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From Haunted Houses to Zombies: The Most Frightening Scary Horror Games

Do you enjoy the adrenaline rush of being scared out of your wits? Are you a fan of horror movies and looking for a new way to experience fear? Look no further. In this article, we will explore some of the most terrifying scary horror games that will leave you trembling with fear. From haunted houses to zombies, these games will push your limits and keep you on the edge of your seat.

Haunted Houses: A Classic Thrill

If you’re a fan of haunted houses, then horror games that feature eerie mansions or abandoned buildings are sure to provide an exhilarating experience. One such game that comes to mind is “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.” Set in a dilapidated plantation house in rural Louisiana, this game combines atmospheric horror with intense gameplay. As you navigate through dark corridors and solve puzzles, you’ll encounter grotesque creatures and terrifying jump scares that will keep your heart pounding.

Another notable haunted house game is “Amnesia: The Dark Descent.” In this first-person survival horror game, players find themselves trapped inside an ancient castle with no memory of how they got there. With limited resources and a lurking presence that feeds on fear, this game is guaranteed to make even the bravest players feel vulnerable and terrified.

Zombies: A Never-Ending Nightmare

Zombies have been a staple in horror culture for decades, and scary horror games featuring these undead creatures are always popular among thrill-seekers. One standout title in this genre is “The Last of Us.” Set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by infected humans turned into zombies, this action-adventure game blends intense combat with an emotionally gripping storyline. The realistic graphics and immersive gameplay make every encounter with the infected a heart-pounding experience.

For those seeking a more intense zombie experience, “Resident Evil 2” is a must-play. This remake of the classic survival horror game takes players back to Raccoon City, where a zombie outbreak has turned the population into flesh-eating monsters. With its atmospheric setting and relentless undead enemies, this game will keep you on your toes as you fight for survival.

Psychological Horror: A Mind-Bending Challenge

If you prefer horror games that mess with your mind, then psychological horror games are perfect for you. “Silent Hill 2” is often regarded as one of the best examples of this subgenre. As players control James Sunderland through the foggy town of Silent Hill, they unravel a deeply disturbing story filled with symbolism and psychological torment. The game’s haunting atmosphere and psychological twists will leave you questioning reality long after you’ve put down the controller.

Another mind-bending horror experience is “Layers of Fear.” In this first-person exploration game, players step into the shoes of a disturbed painter as they navigate through a constantly changing mansion. Delving into themes of madness and obsession, this game uses clever storytelling and visual trickery to create an unsettling experience that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Survival Horror: Fight or Flight

For those who enjoy intense gameplay and heart-pounding action, survival horror games provide an adrenaline-fueled experience like no other. “Outlast” is a prime example of this genre. Armed only with a camcorder, players must navigate through an abandoned psychiatric hospital filled with deranged inmates. With no means to defend yourself other than hiding or running away, every encounter becomes a tense battle for survival.

Another standout survival horror game is “Alien: Isolation.” Set fifteen years after the events of Ridley Scott’s iconic film “Alien,” players assume the role of Ellen Ripley’s daughter as she tries to survive aboard a space station infested by one relentless xenomorph. The game’s AI-driven alien enemy constantly adapts to the player’s actions, making every encounter a nerve-wracking game of cat-and-mouse.

In conclusion, if you’re a fan of being scared senseless, these scary horror games will provide an unforgettable experience. Whether you prefer haunted houses, zombies, psychological torment, or survival challenges, there is a game out there that will cater to your darkest fears. So grab your controller and prepare for a night of terror as you dive into these spine-chilling virtual worlds.

This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.

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How to Find Out About the History of Your Home

Your home holds many memories, and not all of them may be yours. Or you may question whether your house could be haunted or contain hidden treasure. If you’re wondering about checking the history of your house, get ready to learn how to uncover your home’s past.

Taxpayer Assessor Online Databases

Search online for your town’s taxpayer information. Once there, if your town offers an online database including every property, you might find out a lot about your home.

One tax assessor company, Vision Government Solutions, maintains online databases for states on the East Coast. Click on the state and you’ll see a list of your state’s towns. Some of the towns have accessible databases, and others don’t. Follow prompts to take you to your property’s information, including previous owners.

Hidden on Trulia’s website is a list of U.S. assessor records for every state. Search for Trulia’s property sitemap, and once on the page, you’ll see your state listing. You’ll be taken to a page with your state’s counties. Keep clicking to pinpoint your search.

Some towns host online assessor databases. Once on it, type in the property address or parcel number to visit a page of information about your home.

Realtor Websites With Home Information

Finding your home’s property listing, even when your home is not for sale, also offers some history. In addition to dipping into the websites of the major real estate agencies in your area to find your property, try the following sites:

• Realtor.com

Also try the Multiple Listing Service site directly. Head to MLS.com and you’ll see a map of the United States. You might find the history of your neighborhood or a home next door that may be for sale or in foreclosure, which could give you some hints about your own home.

Finding Out About Your Home’s Hauntings

Head to DiedInHouse.com, a website that keeps a database of people who have died in properties. The site may be able to tell you if someone actually died in your home. There’s a nominal fee to see the information.

Dig Up Land Records and Historical Maps

If you’re a genealogy enthusiast, you know the value of historical maps and land records. If you’re new to this type of search, start at the National Archives (archives.gov) to initiate a search into your property. You’ll find land transactions and even what the average cost was to build your house.

You can search for, download and enlarge historical maps of your town or neighborhood. Or go to your town hall and local library for copies.

Find Your Local Historians

Do some footwork to find the history of your home, neighborhood and town. Try the following:

• Historical societies: Your town’s local historical society can target your home’s history. Head to PreservationDirectory.com to find a database of local historic organizations.
• Real estate agents: Try calling a real estate agency to help you locate information on your home’s history.
• Neighbors: Pick the brain of a long-time neighbor. You may be surprised with juicy details.
• Physical evidence: Consult with an architectural historian, according to ThisOldHouse.com. Researching layers of paint or wallpaper helps identify what year your house was built.

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A Bonanno associate who carried out a ghoulish mob murder at a “haunted” house on Staten Island is headed to the big house for the rest of his life after a jury convicted him of racketeering and murder today.

Joseph Young, 30, was stone-faced as the panel of eight women and four men delivered a sweeping guilty verdict on 24 count in Brooklyn federal court – the most serious charges stemming from the March 2005 slaying and dismemberment of Robert McKelvey.

