Episode 64: Behind Closed Doors

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When Joseph Ashe opened his new Ashe building in 1901, it was hailed as a modern marvel.

It was a massive 10-story block of stone and iron, and it was said to be every bit as solid as it looked.

But it was inside the building that the true breakthroughs could be found.

It had freight elevators, wide open floors, and fire exits.

In fact, Joseph Ashe was so proud of his modern building that he called it fireproof.

And for a city in desperate need of more factory space for its massive garment-making industry, it was perfect.

So business partners Max Blanc and Isaac Harris signed a lease for the eighth floor.

And business was good.

Soon, they expanded upward, taking over the top three stories of the building.

Their shop, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, became the premier manufacturer of the most popular type of shirt in the country.

But they also became sloppy.

On March 25th of 1911, a fire broke out in a pile of scrap cloth.

The building might have been billed as fireproof, but the conditions inside were dry, flammable, and overcrowded.

Perfect or a horrible tragedy.

Less than an hour later, it was over.

Some had burned to death.

Others had fallen 10 stories to escape the flames.

All told, 146 people had lost their lives.

Today the building is part of the NYU campus, but its tragic past hasn't completely evaporated.

For years, witnesses have reported the telltale scent of smoke throughout the halls.

Others have heard voices.

Sometimes it's just a faint whisper, while other times it's a frightening cry for help.

Most people, though, just sense an overwhelming air of darkness.

Whether it's the tragic past of countless historic buildings or the personal darkness of the people who lived inside them, New York, it seems, is a city overpopulated by ghosts.

And if you know where to look, the stories they tell will leave you feeling haunted.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

New York City is a monster.

There's no better way to say it.

It's so large and unwieldy that it operates more like a country than a metropolis.

Yes, it's beautiful.

It's full of life and culture and a depth of social awareness that few other cities in the world can match.

But it's also a beast.

In a lot of ways, New York City is like an Olympic athlete.

Mortal like us, yes.

But there's very little about it that we'd consider average.

And it's old, too.

Europeans have been in the area for over 400 years, a century and a half longer than America has been a country.

It's played host to everything from rebellion and war to epidemics and terrorism.

Then all of that death and violence leaves a veneer of darkness on New York, like soot from a wildfire.

The trouble with a city so large though is that it's easy to live inside it and be completely unaware of the stories you're standing right on top of.

Take Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

It was established in 1827 as a public space, kicking off construction of all those beautiful things that we see there today.

The arch, the fountain, all those amazing flowers and trees, and 20,000 dead bodies.

That's because prior to being a public space, Washington Square was a potter's field, a graveyard for the poor and unidentified.

Then, in the early 19th century, as yellow fever rolled across the city like a tidal wave, thousands of victims were added to the burial ground there.

The graves are shallow, sometimes just a foot or two below the surface.

And because of the sheer number of them all, they've never been removed.

Just three blocks north of the Washington Arch, there's an innocent-looking brownstone with a story of its own.

You see, sometimes we bury the dead and they stay there in the ground below our feet.

Other times, they refuse to go away, becoming dark roommates in an already overcrowded city.

That was the experience of actress Jan Bryant Bartel, who moved into 14 West 10th Street way back in 1957.

For 16 years, Bartel lived in the building while suffering through what she claimed was intense paranormal activity.

Shadows that moved, sounds that echoed from empty rooms, even objects that levitated.

She claimed it was all a result of the dozens of deaths that had occurred in the building since the 1850s, and she wasn't alone in that theory.

Decades earlier, in the 1930s, a woman and her mother both reported seeing a white-haired man in a white suit.

He turned to the women, and reportedly spoke to them.

My name is Clemens, he said, and I has a problem here I gotta settle.

And then he vanished.

It turns out that the man looked a lot like Mark Twain, who had lived there for a year in 1901.

Twain's real name, of course, was Samuel Clemens.

All of this was too much for Bartel, though, who committed suicide in 1973, just before publishing a book of her experiences there.

Today, many New Yorkers refer to the old brownstone as the house of death.

But death happens all over the city.

