New York is home to some of the world’s busiest attractions – Grand Central Terminal,
Central Park, Fifth Avenue, TIMES SQUARE – But amidst all the hustle and bustle of everyday
life, New York is home to some pretty scary and beautiful isolated locations.
The Roosevelt Island Smallpox Hospital
Kicking off this list with some good ol’ fashioned Gothic architecture and eerie vibes
is the Roosevelt Island Small Pox Hospital, located in Roosevelt Island.
Constructed in the 1850’s by James Renwick Jr., the Renwick hospital was initially used
as a place to quarantine and treat smallpox patients.
The hospital treated around 7000 patients a year from 1856 to 1875 and eventually was
converted into a nurses’ dormitory.
The city smallpox hospital was forced to move to North Brothers Island because Blackwell’s
Island had become more densely populated.
The building was abandoned when the city decided to move its schools and headquarters to Queens
and quickly fell into disrepair.
However, in 1975, the Landmarks Preservation Commission decided to declare the unsettling
location as a landmark in an attempt to preserve its architecture.
They reinforced the walls to prevent the structure from crumbling entirely.
The hospital has not been renovated and is not open for tours.
The ruins are a part of Roosevelt Island’s Southpoint Park and are included on the National
Register of Historic Places as well.
The interiors of the abandoned hospital remain inaccessible to the general public but regardless,
they still remain as a somber reminder of a painful and gut-wrenching past.
Floyd Bennett Field
Built in the 1930’s, the Floyd Bennett Field was New York’s first municipal airport.
The airstrip has witnessed some record-breaking flights over the years which helped in advancing
the “Golden Age of Aviation”, including Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan’s flight
wherein he flew to California but ended up in Ireland because he got lost.
It was also witness to a few take offs from the legendary Amelia Earhart and the ‘round-the-world’
solo flights by Wiley Post and Howard Hughes.
In 1941, Floyd Bennett Field was sold to the United States Navy and became the Naval Air
Station for New York.
During World War II, Floyd Bennett Field was the busiest naval air station in the United
States.
The field was used for training and anti-submarine patrol flights.
The field was eventually listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The airstrip isn’t completely abandoned.
Various parts of the grounds have been converted into recreational spaces where it now houses
a museum and a campground.
However, a large part of the grounds are still left in a state of ruin which serves hikers.
So if you and your friends are looking for a quick getaway with some hiking, camping,
and sports, then the Floyd Bennett Field sounds like the perfect destination!
Loew’s 46th Street Theater
Lowe’s 46th Street Theater was built in 1927 and it is said that on its first night,
25,000 people showed up to experience New York’s first atmospheric theater.
Normally, this would be good news, but the theater could only house 3,000 people at a
time.
As one can imagine, that night went down as one of the most disorderly nights to be experienced
by an establishment in US history.
Designed by John Eberson, the theater was designed to replicate an Italian garden under
the night sky.
The design featured plastic trees, shrubberies and a blue suspended dome that acted as a
roof.
It also had “atmospheric effects” such as clouds that drifted overhead.
The theater had to be shut down eventually due to the rise of multiplexes.
It evolved into a concert hall which hosted the likes of The Grateful Bird, Jefferson
Airplane, the Byrds and many more.
Eventually, the place took on an alternate name and for a short while it was known as
“The Brooklyn Rock Palace”.
It eventually shut down in 1973, when the neighboring residents complained about the
noise and the less-than-pleasant concert goers.
Now a former shell of itself, the relatively intact theater functions as a warehouse for
a furniture store and instead of imitating an Italian garden under the night sky, it
provides the atmosphere of a Tim Burton horror movie.
Red Hook Grain Terminal
The Red Hook Grain Terminal was meant to be a key part of Brooklyn’s waterfront.
The intimidating structure sits tall and mighty at the Gowanus Canal, basking in its infamy
and reminding the citizens of New York of how useless it is now.
But then again, the structure was already fairly useless when it was first constructed.
Built in 1922, the Terminal was referred to as an “expensive luxury” and continued
to underperform.
It remained profitless for 22 years before it was finally shut down in 1965.
The building is about 12 stories high and 430 feet long.
It contains 54 cement silos, each 120 feet tall and has eight inch thick walls.