The panel rejected Young’s testimony that he fought McKelvey the day he was killed, cut up the body and fed the pieces into a furnace at the spooky Kreischler Mansion, but did not actually deliver the fatal blow.

“That explanation defies common sense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Chan said during closing arguments. “The defendant took the stand and he lied.”

McKelvey, a Bonanno associate, was marked for death after higher-ups in his crew learned he’d been blabbing about his crimes.

Lured to the mansion under the guise of attending a mob meeting, McKelvey was stabbed and then drowned in a small ornamental pool as he tried to flee.

In a failed bid to escape conviction for murder in the aid of racketeering – a charge that carries a mandatory life sentence – Young admitted to a slew of lesser crimes in the case, including robberies, arson, extortion and car-jacking.

Young had claimed another mob associate slashed McKelvey’s throat while he was fighting the victim.

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Manhattan haunted house based on real-life serial killers outrages relatives of victims.

Shawn Inglima/New York Daily News

Relatives of victims killed by serial killers are outraged over Manhattan haunted house.

Timothy Haskell says he doesn't think it's insenstive to include maniac serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer for his horror spectacle.

A Manhattan haunted house based on the real-life crimes of famous serial killers is already drawing gasps of horror — from victims’ advocates.

Scare impresario Timothy Haskell said he didn’t think it was “insensitive” to include modern homicidal maniacs like Jeffrey Dahmer , John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy in his spectacle.

But the mother of one of Dahmer’s victims burst into tears when she heard about the theme of “Killers: A Nightmare Haunted House,” which costs $30 to $60 for a 25-minute tour.

“I don’t now why someone would do something like that,” said Dorothy Straughter, whose 19-year-old son Curtis was butchered by the Milwaukee cannibal.

Dan Levey, executive director of Parents of Murdered Children, was disturbed that the gruesome fright-fest draws on true crimes and that an associated gallery displays artifacts like Dahmer’s autopsy photos and one of Gacy’s creepy clown paintings.

“To me, it appears to be another way to glorify murder,” Levey said Thursday. “It’s insensitive to victims and survivors of these horrendous crimes. “They have a hard enough time surviving without making celebrities out of victims.”

Haskell, 38, who stages a different type of haunted house each Halloween on the Lower East Side, said his goal isn’t to glamorize the killers.

“I don’t think they’re sexy cool and fun,” he said.

“But there’s nothing scarier than reality, and nothing scarier than the real monsters who walk among us.”

The walk-through installation, which opens Friday at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center on Suffolk St., devotes small rooms to each killer, played by actors. It’s expected to draw as many as 35,000 visitors before it shuts down on Nov. 3.

Patrons can hear Dahmer deliver his pre-sentencing statement in a replica courtroom or “execute” Bundy in an electric chair.

Many of the characters are historical — Jack the Ripper, child killer Albert Fish, bone collector H.H. Holmes.

Asked why he didn’t exclude more recent sickos to spare the victims’ families, Haskell said, “I didn’t do anybody in the tri-state area.”

But the art gallery that precedes the haunted house does contain the scribblings of New York City serial killer David (Son of Sam) Berkowitz.

The items are on loan from a murder memorabilia collector who insisted on remaining anonymous, Haskell said.

“I understand if they are upset about it. I don’t know what to say to those people,” he said of victims’ relatives. “These guys are mythological at this point.”

He said the house shows the psychopaths for what they are — terrifying.

“I’m not doing this to be controversial,” he said. “But people want to be scared, and this will scare them.”

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The House of Death

The House of Death – Greenwich Village

Unassuming brownstone in the heart of Greenwich hides a dark and scary past.

Image Source: Daytoninmanhanttan.blogspot.com

When a property is deemed “ The House of Death ,” you know there’s bound to be at least one gut-wrenching story attached to it!

The building itself is as pretty as any of the other Revivalist Greek Brownstones in one of New York’s most pretty neighborhoods.  Built in 1856, on West 10 th street in Greenwich Village what is now known as ‘the House of Death’ has at one time or another housed many of the cities bright and beautiful. Including the wife of the founder of the Metropolitan Underground Railroad and the Broadway Underground Railroad, Mr. James Boorman Johnston. Johnston was responsible for founding a reading room, library, and the famed Tenth Street Studio, a collective with studios, galleries and annual funding for resident artists, unique in New York City at the time. After he died, his wealthy widow 1 moved their daughters into The House of Death in the 1880s.

Image Source: TimeOut

The house seems to have started earning its reputation gradually after the Boorman family stopped living there. The first recorded incident of bad luck happened in 1897. Cycling celebrity Fred H. Andrew, the new owner and occupier of 14 west 10 th Street had a moment of bad luck. During his residency, as described in the New York Times of August 9, 1897, Andrew had a moment of “reckless bicycle riding” that caused him to hit a boy, or around 8 years old. The boy suffered a broken leg and Andrew was subsequently arrested.

But the house’s most famous tenant was Mark Twain. A mustachioed legend of American literature, at the tail end of his writing career but at the height of his celebrity. Twain, whose real name is Samuel Clemens, was resident at ‘The House of Death’ only 3 years after Fred H. Andrew, the cyclist started a streak of bad luck. Mark Twain only lived in the house for a little over 12 months. He was battling bankruptcy and churning out some of his rushed, but classic works. He was also fighting depression, not helped by the sad mustache he wore constantly. Twain was a noted ghost skeptic, yet wrote of a clear and plain paranormal experience he had in his new home. One evening, he witnessed a large piece of wood kindling move in the air all by itself. Thinking the wood was being moved by a rat, that had some use for the wood, a new piece of furniture perhaps, he shot it with his gun, as anyone would do. It suddenly fell to the ground, surrounded by a few drops of blood. Rats outnumbered people in New York, even them, but the house was not noted for having an infestation. Twain maintained the blood was that of a rodent and not that of a ghost.

Image Source:  Wikipedia

Although Twain did not have many pleasant memories of the house, he can still be seen roaming the stairwell of The House of Death. Subsequent occupants have seen his visage trudging up and down the stairs, commonly considered the most haunted section of the home. He may also be responsible for disembodied marching sounds that have been heard everywhere in the vacated parts of the house.

One notable Twain encounter was reported in the late 1930s. By 1937, the house on West 10 th Street had been converted into a co-op building made up of ten spacious condo apartments.

