Leisure

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 <em>might</em> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.