So if you’re into ghost hunting on your own…I don’t know, most places you’ll need permission to get into. I certainly wouldn’t condone sneaking/breaking into….anything…would I?
Well, cemeteries are public ground, during hours. I have run into massive activity up behind Russell Sage’s mausoleum. (Trivia for you. The guy was completely against women being educated. When he died, his wife started up Russell Sage with the money left. HAHA!) Pinewoods, aka Forest Park, I haven’t been in for any length of time, although a friend got a shot of me in the vandalized remains of the receiving tomb with a massive pink orb over me. Vale is was incredibly uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t call it an “attack”, but I was shoved at the top of a steep hill. I do not go into these places after hours, I do exercise respect, and I don’t go in the dark because let’s be honest: if I have to get out at top speed, I’ll need to see where I’m going.
Cohoes Music Hall. No idea what is going on with it now. There’s the Visitor’s Center, and I think there is a group that still uses the theater, and i also think the city owns the building. But don’t hold me to either of them. When it was the theater for Heritage Artists…well, a load of things went down. I worked on Nunsense there, and I did a full season as a scenic artist. The worst experience came a couple years later, shortly after the Visitor’s Center opened. I’m not going into it now, but I may in the future. Let’s say only that I didn’t need to set foot inside the building, and I was with 2 other people. One saw the same thing I did. Like most places in Cohoes, a lot of the history has been lost to fire, but the building is interesting, and I’ve heard a lot of interesting experiences from others who worked there. And by the way, if you look it up online, my personal belief is that it is NOT the ghost of Eva Tanguay. She performed there once. She died years later in California. Pretty sure that doesn’t add up to her being the ghost. Or one of them, since offhand I can name the Lady in Black in the balcony and the stage manager crushed by a sandbag.
The Capitol is supposed to be haunted,but I haven’t been in there since I was in 8th grade (field trip). I was in an extremely haunted brownstone in Troy, owned by a friend’s family…at the time, anyway. Beautiful old home, with a real, silvered floor-to-ceiling mirror. When you looked at it dead-on, you saw figures. And no, it wasn’t just ghosting the people who were looking in it; I’m aware silvered mirrors do that. There was also a hideous painting. It’s simple. It’s a girl in a pink dress, in a field. Aesthetically, it’s unappealing. The girl is painted out of proportion; her head is too large for her body. The painting is also hung funny, as in the top sticks out further from the wall than the bottom, as if its leaning, so overall the impression is of this child looming over you. I don’t remember now exactly what it was, but there was also something about her expression. I don’t think she was smiling. But besides all those things that I knew, with my intellect, were wrong and disturbing, something about that painting creeped the bejebus out of me. I walked around a corner, coming into the room from the hall, and the second I saw it I felt I’d seen it before…maybe a dream….and my first thought was, I don’t care if its 400 years old (the year is painted in the corner), if I had it I would take it out and burn it right away.
Boo! That’s enough for tonight, but I will continue this another time, because I enjoy sharing these experiences with those with open minds. And if you don’t have an open mind, in the words of Mick Jagger: HEY! YOU! GET OFFA MY BLOG!
azbaelus 