One of the Shortly after the building’s transformation, a newly resident mother and her daughter bumped into Twain’s ghost perched on a window seat. He nonchalantly approached the pair, saying “ My name is Clemens, and I has a problem here I gotta settle. ” 3 He disappeared moments later into thin air. What problem he had that he needed so badly needed to settle, he did not share, likely a financial one. Its sad money can keep one from resting happily in peace. It’s also a mystery why Mark Twain, who died in Danbury Connecticut, not at the New York house, appears here so often also remains a mystery.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Jan Bryant Bartell and her daughter took up residency of a spacious apartment on the top floor, In 1957. The famous actress, psychic, and writer moved into the apartment which once housed the servants. Bartell reported almost immediately that “ a monstrous moving shadow ” 4 would often follow her around the house. One time she writes that she had seen a ghostly figure of a man standing in a hall. Bravely she reached out and tried to touch whatever she was seeing, she felt something, but nothing like she had felt before, she described it as, “ A substance without substance. Chilly, damp. Diaphanous as marsh mist or a cloud of ether. I could feel my fingers freeze at the tips. They were numb, and yet they tingled. In the split second between contact and recoil, the scent came. Fragile and languorous. And sweet; unbearably, cloyingly sweet.” 5 This unusual scent was not the only odd and bitter scents the Bartell family reported smelling during their time at The House of Death. Food not purchased by them, and already rotting, as if it had been sitting around for days would suddenly appear at the table. Their many small animals would also often become aggressive for no reason as if disturbed by invisible enemies in the building.

Bartell was a true believer and took the proactive step of employing a   “ paranormal expert ” 6  to investigate what could be causing these terrifying realities for the scared residents. The investigator confirmed what the couple had believed from the start. The investigator proclaimed that there were upward of twenty-two spirits at The House of Death. Besides Mark Twain, he mentioned additionally a woman in a white dress, a young girl, and a gray cat. Bartell decided to write about her experiences in the house, in a manuscript documenting her psychic experiences with the paranormal while living at 14 West 10th Street. Titled ‘Spindrift: Spray from a Psychic Sea’, she vividly recounts what it was like to live in a possessed house. The book was well received and has received many favorable reviews, the affecting prose is flowery, and paints a picture of a woman on the edges of our world, and the border of another.

Image Source: Flickr

Bartell writes of experiencing visions and of hearing many unexplainable sounds around the house. Here’s a piece from the jacket of Spindrift:

“ Like a game of Ten Little Indians , deaths began to occur in the house. The first to die was a dog, Jan’s own beloved Penelope. But within twenty-four hours, she was to learn of the death of the first human tenant. Whether by heart attacks, suicide or murder, the deaths came in rapid succession… In terror, with nine little Indians gone, the Bartells moved far away from Greenwich Village. But the haunting followed them. After the completion of Spindrift, Jan Bartell became the tenth.” 7

Bartell died shortly after completing the manuscript, in what one might consider mysterious circumstances. She was a sufferer of depressive episodes and there were rumors of suicide attempts. Her death let credence to the legend of The House of Death and its cursed. There were still however many skeptics – deaths go unsolved in New York constantly.

One event however put the status of the house in the position of few doubters. On November 2, 1987, New York City witnessed a genuine tragedy at The House of Death. The murder of Lisa Nussbaum has twisted plot worthy of a Hollywood’s horror flicks.

Image Source:  NY Daily News

“Around 6:40 AM, 9-11 operators got a pressing phone call from children’s author and editor, Hedda Nussbaum. She said that her six-year old 8 daughter, Lisa, wasn’t breathing, so an ambulance was sent to her Greenwich residence right away. When the paramedics arrived, they were greeted by a very disturbing scene. They found Lisa lying naked and unresponsive on the kitchen floor, and her brother, Mitchell, tied to a playpen and soaked in his own urine. Nussbaum herself was covered with bruises and had several broken bones. Investigators also discovered 9   marijuana, cocaine, hashish, over twenty crack pipes, and $25,000 in cash at the apartment.”

Image Source: MoviePilot

Paramedics were regrettably unable to revive Lisa Nussbaum on their way to the hospital. Later her autopsy revealed the cause of her death was repeated blunt-force trauma to the skull. Hedda Nussbaum and lawyer Joel Steinberg, Lisa’s father, were both arrested and subsequently charged with first-degree murder. It was charged that after a cocaine binge, Joel Steinberg violently abused both Lisa and his wife. Hedda Nussbaum avoided a charge in exchange for testimony against Joel Steinberg. A jury found him guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and sentenced him a term in jail. Upon his release in 2004 10 , Joel Steinberg left the law behind and took construction jobs. Like the mansion in the Amityville Horror films, The House of Death also became the residence of a real-life monster!

The happenings of the House of Death were spreading to neighboring houses on the street as well. In the apartment complex next door, residents started to notice flickering lights, several residents reported a ghostly female figure in a long gown wandering a corridor. A resident photographer had apparently been seeing her float through doors for more than twenty years.

The house itself is still elegant, well proportioned, and gives no clues as to the accumulated terror within. The classic brownstone, near the beautiful Washington Square in Greenwich Village, echoes with sad, frightening stories revolving around the many people who have left a part of their souls in the fabric of the building. If we are to take any lessons from these stories, it reinforces the old adage that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Currently in private ownership, the building is resided in today and continues to add stories of hauntings to the legends of paranormal activity in The House of Death. The stairwell continues to be the nexus of the ghostly activity in the building, the dark and wide antique stairs are where many of the ghosts still make their appearances.

Works Cited

1. “Mark Twain, Tragedy and Ghosts – No. 14 West 10 th Street.” Daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com. 15 April 2011. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 4.

2. “Mark Twain, Tragedy and Ghosts – No. 14 West 10 th Street.” Daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com. 15 April 2011. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 6.

3. Donnelly, Tim. “Terror on 10 th street.” New York Post. 28 October 2012. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 7.

4. Donnelly, Tim. “Terror on 10 th street.” New York Post. 28 October 2012. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 1.

5. Donnelly, Tim. “Terror on 10 th street.” New York Post. 28 October 2012. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 20.

6. Donnelly, Tim. “Terror on 10 th street.” New York Post. 28 October 2012. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 21.

