It's October and that means pumpkin spiced everything, sweaters, cute booties and leggings, rainy afternoons and warm colors that fight the cool weather. It's also scare month, or otherwise known as the 30 says before Halloween. During this time, haunnted mazes and houses are in full swing, and the scares are screaming with laughter. Everyone usually has a good idea where to go around them and advertisements are everywhere, telling you where to get a good fun filled scream. However, a lot of Long Islanders forget that they don't have to pay $15 to go somewhere haunted or hear the wails of those long gone. Here are the top 10 LI Haunted Places:
1. Katie's, Smithtown
Recommended for you
From service shop to burned down hospital to candy shop and now bar, Katie's of Smithtown is a ghost's dream. Suicides and burning have that effect on a place- ancient burial ground of not (not in this case). Moving objects, things falling and banging and the usual apparition are nothing compared to nearly falling down a staircase and have invisible hands right you back up,,, Funny, doesn't usually work the other way round?
2. 5 Corner's Cemetery, Lake Ronkonkoma
Although the late NAtive American Princess's ghost found in Lak Ronkonkoma may be to blame for the scares in 5 Corners, no resident can go by saying something fishy is going on in that cemetery. Maybe the war vets just want to come out and play?
3. Chandler Estate
Former house of playwright Arthur Miller and Marylin Monroe, claimed resident of "Bloody Mary" and burned down apartment complex, it is now an ruin in Mount Sinai, overrun with vegitation and wildlife. It is said that it's a hubbub for satanist to practice, reportedly, call upon that which is named the "Whacker". Guests claim the fear of being watched. Perhaps a practitioner called the wrong name and got the wrong entity. "'Beware of the Watcher for the ill be brought nought'"... or something like that.
4. Fire Island Lighthouse
The winter of 1857 was particularly harsh, and the caretaker, thrown from their original home into a shabby shack near the lighthouse, lost his daughter to the winter ails. Unable to leave his post, his wife left him to bury their daughter in Sayville. Alone in his grief, her hung himself on a rafter at the top of the tower. Guest still say that they can see him pace frantically, waiting for the too-late doctor to arrive, search a place to hang and close and open doors. A father's grief for his princess is unmatched, indeed.
5. Grumman Road
Probably named after the Grumman aerospace complex in Eastern Long Island, Grumman Rd is nowhere to be found on any map (the ones that do open up are not it), but should you somehow find yourself there, be very careful. GPS's go haywire, car gauges move back and forth, radio will either switch stations on it's own or go static, side roads disappear and reapper at will and your car may stall or die completely. Rumor has it that it's the work of non-earthly beings. Or maybe it's murders that have yet to be solved.
6. Brookwood Hall
Now a musuem, Brookwood Hall was once an aylum for orphaned children. After foster homes closed it down, iot was renovated to become an art gallery. To this day, visitors and employees have given account of wailing children and a disappearing small boy playing by the river. Nothing creepier than dead kids walking.
7. Camp Hero
A park open to the general public, this area served as a training camp for soldiers in WW2 first, then a land base to watch for open air missiles during the Cold War, it is rumored this park was used for more than that. Two boys were said to have been kidnapped by the US government for experimentation in dimension travel, more specifically the elusive Fourth Dimension. Some claimed success when, by accident, a stranger opened the "chamber"or gate to the other dimension and released "Junior", a Fourth Dimension creature that killed the two boys, stranger and even some scientists. They managed to secure "Junior" in the ground, which belongs only to the US Government. I guess Extraterrestrial aliens do exist- even if only another dimension.
8. Central Islip Psych Center
Let's face it, abandoned psych centers and asylums are creepy all on their own. Throw in a couple of screams heard across the way, banging doors and windows and it's just down right chilling. With the added scare of seeing people seemingly talk to themselves- run for the hills and don't look back!
9. Edgewood State Hospital
As if undocumented time periods in the history of Edgewood weren't enough of a chilling factor, you can still hear the screams of patients come and gone. Now a wildlife preserve, ghastly spirits and misty forms haunt the are. And if you stand where 102 once stood, there are claimed wher eyou become disembodied, feeling a bony, chilling wind blow through you, and to your core. Careful that spirits don't snatch you , lest you roam the halls of a building long gone.
10. Wickham Farmhouse
After farmhand Nicholas Behan killed house owners James and Frances Wickham and a 14-year-old servant boy,it is said to be continuously haunted by Behan who was caught and hung for his crimes. Nearly a century and a half years later, Behan's ghostly figure was said to have been sited in then owner's John and Anne Wickham bedroom, standing over them with a bloodied axe. They ran and sealed the room, and Behan to the second floor of the house. The room has never been opened since.
11 The Gateway Playhouse
A movie theatre with a murder's past. Moans, tappings, ghost typings and flickering lights all haunt this theatre. As bad as that is, when you start hearing wheels squeking that have no place there, forget the refund and get straight home. Or a church, if you feel cold hands grasp yours as you leave.
and bonus:
12. Amityville Horror House
Thanks to American Horror Story, haunted houses have gone up in TV popularity- not that they were ever down to begin with. Said to be haunted by Ronald "Butch DeFoe, Jr, a man charged with familicide (family homocide) who killed his 4 siblings and both parents because the voices in his head told him to- sound familier AHS fans?
I guess there really isn't a "safe place to be". Who needs 10/31 when you're haunted year round?