To add to its infamous history, this grain terminal is not just larger than the average
grain terminals that existed at the time, but it was also constructed 7 years after
the last grain terminal in Brooklyn became non-functional, which eventually led to its
nickname – “The Magnificent Mistake”.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, the unsettling building is covered with black mold infestations,
making the place look somewhat similar to a zombie-infested cutscene from The Last of
Us.
If no one else, New Zealand singer and pop star, Lorde, clearly saw some amount of potential
in the building as it made an appearance in her song, “Team”.
One can see why she chose The Red Hook Grain Terminal to be the backdrop of her music video
as she sings “livin’ in ruins of a palace within my dreams.”
Appropriate, isn’t it?
North Brother Island Ruins
This morbid island was originally uninhabited until 1885 when the city of New York purchased
the island to build the Riverside Hospital for sick people suffering from contagious
diseases such as typhus, tuberculosis, yellow fever, and smallpox.
The North Brother Island was the first facility in New York that was used for the treatment
of people with contagious diseases.
It also housed ‘Typhoid Mary’, the first documented carrier of typhoid fever.
Typhoid Mary also ended up dying on this island after she was forced to return to the location
thanks to her condition.
She died after she was forced into isolation for 26 years on the island, claiming that
she had been unfairly detained.
Now if that doesn’t scream “GHOST”, we don’t know what else will.
In 1905, the island witnessed the deaths of over 1000 people when the General Slocum ship
caught fire and sank.
It was a gruesome and horrifying incident that resulted in hundreds of bodies washing
up on the shores of the island and had only 321 survivors.
It was recorded as the worst loss of life in New York’s history until 9/11.
In Tompkins Square, at the East Village in the island, there is a memorial fountain for
the one thousand people who lost their lives in the unfortunate incident, giving the whole
island a more-or-less haunted feel as the memorial serves as a constant reminder of
the hundreds of people who lost their lives on a now abandoned island.
The island has been home to WWII veterans and could’ve potentially become an extension
of Rikers Island.
It is now off-limits to the public which is probably for the best.
We’re sure meeting the ghost of Typhoid Mary in this day and age won’t be pleasant.
New York State Pavilion
Designed by Richard Foster and Philip Johnson, the New York State Pavilion was created as
a part of the World’s Fair which took place in Queens in 1964.
The World’s Fair was an expo which utilized “themes of the future” and introduced
New Yorkers to the marvels of technology.
The pavilion’s shape was similar to that of a flying saucer and quickly became one
of the most iconic attractions of the World’s Fair.
The structure consisted of an open-air space called the “Tent of Tomorrow” and a set
of three observation towers.
However, its glory days were short-lived.
Eventually, the pavilion decayed and had to be shut down completely.
However, the structure was never demolished because according to The Landmark Preservation
Commission in 1995, the structure was too expensive to tear down.
There have been attempts at restoring the structure to its former glory over the years
but none of them worked out.
Recently, one of the more successful attempts included a $3 million paint job that took
8,000 hours and over 1,600 gallons of paint.
The structure proved to be more useful than it ever has in recent years when it made an
appearance at the end of ‘Men in Black’.
Fort Tilden
Built in 1917, during WWI, Fort Tilden was designed to be New York’s first line of
defense against German U-boats.
The fort protected the New York Harbor though the use of a pair of concrete batteries, each
of which had a pair of cannons which had the ability to fire 30 miles out to sea.
The batteries were called Harris Batteries East and West and eventually, both batteries
had their backs reinforced and filled in for security reasons during WWII.
The fort eventually became New York’s main line of defense during WWII as it was modified
with anti-aircraft guns.
When the Cold War rolled around, Fort Tilden was fitted out with Nike Ajax missiles, which
could deliver a destructive power almost twice the size of the Hiroshima bomb.
The fort was eventually decommissioned in 1974 and became part of the Gateway National
Recreation Area.
Fort Tilden has now been reclaimed by nature, with dunes and plants covering most of the
place.
The railway tracks which were used to transport shells from the silos to the batteries became
rusted and overgrown.
The missile launch pads were eventually covered in weeds and sand.
But the occasional glimpse of the fort’s concrete exterior still serves as a hair-raising
and unnerving reminder of harsh and terrifying times.