7. Janes, Andrea. “The weirdest *$%#-ing book EVER.” Spinster Aunt, “I Medicate With Fiction.” Bourbonandtea.blogspot.com. 16 November 2009. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 2.

8. Mehren, Elizabeth. “A 6-Year-Old’s Tragic Death.” Los Angeles Times. 25 November 1987. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 2.

9. Mehren, Elizabeth. “A 6-Year-Old’s Tragic Death.” Los Angeles Times. 25 November 1987. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 6.

10. “NEW YORK’S HOUSE OF DEATH.” Sjhstrangetales.wordpress.com . 28 May 2015. Web. 31 October 2015. Para. 6.

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These Real-Life Haunted Houses Are Way Scarier Than Any Horror Movie

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Sure, thrillers and horror movies are reliably fun for a good, old-fashioned jump scare, but there's really nothing quite as bone-chilling as real haunted house stories. If you're not convinced, we've got plenty of proof in the collection of true stories about real-life haunted houses ahead. From unsuspecting farmhouses in the midwest to sprawling Gilded Age east coast mansions to classic storybook cottages in Hollywood and even bungalows in tropical Honolulu, we scoured the country for the most compelling tales of domestic paranormal activity. But take heed: Reading about these scary haunted house stories in the dark or by yourself is likely to keep you up all night (as was the case for me), but the fascinating backstories are well worth the thrill.

Up for the challenge? Without further ado, we invite you to read about the following 27 scariest real-life haunted house stories from the creepiest places around the country. In case you're really fearless and ready to get freaky, you can book a stay at most of these places and greet the ghosts yourself. And good news! Come spooky season, we'll be updating this list regularly with new real-life haunted house additions, so be sure to check back for more. Happy hauntings !

To hear more spooky ghost stories, subscribe to our haunted house podcast Dark House on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or anywhere you listen.

Amityville Horror House in Amityville, New York

The full story of the Amityville Horror House will be featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s podcast, Dark House , in October 2023. S ubscribe here .

This Dutch colonial sitting pretty on Ocean Avenue in Long Island, New York is perhaps the country's (and world's) most famous real haunted house. Haunted or not, the Amityville home has certainly witnessed plenty of horrors. On November 13, 1974, Louise and Ronald DeFeo Senior and four of their children were killed inside the home. Their eldest daughter went unharmed, as did their eldest son, Ronald DeFeo Junior, and he was ultimately charged with the murders, though he never confessed to the horrific crime.

A year after the brutal murders, the Lutz family moved into the house, which still housed much of the original furniture and decor from its previous tenants. Then, just 28 days after moving in with their three young children, the Lutzes fled the house in a panic. Not long after, they worked with author Jay Anson on the best-selling book-turned-hit movie, The Amityville Horror , which tells the dramatic (and controversial) tale of the demonic and "unseen forces" that drove them out. The Lutz's story is widely regarded as a hoax, but plenty of people still vehemently believe it's haunted, and that it was haunted even before the DeFeo family lived and died in it.

Ammons House in Gary, Indiana

The full story of the Ammons House will be featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s podcast, Dark House , in October 2023. S ubscribe here .

In 2011, Latoya Ammons moved into a small single-story home in Gary, Indiana, with her mother and her three young children. Only a few short months later, after reportedly experiencing the worst residential "demon infestation" since The Amityville Horror, Ammons brought her family to the emergency room in an attempt to help free them of demonic possession. After extensive evaluations by police, members of the local church, hospital staff, and the Department of Child Protective Services, the witnesses were torn: half of them believed the house was infested by spirits and demons, and that the family was genuinely possessed by something paranormal, while the other half blamed psychological issues.

Just like the best-selling book about the Amityville house turned into a national sensation, this modern instance of demonic possession went viral. The good news is that the Ammons family was able to find peace when they moved to Indianapolis, but the story, and the house itself, were still getting tons of attention. Unsurprisingly, Ghost Adventure host and self-proclaimed paranormal investigator Zak Bagans bought the property from Ammons's landlord in 2014 to shoot sensationalized "documentary" footage inside. Even though Bagans proceeded to tear it down, the Ammons House is about to get even more press. Oscar-nominee Lee Daniels is directing a film based on the story, The Deliverance . It's set to stream on Netflix in 2024 and will feature Stranger Things star, Caleb McLaughlin.

Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California

The full story of the Winchester Mystery House will be featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s podcast, Dark House , in September 2023. S ubscribe here .

In 1886 an eccentric widow left her home in Connecticut for California's rural Santa Clara Valley to start a new life after the tragic loss of several family members. She wasn't the average widow; she was Sarah Winchester, the millionaire heiress whose fortune was derived from "The Gun That Won the West," an increasingly controversial truth. Once in the Bay Area—during the height of Spiritualism and well before the 19th amendment— Winchester managed her own finances and acted on a passion for architecture and design by overseeing the never-ending construction project of a rambling mansion in San Jose. She named the rambling property Llanada Villa (which she interpreted as "House on Flat Land,") but today, it's better known as The Winchester Mystery House.

Her reclusive lifestyle along with the restrictive gender norms of the era and the blood money she was associated with, caused neighbors and the local press to speculate, and legends quickly began to swirl about the mysterious woman and her bewildering house. Though it was a modern marvel at the time—with indoor plumbing, multiple elevators, a hot shower, and central heating—the mansion was appraised as having no value due to doors that opened to nothing but thin air, staircases that lead straight into the ceiling, and its maze of labyrinthine hallways.

Legends began swirling speculating that Winchester’s bizarre architectural choices were an attempt to rid the home of unwelcome spirits of the dead killed by the Winchester Rifle, but defenders swear she didn't have a superstitious bone in her body. Regardless, it's possible that Winchester herself still haunts the halls of the house-turned-museum today.

The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Missouri

The full story of the Lemp Mansion is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House. Subscribe here .

Starting strong with a very scary house: The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, which is known to be one of the most haunted places in America due to its tragic history and links to a wealthy beer baron.

Adam Johann Lemp, a German immigrant, was the first person to produce and sell lager-style beer in the U.S. He stored the barrels in an underground cave system beneath the city to keep them cool pre-modern refrigeration. It was successful, but his son, William Lemp, is the one who really brought it to the next level.

In the 1860s, William Lemp wanted to live closer to the industrial plant and start a family with his wife Julia, so they built the foreboding home in the historic Benton Park neighborhood right over the cave system (we smell a haunting!). Everything seemed to take a turn for the worse in the new millennium, and William Lemp died by suicide in 1904 after his favorite of five sons, Frederick, died tragically due to complications of tuberculosis.

