntings in New York City

From candlelit mansions to ghostly art tours, the Big Apple is teeming with places that reveal its haunted history.

I'm in the candlelit basement of the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion, trying to convince myself that the chill in the air is from the room's enormous brick fireplace. It's an old one, much like the rest of the 260-year-old house, and large enough to step inside. I'm talking to Isaac who used to be a cook here: "Do you want me to mention you in my story?" I ask aloud.

All of a sudden, the dowsing rods in my hands – two thin metal sticks set inside hollow handles – slowly move towards each other. There's a slight, but distinct, tension on the other end, pushing against the rods until they cross and hold there. Apparently, this is the sign for "yes" – when you're chatting with a ghost.

I'm a cautious believer in the supernatural. I've had enough unexplained experiences in my life that my friendly conversation with ''Isaac'' doesn't entirely surprise me. What does surprise me, however, is where this conversation takes place. New York City might be better known for its skyline than its spirits, yet the city's history stretches back centuries, and traces of its layered past still linger in its oldest landmarks. Exploring them offers visitors an unexpected way to understand New York – not just as a modern metropolis, but as a place forever haunted by its history.

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One of New York's most famous haunted landmarks is the Merchant's House Museum, near Greenwich Village. Built in 1832, the building was the Tredwell family's private mansion before being converted into a museum showcasing the life of the wealthy merchant family that helped propel New York City's seaport to become the largest and most important in the US. Ever since, there have been reports of strange happenings inside. Guests and staff have reported objects moving on their own, unexplained cold spots and other phenomena. According to local lore, one day in 1933, Gertrude Tredwell, who lived here her whole life, rushed out onto her stoop to shush some rowdy children – despite having died a few weeks earlier.

The museum embraces its ghostly reputation, offering guided candlelit ghost tours with a paranormal investigator and a podcast, In the Spirit of Science, that explores the many creepy things that have happened at the museum through a scientific lens.

Across the East River in Brooklyn, the 478-acre Green-Wood Cemetery also has no shortage of ghost stories. Once the site of the Revolutionary War's Battle of Long Island in 1776, the sprawling cemetery is now the resting place of artists, politicians, aristocrats and even a few thousand Civil War soldiers – many of whom don't rest easy.

News of the uneasy souls roaming its grounds has spread through countless Reddit threads, YouTube videos and first-person accounts. Visitors have reported disembodied voices, humanoid shadows and even a horse-drawn carriage moving silently amongst the trees. Unlike the Merchant's House, however, the cemetery doesn't promote its supernatural side. Instead, they offer a number of tours that explore its history and the lives of those interred there, including regular After Hours guided walks through the cemetery at night.

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Haunting takes a more artistic form at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Evan Levy, founder of Fable & Lark, leads a tour named Ghost Stories: A Mysterious Macabre Adventure.

"What I really focus on is the idea of things that scare us through the lens of works of art," Levy explained, as we made our way through the museum's cavernous halls. "We look at works of art that are somehow aligned with the idea of either ghosts or other scary things."

The tour explores the ways humans have dealt with the ideas of death, the afterlife and the supernatural through art for centuries. For those looking for spectres, there is said to be at least one Civil War-era ghost wandering the museum's halls – but you'll have to take the tour to find out where.

"It's a part of the map that at night is very, very quiet and kind of dark," Levy said. "I've had many people, both adults and kids, who have told me they've felt the presence [or] seen it. I'm not here to judge, I just report."

Finally, in search of more ghost stories, I joined NYC Ghosts' Boos and Booze Haunted Pub Crawl, which threads through the streets, pubs and parks of the West Village, one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods. This area was part of the original Dutch settlement of Manhattan in the 17th Century, and became a centre of arts and culture from the 1900s with many prominent politicians, artists and activists calling it home.

Indeed, several of the ghosts here are famous, according to tour guide and historian Jonathan Gunning, who told me that "New York is full of hauntings". He led our group to the romantic restaurant One if by Land, Two if by Sea, where Aaron Burr, the third US vice president, infamous for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, allegedly moves glasses and plays with women's earrings in his former carriage house. Then, it was on to 14 West 10th Street, where Mark Twain once lived and is said to still hang around on the staircase.

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Whether or not these sightings are true, spooky stories offer a way to tell the tales that history forgot; even the most overlooked… like that of my friend Isaac.

Perched on a hill in Manhattan's Hamilton Heights neighbourhood, the Morris-Jumel Mansion has a long and varied history. Built in 1765, it's Manhattan's oldest surviving residence. Long before its current iteration as a museum, it was a tavern and previously served as George Washington's headquarters during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783).  

It was sometime during that period that a man named Isaac Till was brought here.

No one knows exactly when or where Isaac was born, just that he came to the Morris- Jumel Mansion with his wife Hannah. According to museum documents, the enslaved couple were rented out to George Washington as cooks while he and the Continental Army camped out on the mansion grounds. We only know that Isaac and Hannah existed because of the meticulous financial records kept by Washington detailing their rental fees, but staff at the mansion are working to honour them and the other unnamed enslaved people who lived in the mansion's basement over the years.

"The legend of the paranormal really draws folks who may not have come to a regular historic house museum on their own," said Gaita. "And while they're here [they're] learning the stories of all the folks who lived and worked in the house, which they may not have learned about otherwise. It kind of gets their foot in the door."

I first encountered Isaac less than 15 minutes into one of the mansion's guided paranormal historical investigations, when a friend and I both heard the low hum of an old spiritual song emanating from the basement. After a brief history of the house, Danielle Gaita, public programmes and visitor services manager, gives us our ghost hunting tools – the dowsing rods, an EMF meter, which measures electromagnetic fields and cat toys that light at the slightest movement – before leading us from room to room to look for evidence of spirits. Our conversation with Isaac in the basement happened after our EMF meters lit up near the old fireplace that he likely used to cook meals. In an exchange that consisted entirely of yes/no questions, answered via dowsing rod, he confirmed it was his voice that we had heard singing.  

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Isaac isn't the only one who haunts the building. Gaita told us that the home's one-time owner, Eliza Jumel, regularly moves items and once appeared on the balcony, spooking a group of schoolchildren waiting for a tour. Burr, who married Jumel in the mansion's parlour in 1833, after his tenure as vice president, is also said to roam the halls. There's also a whole host of unnamed spirits – one of whom we encountered in an upstairs room that Washington used as an office, when our EMF meters once again flashed red despite being nowhere near any visible source of electricity.

"There are so many people who lived that were not recorded in the history books," Gaita said. "[People we] will never know the name of, especially in the basement [where] the enslaved people lived. So, it's a way of honouring [that] goes past just acknowledging their existence, it's really trying to be present with their energy despite not knowing their names."

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, exploring haunted New York is about connecting with its fascinating past. Each spooky story offers an opportunity to connect with well-known historical figures or those like Isaac, whose tales would otherwise go untold.

So, the next time you're in New York City, consider taking a tour through the Morris-Jumel Mansion and giving my regards to Isaac and the other spirits who hang out there.

If you're lucky, they just might respond.

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