Harlem Valley State Hospital
Constructed in 1924, the Harlem Valley State Hospital was built “for the care and treatment
of the insane”.
Before the establishment was used as a hospital, it used to function as a prison, called Wingdale
Prison.
Wingdale prison had to be repurposed eventually due to complaints from residents in the area.
This 900 acre hospital has over 80 buildings, its own golf course, a bowling alley, baseball
field and a colossal dairy farm with its own ice cream parlor.
The hospital stayed operational for 70 years and at its height, it saw 5000 patients AND
5000 employees.
It was eventually renamed to “the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center”.
The hospital was famous for adopting and pioneering multiple experimental methods for treatment
of the mentally ill, which sounds a lot more cheerful than it actually is.
During the 1930s, the hospital started practicing new insulin shock therapy for patients with
schizophrenia and various other compulsive disorders.
In 1941, the hospital pioneered the science of electric shock therapy.
Neuropsychiatrist, Walter Freeman, invented the frontal lobotomy and performed the operation
for the first time at the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center.
Thanks to the introduction of psychotropic drugs such as Thorazine, the hospital saw
its numbers dwindling and eventually shut its doors in 1994.
As if its history wasn’t enough, there have been rumors and stories over the years about
this “haunted” hospital.
Witnesses have reported seeing lights on in the place, with no electricity.
Some have heard a pack of dogs barking in the basement and some witnesses have left
the scene with unexplained bruises and markings – all of which seem to point to the fact
that Harley Valley Psychiatric Center has seen some spooky occurrences over the years.
Currently, a part of the establishment is under renovation thanks to a company named
Olivet Management.
L.L.C.
Olivet Management represents Olivet University and the organization plans on converting the
asylum into a proper university.
Which is a great idea; because we all know – renovating or rebuilding a place that
has seen severe trauma through ages always ends well.
We give it about 3 months before the students start seeing ghosts.
The Freedom Tunnel
Located beneath the Riverside Park, the Freedom Tunnel was designed by Robert Moses to increase
mobility for residents of Upper Westside.
The Freedom Tunnel operated freight trains until the 1980’s when regular operations
stopped, partly due to the fact that automobiles were becoming all the rage.
This resulted in the tunnel becoming a residential area for hundreds of homeless people.
In 1993, Jennifer Toth wrote a book called The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath
New York City which spoke about dozens of homeless people forming their own makeshift
society in the tunnel with their own set of rules, which gave the location a post-apocalyptic
feel of lawlessness and despair.
The site also became a regular tagging ground for graffiti artists who used
the walls of the tunnel as their own personal canvases.
The tunnel gets its name from Freedom, a highly respected graffiti artist whose work remains
untouched by other taggers.
His rendition of Goya’s “The Third of May”
mural is a highly respected piece of street art and is on display within the tunnel.
In 1991, Amtrak reopened the tunnel which led to the mass eviction of the homeless people
residing over there.
Amtrak also started repainting the walls and covering up the graffiti that once adorned
every corner of the location.
The Freedom tunnel still attracts the occasional graffiti artist but it is nowhere near as
busy as it once was.
However, we should warn our viewers that you would be trespassing on Amtrak property if
you choose to visit these tracks!
New York Farm Colony
This is easily the scariest location on this list.
Constructed in 1898, the New York Farm Colony was built as a charity home and housed over
200 residents who were too poor to fend for themselves.
The Colony provided these people with room and board in exchange of services.
The residents were made to work on the Colony’s vegetable gardens and could produce up to
$22,000 worth of goods.
However, with the introduction of Social Security, the Colony transformed into an old age facility
before shutting down permanently in 1975.
In 1999, James S. Oddoman, a city councilman, managed to convince the City Hall to demolish
the historically significant sight as a safety measure without consulting the Landmarks Preservation
Commission.
The New York Farm Colony is one of the creepiest and most accessible places on the list as
the location has been the subject of several blood-curdling rumors involving Satanists
and serial killers.
In the 70’s, multiple children in the area were reported missing, only to turn up later
in a barely concealed graves at the Farm Colony.
The colony also became a frequent visiting spot for graffiti artists and paintball enthusiasts.
If you and your friends are looking for a solid dose of spookiness, the New York Farm
Colony seems like a perfect place to take a walk.
We, however, wouldn’t recommend it.
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