A few years later, his wife also died of cancer in the house. In 1920, the youngest daughter, Elsa Lemp, mysteriously died in her home (not the Lemp Mansion) Then, in 1922, after running the company for years and seeing it flounder during the Prohibition era, William Lemp Jr., shot himself in the same room William Sr. died in.

One of William Jr.'s brothers, Charles Lemp, lived in the home from the 1930s until 1949 when he shot his own dog in the basement of the home before dying by suicide in his room. That same year, the youngest surviving Lemp child, Edwin, sold the house and transformed it into a boarding house, where reports of hauntings began. According to Destination America , witnesses have experienced burning sensations, slamming doors, disembodied moaning and crying, amongst other things.

Today, the Lemp Mansion is a restaurant and inn that also holds events, including weddings, Murder Mystery Dinners, and even ghost-hunting experiences.

Kasha House of Kaimuki in Honolulu, Hawaii

The full story of the Kasha House of Kaimuki with exclusive stories from locals and a former resident is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Subscribe here .

The Kasha House of Kaimuki in Honolulu, Hawaii has been shrouded in mystery for decades: its first bad press mention hit the Honolulu Star just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. According to the article, police responded to a call from a woman shouting "she's trying to kill my children! She's trying to kill my children!" When they arrived, they found a young Hawaiian boy, his three sisters, and his mother all shrieking and being tossed around by... nothing. About thirty years later, other occupants (of the same home, or one a block away from the original spooky house) reported similar attacks by an “unseen” force, which the responding officers corroborated.

The two most common theories surrounding the source of these reported attacks are a demonic shape-shifting creature of Japanese folkloric origins known as the Kasha, and the angry spirit of a corpse buried in the backyard. Though it has since been torn down and replaced by condos, the dark energy still lingers, according to locals and residents.

1000 Lombard Street in San Francisco, California

The full story of 1000 Lombard Street is featured in two episodes of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Subscribe here .

Socialite, journalist, and famed party host Patricia Montandon moved into an apartment on San Francisco’s famous "crooked block," Lombard Street, in 1960. She lived happily in her Russian Hill abode for eight years, until things began to go awry following an astrology-themed party she hosted in the apartment. In her memoir The Intruders , Montandon attributes a series of hauntings that culminated in a corporal tragedy to the bizarre behavior of a disgruntled tarot card reader who may have cursed the apartment the night of that fateful party.

From eerier laughter and faint music seemingly coming from within the apartment on repeat to constant rushes of cold winds despite locked doors and windows, and strange disembodied footsteps, the paranormal events were stacking up quickly. But Montandon was also the victim of physical crimes following the party, including a robbery, harassment, possibly arson, and more. After a tragic fire at the apartment and the premature passing of three of her close friends (all of whom had separately lived in the apartment between 1968 and 1969), Montandon set off on her own investigation to uncover the root of the apparent curse on 1000 Lombard Street.

Ackley House in Nyack, New York

The full story of the Ackley House is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Subscribe here .

Nicknamed “ Ackley House ” after its one-time occupants, the Ackley Family, this classic Queen Anne sits on the Hudson River across from Sleepy Hollow, New York. The many ghosts who roamed the halls of 1 La Veta Place were nothing but friendly, though they were active enough to inspire the matriarch, Helen Ackley, to write a national article about them in Reader's Digest . The article gained enough momentum that the house became a stop on local ghost tours, which ended up having some not-so-great ramifications when it came time to sell the home in the late 1980s.

The Ackleys found themselves entangled in a legal battle over whether or not they should have disclosed the haunted "nature" of the house to the Stambosvky family. In a landmark legal decision now referred to as “The Ghostbusters Ruling,” Ackley House was deemed haunted by the New York Supreme Court, and the buyers were able to pull out of the sale while also getting half of their down payment back. 1 La Veta Place has since been home to several celebrities, including musician Ingrid Michaelson.

Chop-Chop House in Boise, Idaho

The house at 805 W Linden Street in Boise, Idaho, is hard to miss. Covered in a layer of soot, with windows broken and boarded up and trash strewn about the yard, the 2-story, 2,728 square-foot Craftsman-style home looks like an abandoned horror movie set. The true story, however, is much scarier. Locals refer to it as the Boise Murder House or even more eyebrow-raising, the Chop-Chop House, which is a glib reference to the gruesome homicide that took place there more than three decades ago.

According to many who've lived in the neighborhood or even rented out a room in the house itself, the basement, in particular, exudes some haunted energy. There have been reports of shadowy figures appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, strange liquid oozing down the walls, and more.

The full story of the Boise Murder House is featured, along with a guest interview with Justin Long, in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Subscribe here .

Grey Gardens in East Hampton, New York

The full story of Grey Gardens is featured in two episodes of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Subscribe here .

The grand East Hampton estate known as Grey Gardens has a fascinating history with many ups and downs. The four acres of land the home now sits on is in the Georgica Beach section of East Hampton, one of the most expensive regions in the world, and it was purchased by a wealthy couple in 1895 before the home was built in the early 1900s.

By 1913, it was sold to the president of a coal company whose wife, Anna Gilman Hill, imported ornate concrete walls from Spain to enclose the garden. The house was called Grey Gardens because of the color of the dunes, the cement garden walls, and the sea mist. Later, in 1923, the home was sold to Edith Bouvier Beale—the parental aunt of Jackie Onasis Kennedy and Lee Radziwill—and her family.

After a series of misfortunes and financial losses, the home fell into disrepair and was overrun by cats and raccoons (and perhaps something else not of this realm?), partially because Big Edie Beale and her daughter, Little Edie Beale couldn't afford to maintain the mansion on their own. The women's story (and star power!) was made famous in a 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysles.

Big Edie held onto the property until her death in 1977, and her spirit is said to remain at Grey Gardens, watching over the house. Among the believers is author and journalist Sally Quinn, best known for her column in the Washington Post, who purchased the home from Little Edie in 1979 and she swears that it’s haunted.

Mercer-Williams House in Savannah, Georgia

The full story of the Mercer-Williams House is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Listen to it here .

