- I went on a Christmas-themed ghost tour of New York City's East Village led by Boroughs of the Dead.
- The tour included the history of holiday traditions and New York City, in addition to ghost stories.
- I didn't see any ghosts, but I enjoyed this informative and pandemic-friendly outdoor activity.
I booked a Ghosts of Christmas Past walking tour of the East Village through the macabre-focused tour company Boroughs of the Dead.
As someone who enjoys exploring and writing about haunted places, I couldn't wait to see where this tour would take me.
Boroughs of the Dead was founded by Andrea Janes, author of "Boroughs of the Dead: New York City Ghost Stories." I was lucky enough to have her as my tour guide for the East Village Christmas-themed walking tour.
My ticket cost $37.54 total with tax and fees through Eventbrite. Boroughs of the Dead also offers tours throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Roosevelt Island.
The tour began outside St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery, which is said to be haunted by the ghost of Peter Stuyvesant (the namesake of Stuyvesant Street).
St. Mark's Church was built on the site of the Stuyvesant family chapel, where director-general of New Amsterdam Peter Stuyvesant is buried. Janes said his ghost has been spotted — and heard — by many parishioners over the years.
Known as a particularly raucous ghost, he is said to have disrupted Christmas sermons with loud renditions of Dutch Christmas carols and the sound of his peg leg thumping up and down the aisles.
Stuyvesant's ghost is also said to have rung the bells in the belfry after the sexton locked them up for the night.
When the church sexton went up to investigate, he found that the bell rope used to make the bells toll was missing.
"He was absolutely baffled, but got some clue as to who was ringing that bell when the next morning he came, opened the churchyard, and found lying over Stuyvesant's tomb that very same bell rope," Janes said.
The church was closed to the public, but we were able to see the bust of Stuyvesant through the gate.
"He's always been here, since he died in 1671, and he will always be here forevermore," Janes said of Stuyvesant.
We proceeded to the Ottendorfer Library, a landmark dating back to the 1850s when the East Village was known as Little Germany.
In the 1850s, the East Village was known as Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany, and featured a population of over 150,000 German immigrants.
The library was completed in 1884 as a gift from newspaper owners and journalists Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer.
It was the first free public library in New York City, and it still operates as a public library today.
Janes explained how Christmas traditions like decorating trees originate from Germany, and she regaled us with tales of the German Christmas devil Krampus.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert helped popularize the German tradition of Christmas trees when an illustration of them gathered around their tree was published in several magazines. And Santa Claus is a jolly version of the German Christmas devil Krampus, who is said to teach naughty children a lesson by beating them with a switch, putting them in a sack, and dragging them off to hell.
"We have got a lot to thank the Germans for when it comes to Christmas," Janes said.
We turned the corner onto East 7th Street and arrived at McSorley's Old Ale House to discuss the history of Christmas revelry.
My tour took place the day after SantaCon, a city-wide bar crawl in which patrons dress up as Santa. It turns out that such drunken debauchery dates back further than one might expect.
"On this tour we like to use [SantaCon] as a historical frame of reference, because rowdiness at Christmas is by no means a new phenomenon," Janes said, citing a letter written by New York Historical Society founder John Pintard in 1809 complaining of "calathumpian bands" at Christmastime.
Next we visited the Public Theater, formerly the Astor Library frequented by "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" author Washington Irving.
In 1860, librarian Joseph Green Cogswell reportedly saw several ghosts roaming the halls of the library and asked Irving how to handle it. Irving recommended that he get a watchdog to guard the building overnight. When Cogswell opened the doors of the library the following morning, the watchdog is said to have run out and refused to come back.
A few days later, Cogswell reportedly saw the ghost of a man whose funeral he'd attended two weeks before. According to legend, Cogswell told the apparition he would have to pay double for a library membership since he was there after hours, and the ghostly man promptly vanished.
Janes also pointed out other surrounding historical landmarks, like LeGrange Terrace, a row of marble townhouses once owned by John Jacob Astor.
Also known as Colonnade Row, the buildings date back to the 1830s. Astor, a New York real estate mogul, was the wealthiest person in the US when he died in 1848. He bequeathed $400,000 to the city of New York to build the Astor Library, which opened in 1854.
Our last stop was the Merchant's House Museum on East 4th Street, which is said to be haunted by the ghosts of its former residents.
Merchant Seabury Tredwell and his wife, Eliza Parker, purchased the house in 1835 and lived there with their eight children. Their youngest child, Gertrude, was born there and remained in the home until she died at age 93.
She is said to have died in the same bed where she was born ... and some say she never left.
Since it opened to the public, the museum's tour guides and visitors have reported unusual sights and sounds.
The perfectly preserved Victorian home was turned into a museum after Gertrude's death. While working to install modern plumbing, construction workers reported seeing visions of Gertrude coming down the stairs.
Museum visitors have reported seeing ghostly members of the Tredwell family and hearing the sounds of piano music and footsteps. Mysterious figures have also been spotted at Christmas concerts hosted there.
Janes told us that a friend of hers who is a tour guide at the museum once heard the servant's bells ringing despite the fact that they were no longer functional and not attached to anything.
While I didn't see any ghosts, I enjoyed learning lots of history in addition to hearing some spooky stories.
The Ghosts of Christmas Past tour featured more than just some eerie ghost stories. I ended up learning some fascinating bits of history about New York City and holiday traditions.
I wish we could have stepped inside some of the locations to take a look around, but remaining outdoors made for a particularly pandemic-friendly activity — and an authentic chill down my spine.
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