It always has, but more often than not, the reason is more human than supernatural.

In fact, one of the first highly public murder trials in New York City happened way back in 1799, although it still haunts the area to this day.

That was the year a 21-year-old woman named Elma Sands was killed and dumped into a well on Spring Street in Manhattan.

Her killer, according to the prosecution, was her wealthy fiancée, Levi Weeks.

Now, while much of the witness testimony and evidence pointed to Weeks as the true killer, his wealth brought a team of powerful attorneys to the courtroom, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.

Oh, and if any of that sounds even the least bit familiar to you, go ahead and assume you're the smartest in the room.

Weeks got off the hook, but Alma Sands has apparently refused to slip away.

The well where her body was found was covered by a building back in the 1820s and for decades played host to a restaurant.

Reports of unusual activity in the building have been non-stop ever since, including plates and silverware that have been seen floating through the air.

Some have even claimed to see the ghost of Elma herself crawling out of the well, now located in the basement.

There's also the small matter of the curse.

According to legend, as Burr and Hamilton were exiting the courtroom after their victory, Elma Sand's cousin, Catherine Ring, blocked their path and shouted a prediction to the room.

If you die a natural death, she cried, I will think there is no justice in heaven.

And then she pointed at Hamilton, who would be killed just four years later by Burr.

But you don't have to take part in a murder trial to attract the attention of the dead.

In fact, if you believe the stories, Life is full of moments with the potential to leave us feeling haunted.

And few locations in New York can compare to one historic neighborhood near Prospect Park.

But the story that lies dormant beneath the ground there is far worse than the shallow graveyard or body in the well.

It's a tale of secret rooms, violent politics, and a love that refused to die.

The area of Brooklyn known today as Flatbush began life as a Dutch colony in 1651.

The name comes from the original appearance of the landscape, which was described as a flat wooded plain.

It's difficult to imagine given the urban sprawl of modern New York, but for a while, Flatbush was a wide open collection of forests and farms.

Roughly a century later though, the city was under British rule and that meant that the old Dutch architecture was slowly giving way to English manners.

And one of those newer homes was built in 1749 by an Englishman by the name of Lane.

He came from a wealthy family that didn't care for his drunken parties and new lower-class wife, so New York became his home in exile.

Life didn't change much for him in the colonies, though.

The parties continued unchecked, and his grand manor, which he called Melrose Hall, became the centerpiece of local gossip.

And then, some years later, he stepped outside during one of his celebrations and never returned.

As far as I can tell, no one knows what happened to Mr.

Lane after that.

But Melrose Hall remained, and from the descriptions that survive, it was quite the home.

It was two and a half stories tall, with a gabled roof that created numerous small spaces, something Lane had apparently taken advantage of.

The right side wing of the house held the dining room and library, while the left wing contained a large banquet hall.

But it wasn't this collection of traditional rooms that gave the house its flavor.

No, the true personality came from its hidden parts.

According to one writer in 1888, the fireplace in the banquet hall was flanked by two closets, and it was inside one of them that a secret door could be found.

It only unlocked from the outside.

But once unlocked, it revealed a narrow staircase that led to a hidden bedroom above the hall.

Across the house in the dining room, another secret passage was hidden behind a piece of furniture.

One writer claims that the whole thing swung outward like a door and that walking through it would take you into the slave quarters.

And as if that weren't enough, the home even had a small vaulted dungeon beneath the main house.

At the same time, about 15 miles to the south in what is now Wall Street, A man named William Axtel was growing restless.

He was a merchant who'd spent most of his life in Jamaica as part of the business but had moved to New York in the 1750s.

But the city was expanding around him and it was time to find more space and solitude.

So when a home as textured and unique as Melrose Hall suddenly became available for purchase, Axtel didn't blink.

But before he and his family arrived to move in, he sent someone ahead of them.

His mistress, Isabel.

Now, history is a bit foggy on who Isabel really was.

Some say she was his wife's sister, while others claim she was a woman he met in Jamaica.

She was described as tall and dark, with long black hair and a kind, beautiful smile.