Located across from one of Savannah, Georgia's, most famous and pristine squares (Monterey Square in the city's historic district), the Mercer-Williams house dates back to 1860. In the 1970s, famed preservationist and antiques dealer Jim Williams restored the home to its former glory after years of neglect.

This Italianate revival played host to three untimely deaths, including that of 11-year-old Tommy Downs when he fell off the roof in 1969, the 1981 fatal shooting of Danny Hansford by Williams, and Williams himself, when he died in the same room as Hansford less than a year after being acquitted of Hansford's death in a fourth trial. If the story sounds familiar, it's probably because you recognize it from the bestselling book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil .

Much like the rest of the city, the home was supposedly built right on top of unmarked graves. Rumors about the crime and ensuing ghost stories continue to swirl to this day.

The Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa

The full story of the Villisca Axe Murder House is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Listen to it here .

On June 10, 1912, Josiah and Sarah Moore were bludgeoned to death inside of their home in Villisca, Iowa. Their four children—and two friends who were spending the night—were also killed, and to this day, the crime remains unsolved. Their home is considered one of the most haunted houses in the country, and guests are drawn to it. People even pay $400+ to stay for one night.

"Tours have been cut short by children's voices, falling lamps, moving ladders, and flying objects," says the Villisca Axe Murder House website . And, in 2014, a paranormal investigator stabbed himself after spending the night . "Skeptics have left believers," adds the website.

Jean Harlow House in Los Angeles, California

The full story of the Harlow-Bern House is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Listen to it here .

Los Angeles is one of the best destinations for haunted-house hunting, and this Bavarian-style home in Beverly Hills has a particularly gruesome history. In 1932, it was home to the iconic actress Jean Harlow and her abusive husband, Paul Bern, who shot himself in the head while standing in front of the mirror. Their butler discovered him and called MGM instead of the police, so there were tons of rumors that it wasn't actually suicide. Many suspected Bern's ex-girlfriend, a suspicion exacerbated by her jumping off a boat to her death a couple of days later. Jean moved out after his death but died only a few years later at the age of 26.

But wait—it gets creepier. In 1963, celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring bought the home and lived there with his girlfriend, Sharon Tate, until she left him for Roman Polanski. They were still friends and remained so until both of them were murdered by the Charles Manson cult. Tate was the same age as Harlow when she passed.

But back to when the couple lived in the Harlow House. Tate told several friends of creepy occurrences in the home and even mentioned it in interviews . For example, once, when she was sleeping in the master bedroom alone, she saw a "creepy little man." Her friends say she believed it to be Paul Bern's ghost. She was so freaked out when she saw the alleged ghost that she ran out of the room and then saw a hanging shadowy corpse with its throat slit in the hallway. There are also stories about two other people dying in the swimming pool over the years.

SK Pierce Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts

The full story of the SK Pierce Mansion is featured in an episode of House Beautiful’s haunted house podcast, Dark House . Listen to it here .

Massachusetts has no shortage of haunted mansions, it seems, and the SK Pierce Victorian is one of the state's eeriest. The original occupant, Sylvestor Pierce, had just started making his fortune in the furniture business when he built this home for himself, his son, and his wife, Susan. As a man about town, he hosted many notable people in his 7,000-square-foot home throughout the years, including President Calvin Coolidge, Bette Davis, and Norman Rockwell.

Only a week after moving into the home, Susan fell ill and passed away from a mysterious bacterial disease. A year later, he remarried Ellen, a woman thirty years his junior, and had two more children. Years later, when both Sylvester and Ellen had passed away, his sons embarked on a fiery feud about the property as well as the furniture company, but the Great Depression swept in and made their choice easier since the company basically went bankrupt.

The youngest son, Edward, was given control of the home when he turned it into a boarding house. It became a hotspot for illicit activities (including the murders and sudden, tragic deaths of several occupants) according to local lore. As a result of these violent ends, guests have reported every kind of haunting imaginable, from visions of apparitions to flying objects, disembodied sounds, pressure, temperature drops, and more.

Mudhouse Mansion in Fairfield, Ohio

Located in Fairfield County, Ohio (until recently), the Mudhouse Mansion has a bad reputation. Nobody can seem to agree on when it was built, but it dates back sometime between the 1840s and 1900. Unlike the other abandoned mansions on this list, you sadly can no longer visit it, as the home was demolished in 2015 after not being occupied since the 1930s. The last resident (at least legally speaking) was Lulu Hartman-Mast, and the current owner of the property is her relative Jeanne Mast.

Because there's so little information about who lived here and when, and because abandoned places tend to ignite the dark side of the imagination, there are tons of legends around alleged atrocities occurring (and consequent hauntings). The sources don't seem to be very credible, though.

455A Sackett Street in Brooklyn, New York

You never hear as much about haunted apartments as haunted houses, which is strange—considering that apartments have much more turnover, and therefore a higher likelihood of something (or someone) evil having lived there before you move in.

That was definitely the case with 455A Sacket Street in Brooklyn. One woman who grew up there writes about her firsthand experiences, including unexplained fires, seriously bad energy, family tragedies, personal suffering, and, here's the kicker: the body of a child discovered in the wall after several suspicious sightings of a similar-looking shadow child in the mirror.

You can read her full account here , as well as commenters who also lived there and corroborate these claims. I'll definitely not be requesting an in-person viewing for this place—private balcony or not—if this address ever pops back up in my StreetEasy feed.

Hotel Monte Vista in Flagstaff, Arizona

The Hotel Monte Vista has numerous paranormal guests they can’t get rid of. The hotel, which opened as the Community Hotel in 1927—named after the townspeople who helped raised the funds for its construction—has a history of underground opium dens, speakeasies, and gambling. Today, the hotel is known for the paranormal activity that haunts some of the rooms and halls.

Guests who’ve stayed in room 220 have experienced the TV changing channels on its own accord, and some have said they felt cold hands touching them in their sleep. There’s also reportedly a phantom bellboy who knocks on doors and announces “room service,” but when guests get to the door, no one's there. One of the more popular—and possibly most disturbing encounters—is the sound of an infant crying in the basement. The hotel website reads, “Staff have found themselves running upstairs to escape the sound of the cries. Though the sounds are very real to those who hear them, there has been no information that has explained the phenomenon.”

Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana

Rumored to be on top of a burial ground is the Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana, which is the home to at least 12 different ghosts. Built in 1796, ghost stories center around the tale of an enslaved woman named Chloe, who had her ear chopped off after she was reportedly caught eavesdropping. Seeking revenge, Chloe killed two of the master’s daughters by poisoning a birthday cake. She was then hanged by her fellow enslaved people, and today is reportedly seen wandering the plantation with a turban on to conceal her ear.

If you want to investigate things for yourself, you can stay at the plantation for $175/night.

Hotel Cecil in Los Angeles, California

More cursed than haunted, downtown L.A.'s Hotel Cecil got such a bad rap that it actually changed its name to Stay on Main. If you're a true crime and paranormal super fan, you've likely already heard of it. Where to begin? So many bad things have happened here—there's literally an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to its violent history. The first recorded death by suicide is in 1931, followed by a long string of similar deaths in 1932, 1934, 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1940.

At some point in the '30s, one man was pinned to the exterior wall by a truck. A woman murdered her newborn in the building in 1944, and the pattern of suicides continued into the '60s. In 1962, a woman jumped from the ninth floor window and landed on a pedestrian, killing them both. It's worth noting that two of the women who died by suicide apparently jumped while their husbands were asleep in the room.

In 1964, tenant Goldie Osgood was brutally murdered, a crime which has remained unsolved. Next, in the '80s, the infamous serial kill Richard Ramirez (the "Night Stalker") stayed at the hotel and in the 1990s, Austrian serial killer Jack Unterwege lived there. Other weird things kept happening but the weirdest is definitely the disappearance and death of 21-year-old traveler Elisa Lam.

A few weeks after Lam went missing, her body was discovered in the rooftop water tank after visitors and tenants complained about a funky taste. They later found odd footage of her in the elevator from the night of her disappearance. It's difficult to make out what she's doing; it looks like she's either playing hide-and-seek with someone outside the elevator, or she's frightened and attempting to hide from someone but the doors won't seem to shut. Authorities ruled the death accidental drowning—but because you need a key to access the roof, many suspect foul play.

Lui Family Mansion in Taiwan

Built in 1929 in Baroque style, the Minxiong Ghost House (aka the Lui family mansion) is a place with a heartbreaking history. Located in the Taiwanese countryside, it's been abandoned since the 1950s when the family fled abruptly. Like all mysterious places, there's plenty of lore around the family and why they left the once-beautiful place.

Local legend says the maid was having an affair with her employer, Liu Rong-yu, and when the secret came out, she jumped down the well to her death (but since she did not live to tell the tale, who's to say another family member didn't push her?). Then she came back to haunt the family until they finally left. A few years later, it was occupied by members of the Kuomintang of China (KMT), many of whom were also thought to have died of suicide, which exacerbated its reputation as haunted. People who visit report plenty of ghostly sightings.

Los Feliz Murder Mansion in Los Angeles, California

During the mid 20th century, this large Los Feliz home was the (seemingly) happy home of Dr. Harold Perelson and his family, until the horrific night of December, 6, 1959 when he murdered his wife in her sleep with a ball-peen hammer and attempted to murder his three children before drinking acid to kill himself.

Fortunately, his eldest daughter let out a scream when he struck her in the head, waking up the younger children who then walked into the hallway to find out what was going on. During the commotion, they were all able to flee. Before the murder-suicide, he was a successful doctor who invented a new type of syringe after investing most of money into its research and production, but he got screwed out of the rights, leading investigators to blame financial problems. Other creepy details include a passage of Dante's Divine Comedy left open on his bedside table.

Two years later, it was sold to the Enriquez family, who used it as "storage unit," and their son continued to to do so until he sold it to a couple in 2016 who had plans to fix it up. But it seems to have scared them off because within a few years it's on the market again. Photographers also report a feeling of needing to "run away" from the house when they get close up to it.

Villa de Vecchi in Italy

Villa de Vecchi is foreboding, alright. Just consider that looming fog blanket! Located near Lake Como, Italy, the "House of Witches" dates back to 1854-1857, when it was built as a summer house for Count Felix De Vecchi. The family was only able to spend a few years there, as their lives were mired in tragedy right after it was built.

First, the architect died a year after construction. Then in 1862, Count De Vecchi came home to discover his wife murdered and his daughter missing. When he could not find her after a year of searching, he died by suicide. His brother then moved into the home and his family continued to live there until WWII. It's been vacant since the 1960s, and an avalanche in 2002 wiped out all the houses in the area... except this one. Spooky.

The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

In 1937, millionaire inventor Norman G. Baker posed as a doctor and turned the hotel into a hospital that he said could cure cancer. Have the chills yet? Baker, who had a fetish for purple, painted many sections of the hospital in the color, and today, the chimneys remain that same color. In addition to wearing purple shirts and ties, he drove a purple car as well. People came from all over with hopes of curing their cancer, and many who were "treated" died.

Eventually, Baker was exposed and run out of town, and today the property is an active hotel. It's said to be haunted by several ghosts, including a bearded man wearing Victorian clothing and a five-year-old girl.

Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada

In 1907, Mizpah Hotel opened as one of the first luxury hotels in Nevada. With a rich history and elaborate decor, the hotel is best known for its legend of the “Lady in Red.” While the date remains unclear, the story goes like this: A woman was murdered in her room on the fifth floor. Some say it was a jealous ex-boyfriend, while others say the Lady in Red had been caught cheating by her husband and he killed her in a jealous rage.

Those who’ve stayed at the hotel say the Lady in Red whispers in men’s ears and leaves pearls from her broken necklace on guests' pillows. Guests can stay in the Lady in Red suite to experience it themselves, and if that’s too much for you, the Red Lady Bloody Mary at the hotel restaurant should suffice.

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was designed to house 250 patients when it opened in 1864. Fast forward to the 1950s, when the facility reached its peak and had more than 2,400 patients living in overcrowded and inhumane conditions—with some even kept in cages. In 1994, the asylum closed, and today, there are reports of paranormal activity, with souls of patients lingering and roaming the halls.

You can take an overnight ghost hunt tour from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. at the Asylum, a two-hour paranormal tour from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., or a 90-minute day tour.

Merchant House Museum in New York, New York

Seeing as it's the only preserved and intact family home from the 19th century in all of New York City, it makes sense that this house has also been the source and subject of many ghost stories. The Tredwell family lived here for over 100 years, and the last family occupant was Gertrude, the youngest daughter, who died in the home in 1933. Staff, visitors, and even passerby say they experience weird, disembodied things here.

