Ghosthunting New York City. L'Aura Hladik
restaurant’s romantic interior
After Theodosia’s disappearance and presumed death, Burr had all her belongings packed and stored in the basement of his carriage house. That would explain the attachment of his and Theodosia’s spirits to the place. On rare occasions, full-body apparitions have been sighted at the restaurant—usually late at night, after closing. Aaron Burr has been seen by employees, as well as a lady in a long white gown who descends the stairs and vanishes. They describe the gown as having an empire waist, a style that was fashionable in 1812, when Theodosia was lost at sea.
Another ghost spotted at One If By Land, Two If By Sea is that of an African-American man who is seen upstairs seated at a small table. By the time the waiter arrives to take his order, the mysterious guest has vanished. He has not been identified, but some suspect he is Burr’s devoted manservant of thirty years. I wonder if he could be James Brown, a tobacco merchant whose house was built in 1817 at the base of the Richmond Hill estate. Today, that home is the Ear Inn at 326 Spring Street, another haunted spot in this book.
Over the years, One If By Land, Two If By Sea has had consistent poltergeist activity, mainly harmless pranks. Napkins have been pulled off customers’ laps; chairs have moved as the customer attempts to sit down. Unseen hands move salt and pepper shakers. This telekinetic energy or poltergeist activity is strong enough to push an adult down the stairs. Two electricians working here witnessed their tools levitating and floating toward them; they were so frightened that they ran out and refused to return, not even to collect their fee.
The establishment is haunted by typical residual sounds, such as glasses clinking and heavy footsteps pounding across the third floor above the manager’s office when no one is there. More baffling is the sound of a cat meowing, as animals are not allowed in the restaurant. The sounds also include human voices; a customer or employee will hear someone calling his name from behind, and when he turns around, no one is there. Once the office copier started itself and began spewing out blank pages, which frightened one skeptical employee into believing “there are such things as ghosts.”
When I arrived at One If By Land, Two If By Sea, the head waiter and manager, Andreas, was quick to invite me in. He showed me around briefly, pointing out that the brick inside the bar is original, although the bar itself is new. Andreas also told me that two tombs had been discovered during excavation in the basement, but he was too pressed for time to take me down there. He was in a rush to get to the store to purchase some replacement light bulbs. As he dashed out the door, he said, “Feel free to walk anywhere you want.”
I went first to the staircase that leads to the balcony dining room; this is where the ghost lady is seen coming down the stairs. It was a great vantage point for capturing pictures of the restaurant and bar below. I didn’t document any temperature drops, and no one pushed me—thankfully, as both my hands were occupied with my audio recorder and camera. I called out to Theodosia and to “Vice President Burr,” but upon reviewing the recordings, I heard no answers. From the balcony, I went into the main dining area. I kept the audio recorder going, and I alternated between temperature scans and picture-taking. The temperature was averaging 68 degrees. The photos showed no anomalies. Then I went into the front parlor dining rooms. These adjoining rooms are smaller and more intimate than the main dining area, and each has a beautiful fireplace. It was a few degrees warmer in these rooms, perhaps because they’re smaller.
I went down the narrow staircase to the restrooms in the basement. Again I was thankful that the ghost didn’t push me. I was hoping to find an entry to where the tombs had been unearthed, but the “Employees Only” door was locked. Inside the ladies’ room, the heat was intense: 78 degrees! But this wasn’t para-normal; I saw the radiator and realized the door had not been opened for a while, so the heat had built up.
I know a temperature drop is a more typical indication of a ghost’s presence than a temperature increase. Occasionally, though, a ghost will drive the temperature up to an uncomfortable level in order to be noticed or to drive living persons away. So I kept my audio recorder going while in the stifling-hot bathroom. I did not capture any EVPs. As for the tombs, I learned that of the two headstones that were unearthed in the basement, only one was legible, and the name on it was Elizabeth Seaman. Is it possible that Elizabeth haunts the restaurant, rather than Theodosia?
Who was Elizabeth Seaman, I wondered? I discovered that a woman named Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman was an investigative journalist known publicly as Nellie Bly. The New York Press Club dedicated a headstone to her at the Woodlawn Cemetery in 1978. I asked them if there was a correlation to the headstone found at the 17 Barrow Street restaurant. They said they had no knowledge of another tomb or headstone being discovered. So the Elizabeth Seaman whose tomb was found downstairs at the restaurant is obviously not the famous one known as Nellie Bly.
“One if by land, two if by sea,” as everyone knows, was the lantern signal sent to Paul Revere from the Old North Church in Boston during the Revolutionary War. Perhaps the ghosts of the restaurant play off this theme, moving one object at a diner’s place setting to signal an order of beef, two objects for an order of seafood. I suppose if two objects are moved and the diner is pushed down the stairs, it means she ordered the surf and turf.
CHAPTER 8
White Horse Tavern
THE WHITE HORSE TAVERN is a popular destination for tourists primarily because of its association with Bohemian literary greats such as Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, and Dylan Thomas. The structure that houses the tavern was built in 1817 as a livery and stable; in 1880, it became a bar for sailors and longshoremen.
Fast-forward to 1950, when Welsh poet Dylan Thomas arrived in America to present a series of lectures. He was quickly introduced to the White Horse Tavern by fellow poet Ruthven Todd. Thomas favored a table by the window. He would reposition it so that it aligned perfectly with his paper while writing his poetry. When he wasn’t writing at his favorite table, he was at the end of the bar hoisting another whiskey to his lips. One day in November 1953, he had one too many. Reports vary from seventeen to nineteen shots of whiskey; suffice it to say, it was a lethal amount. After setting down his empty shot glass, he declared his consumption record-setting and proceeded to stumble out of the White Horse Tavern. He made it to his residence at the Chelsea Hotel, then collapsed. He was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where died of liver failure at the age of thirty-nine.
The spirit of Dylan Thomas has been witnessed at the White Horse Tavern many times. It’s quite possible that the reason he lingers is that he was too drunk at the time of his death to recognize that he had died. At least twice a month, the staff find Thomas’ favorite table rotated to the position he preferred, instead of where they positioned it the night before at closing.
I spoke with Rosamond Kiefer, a history major and member of the Valley Forge Historical Society, who once saw the ghost of Dylan Thomas. In June of 2002, she and two friends were touring the Museum of Natural History and then decided to walk around the East Village. By late afternoon, one of the friends who knew how much Rosamond is intrigued by the paranormal said, “Oh, you’ll love this place! They say this tavern is haunted.” They entered the White Horse Tavern and went to the left to sit at a table facing the long bar. The bar was not crowded at all.
Rosamond asked her friend, “Where are we supposed to see a ghost?” The friend, who had no interest whatsoever in the paranormal, had no idea. So Rosamond sat with her back to the wall to have a clear vantage point of the length of the bar, and her two friends sat across from her, facing the wall. Rosamond kept an eye on the bar as the three friends conversed. At the far end of the bar on the right-hand side, she noticed a man standing with his foot on the bar railing, his right arm raised with a glass in his hand. She heard him say, “Drinks for everyone!” No one around the man reacted—not even the bartender, who would have made quite a tip.
Seeing that no one had paid attention to the man, Rosamond figured that perhaps he had no money, and that the people around him knew that and therefore ignored him. As she stared at him, she realized his attire was not of this time period. She interrupted her friends and asked them to look at the man