Boroughs of the Dead ghost tours dive into the real-life macabre history of NYC

October 25, 2024

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Astoria. All photos courtesy of Boroughs of the Dead

Spooky season is in full swing, and if you’re a history nerd who wants to learn about the “macabre, strange, spooky, weird, spectral history of the city,” there’s a tour group for that. Boroughs of the Dead: Macabre New York City Walking Tours, founded by Andrea Janes, brings groups through the spookiest, most “haunted” areas of New York City, creating a “ghost map” of the city by overlaying scary stories over the “terrain of the real,” Janes describes.

Tours bring 15 or so people around different neighborhoods pointing out the real-life dark history of the areas. Some of these tours include:

It’s the “thrill of what used to be here,” says Janes. For example, a crooked street could denote a creek that was once there; the seaport evokes imagery of the past with old ships and authentic historic structures, including one of the oldest buildings in Manhattan.

A lot of the places toured no longer exist or are hidden, like Washington Square, for example, which was once a burial ground. In 2023, a headstone from 1799 was unveiled and dedicated at the park.

Irish immigrant James Jackson died in 1799 and was buried in Washington Square Park, a potter’s field from 1797 to 1825. The headstone was discovered during a renovation project in 2009, and the relic is now being presented in one of the windows of the Park House close to where it was discovered.

The headstone reads, “Here lies the body of James Jackson, who departed this life the 22nd day of September 1799, aged 28 years, native of the county of Kildare, Ireland.” Historical research has determined that Jackson was living at 19 East George (present-day Market Street), at the time of his passing.

“We refer to (it), and we use imagination,” says Janes.

Janes’ personal favorite spooky spots are in downtown Manhattan.

“Certain spots (make) my antennae go off,” she says. “In lower Manhattan, I walk through that part of town at night when it’s quiet and the area around City Hall, St. Paul’s Chapel, empty Wall Street, Water Street, anywhere near Brooklyn Bridge — I’m obsessed.”

In fact, on Halloween night (when tours are almost sold out, but more tickets will be made available soon), Janes considers this area a secret as most people flock to other areas of the city, like the Village for the parade (which Boroughs of the Dead avoids). On Halloween night, Janes said tour guests dress up and lean into the vibe of the night.

Another area that has Janes’ attention is Brooklyn Heights, “That always feels gentle to me, not a terrifying haunting,” she says, adding that she’s researching Carroll Gardens as well.

That research is key to the tours; don’t expect fantastical hyperbolized tales, as the tours are rooted in history and fact. But as they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

“I get annoyed when people exaggerate or lie about a place being haunted or fudge details, and it’s a slippery nature with ghost tours,” says Janes.

“New York City history is fun and exciting on its own, and you don’t need to gild the lily with phony ghost stories; it’s already dark enough. It’s really almost a disservice to the actual city’s history when you go around saying stuff is haunted when it’s not or not giving proper context.”

Her tours, she says, have “historical heft” and take time and research to put together — something that she says has helped her as a writer. The tours started as a sort of “day job” — or in this case a night job — for Janes while she worked on her writing career. Now, she’s been running them for 10 years and has a team of guides who share her passion. But diving into the world of the macabre was nothing new for her.

“I was that weird little spooky kid always, my whole life,” she says. A book on ghosts that her flight attendant mother brought her from London ignited the flame (and the book now lives in Janes’ daughter’s room).

“I read that like it was the Bible when I was a child, and I would go into the basement with a flashlight and spook myself. I had wonderful Alfred Hitchcock anthologies. I was a dark romantic nerd my whole life, so now I’m like, ‘Cool I get to recite Dylan Thomas or Edgar Allan Poe and no one’s going to want to stuff me in a locker.’”

“New York City is such a good city for that,” she adds. “We are all such weird misfits who came here.” In fact, Janes says most of the people who take the tours are New Yorkers, not tourists — people looking to learn more about the things they see every day.

“The number one thing people say is, ‘I lived here my whole life’ or ‘I work here every day’ or ‘walk by this every day, and I want to know more about the hidden history of this place. I have a feeling there’s something here,’” she says. “They want to recalibrate their view of stuff they see every day —more about places they take for granted.”

Janes has written books on the subject herself, including “A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts,” and “Boroughs of the Dead: New York City Ghost Stories,” which inspired the tours. She is currently working on one called “America’s Most Gothic,” she says.

Halloween night’s scheduled tours are “Haunting Histories and Legends of Astoria” and “Forgotten Dark Histories of Lower Manhattan,” for which Janes says additional tickets will be released. But the tours don’t end on All Hallows’ Eve. Tours continue through the year with a true-crime addition in November called “Sin, Scandal and Blood in the Shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge” and “Ghosts of Christmas Past” in December.

“There’s a long tradition to support ghost stories at Christmas,” says Janes.

Adult tour tickets are $35; tours are not recommended for children under 12 except for the Christmas tours which offer a “Spooky Kid” rate.

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