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New York Home > Leisure > Get into the Spirit

10/05/12

Get into the Spirit
The Most Haunted Places Money Can Rent

Halloween: a holiday that just begs for a party. One with attentive French maids. Special nurses. And Potato Jesus. So here are five places you can rent out for such an event. Some are haunted. Some might be. May the Great Pumpkin be with you.

IN THE VAULT

New York Marble Cemetery

Legend has it: It was once New York’s most fashionable place to be buried. Now Vogue does fashion shoots there.
Tricks/treats: Underground marble vaults, real-dead-people cred, probably a nice rolling fog.
For channeling: Classic ghosts: Casper, Boo Berry, Hamlet, Patrick Swayze.

411:: New York Marble Cemetery, 41 1/2 2nd Ave (between 2nd and 3rd), email here

LOCAL HAUNT

Merchant’s House Museum

Legend has it: The ghosts of a 19th-century family still live here comfortably.
Tricks/treats: Creakings, spectral light, a lush garden, two floors of vintage-cocktail-friendly Greek revivalism.
For channeling: Victorian classiness: your Jane Austen and Dickens types, maybe a rakish, pre-painting Dorian Gray.

411:: Merchant’s House Museum, 29 E 4th St (between Lafayette and Bowery), 212-777-1089, email here

MOB RULE

Sparks Steak House

Legend has it: John Gotti had Paul Castellano and a mob underboss gunned down here 26 years ago.
Tricks/treats: A secret steak-aging process, a waitstaff, room for 250.
For channeling: Any character currently or formerly on Boardwalk Empire, Robert De Niro, guys in tracksuits and blue-blockers.

411:: Sparks Steak House, 210 E 46th St (between 2nd and 3rd), 212-687-4806, inquire here

STONE COLD

Elizabeth Street Gallery

Legend has it: A volcanic eruption immediately turned everyone at last year’s party into statues. Kidding, they’re just statues.
Tricks/treats: 20,000 square feet of lushness and creepy statuary. Live-music friendliness.
For channeling: Garden gnomes, pixies, famous statues, party guests.

411:: Event Garden at Elizabeth Street Gallery, 209 Elizabeth St (between Prince and Spring), 212-941-4800, email here

YE OLDENESS

Bridge Café

Legend has it: Once had a bouncer who bit off and pickled rowdy patron’s ears. It’s been a pirate bar, a brothel and inspiration for scenes in Gangs of New York.
Tricks/treats: Been around since 1794. Has an extensive whiskey list.
For channeling: Bill the Butcher, zombie amputees, Jack Sparrow.

411:: Bridge Café, 279 Water St (at Dover), 212-227-3344

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