Don't buy it? Take a candlelit ghost tour of the museum to decide for yourself. And even if you don't catch an apparition out the corner of your eye or hear children playing and floorboards in empty rooms, you'll at least get the sense that you're intruding on someone else's space, in a completely different time, since it's virtually the same as was when Gertrude died.

The Queen Anne Hotel in San Francisco, California

In 1890, the Queen Anne hotel in San Francisco was an etiquette school for girls. Today, it has 48 rooms for guests, though some believe the ghost of Miss Mary Lake, the school's headmistress, still lingers. Folks who stay in room 410, Miss Mary Lake’s former office, have woken up to find their blankets closely tucked around them in bed or their clothes unpacked.

Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts

In 1892, Lizzie Borden was the main suspect for the axe murders of her father and stepmother. Borden was tried and acquitted of the murders, and guests who visit Lizzie's house in Fall River, Massachusetts say she can be heard cackling about it. Others say that you can sometimes hear a maid screaming for help, and that Lizzie's slaughtered parents stalk the grounds. You can experience the paranormal activity yourself by visiting the Lizzie Borden House, which is now a museum and bed and breakfast.

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Only Murders in the Building Proves the Upper West Side is NYC's Most Haunted Neighborhood

Don't believe us? Ask Rosemary, her baby, or even the Ghostbusters.

In honor of season two of Only Murders in the Building , we're resurfacing this story from 2021.

But the moment captured, I think, something about the cheerfully ghoulish ethos of the Upper West Side, which for all its basic beauty, its bagels and kvetches, its bookstores and strollers, has always had a dark side. From Rosemary’s Baby to The Night Of to Hulu’s new comedy-mystery Only Murders in the Building , the area’s inherent contrasts provide a natural setting for truly horrible events and the ghosts that love them.

Bounded by the Hudson River to the west and Central Park to the east, Columbus Circle and Morningside Heights, the Upper West Side has an enduring and deserved modern reputation for shleppiness. Despite its once-thriving music and art scene, its diversity, its robust gay community, for the past few decades the neighborhood has seemed almost magically immune to the forces of chic.

What little remains of the liberal-crank element is dying off; the once-hip Saturdays Generation yuppies have aged; the Lincoln Center musicians have been priced out; the newcomers seem more interested in pumpkin spice fitness classes than the area’s often-colorful history (although that’s a horrible, lazy, and slightly dated generalization). The seedy days of Needle Park, Plato’s Retreat, and Mr. Goodbar are but a distant memory. Superficially, it’s the closest Manhattan comes to suburbia—just ask any of your friends when you relocate from Brooklyn. But let’s just say, there’s a reason the original Ghostbusters set up shop on Central Park West.

For one thing, this area was a veritable hotbed of 19th Century Spiritualism. The legendary Ansonia’s basement played host to myriad seances and psychics; the American Society for Psychical Research was founded (and still stands) on West 73rd Street. And to this day, New York’s only Spiritualist services take place at a church on West End Avenue (for the moment, you can attend virtual seances over Zoom).

Many buildings up here are old and sumptuous, designed to offer the luxury of town-houses in a a time when the area practically counted as the country. And the excesses of wealth, as we know, make for almost as many ghosts as does squalor. The most storied are all known to be haunted (I asked a realtor friend, who confirmed it, although as a rule real estate people are sensitive on the subject of hauntings; they’ve been cast as villains selling too-good-to-be-true mansions to naifs in the first scene of a horror movie once too often.) Rudolph Valentino strolls the halls of the Hotel des Artistes. There have been reports of James Baldwin’s disembodied voice reading aloud to his dying mother on West 71st. And the Ansonia is, not shockingly, absolutely crawling with long-dead mediums.

Rosemary’s Baby is, of course, the ultimate UWS horror story: a cheap, beautiful apartment in the legendary Dakota comes with strings, not least of which is having to socialize with one’s neighbors all the time. (Although presumably the demon spawn gets his own room, which is nothing to sneeze at.) But the Dakota was haunted long before Ira Levin wrote his classic—since its construction tenants have reported sightings of children in old-fashioned dress, a bearded gentleman, a phantom chandelier, flying objects, and a particularly scary-sounding grown man with a child’s face. John Lennon claimed to see a weeping woman; when he was murdered in front of the Dakota in 1980, Lennon’s own specter was added to the list.

This is also a neighborhood haunted by ghosts of another kind. Seneca Village—a settlement founded by freed slaves—was located roughly between West 82nd and 89th streets, and razed to make way for Central Park. The hundreds of residents protested the eviction but were ultimately displaced, and the village—and its graveyard—was quite literally buried under the paths bordering Central Park West.

In the 1930s and '40s the Upper West Side became a destination for thousands of those fleeing from Naziism, or displaced after the war; the neighborhood had long housed a sizable Jewish population, and emigres were required to provide an affidavit from an American relative. The Eclair Bakery—a mitteleuropean -style coffee house on West 72nd Street—became famous for its guestbook, where newly arrived refugees would sign their names and look frantically for those of friends who’d made it out. The Eclair is long gone, but Zabars still carries prune danish and strudels for the very few who still want it, most of them very old now.

The latest offering, Only Murders in the Building, is the most affectionate tribute to the Upper West Side since You’ve Got Mail . When washed-up actor Steve Martin exits a subway, it’s the 86th Street A/C. When preening director Martin Short crosses an intersection, it’s within steps of Barney Greeengrass. And when the mysterious true-crime aficionado Selena Gomez returns to the lavish pre-war building where they all live, it’s quite clearly filmed in the Belnord, one-time home of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Zero Mostel. There are surly strangers (the peerless Jackie Hoffman) and UppaBabies galore, and when the three would-be sleuths sit down to dinner, you just know the food is authentically mediocre. Even the credits roll in what looks like The New Yorker’ s “NY Irvin” font—a magazine that might as well be the neighborhood's corporate sponsor. Of course these three people would live here —they’re kind of losers, and they kind of want to hide in plain sight.

But the show is also playing into the neighborhood’s stealth-Gothic grandeur, and its storied history. In the opening scene, Steve Martin’s Charles smugly announces that the city’s not where really bad things happen. “There are eyes on you everywhere!” Then, of course, he walks into a building called “The Arconia,” a murder occurs, and all three retreat to the time-honored comfort of having opinions about horrors, so as to live so closely with them.

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