And when she showed up at the house ahead of Axtel and his wife, it was Miranda, one of the Axtel's most trusted slaves, who welcomed Isabel inside and guided her to the secret room above the banquet hall.

Miranda would, in fact, become Isabel's lifeline.

Since she couldn't open the door in the closet from her side, it was up to Miranda to bring her food and care for her needs.

It was also a responsibility that Miranda kept entirely to herself, at the request of Axtel.

Once the family had moved in, the lovers fell into a new clandestine routine.

Once a week, at midnight, William would creep downstairs to the banquet hall and sit by the fire.

Then, Miranda would appear and open the closet door beside the fireplace, unlock the secret door, and release Isabel from her hidden chamber.

Then, the lovers would...

well, whatever lovers do.

You get the idea, I'm sure.

All of this went on for years.

By day, Axtel ran his merchant business and worked for the English Crown as a member of the governor's council.

At night, though, he secretly met with his mistress.

It wasn't honest.

but you could certainly call him busy, I suppose.

But life was about to change dramatically in Melrose Hall.

Those midnight trysts would continue, of course.

But daily life for William Axtel was about to slip into chaos and danger.

You see, war had arrived, not in some far-off land or even a few miles away.

No, when the Battle of Brooklyn took place on August 27th, 1776, it happened in the worst possible location, right in Axtel's backyard.

All of this was bad news for William Axtel.

He was an English loyalist who stood to lose everything, his power, money, land, all of it.

if the Americans somehow managed to succeed.

And in 1776, the Battle of Brooklyn showed just how close to home this new war for independence could get.

As a member of the governor's council, he had a duty to perform.

So it was common for rebel leaders to be captured and transferred to his personal dungeon below Melrose Hall.

But it wasn't enough to hide away from the watchful eye of the rebels.

Axtel was being pushed toward action by the king.

He was told to gather 500 men and get ready to march.

It wasn't clear if he'd be gone for weeks or months, but he would be out of the house and away from his lover Isabel.

And that's when a problem occurred to him.

Miranda, the slave woman who cared for Isabel and kept their secret from the rest of the household, was getting along in years.

In fact, she was old enough that Axtel feared she might be close to death, which, as we all know, would be a very bad thing for Isabel.

Because without Axtel around, Miranda was the only access that Isabel had to food and water.

That secret door in the closet only opened from Miranda's side, and if she were to die, well, that hidden bedroom would slowly transform.

First into a prison, then into a tomb.

So the night before his departure, Axtel went to the banquet hall at their appointed time and waited for Miranda to open the door and lead Isabel to his side.

When she arrived, he made his case.

Leave, he told her.

Run away and find safety someplace else.

He even handed her a bag of gold and told her to use it to take care of herself while he was gone.

But Isabel didn't take the news well.

She felt as though William were trying to abandon her, that he was essentially breaking up with her and using his impending military tour as an excuse.

She screamed and threw the coins back at him and ranted about his motives.

and then ran back into the secret staircase inside the open closet, closed the door, and vanished from sight.

They say that he was gone for a full year, far longer than he'd expected.

In his absence, the very thing that he feared might happen did.

Miranda, the only keeper of his secret, became sick and died.

Legend says that on her deathbed, she tried to tell the others about Isabel, but everyone thought it was just the madness of a dying woman.

Weeks later, William Axtel rode up the path to his beautiful estate and entered his home for the first time in a year.

His wife welcomed him home.

His adopted niece Eliza Shipton did the same.

And then they led him to the banquet hall where a gathering of friends waited for him.

And the moment he walked through that door, the party began.

But it wasn't all laughter and joy.

Axtel kept glancing at the closet door beside the fireplace.

He longed to hold Isabel.

to kiss her and hear her voice.

But something was troubling him.

He had seen no sign of Miranda since arriving at the house.

The legend tells us that Axtel got up from his seat at one point in the night and ran across the house to the slave's quarters.

There, he was greeted with the terrifying news that Miranda had passed away weeks before.

And that's when panic fully gripped his heart.

He staggered back into the banquet hall and wandered slowly through the gathering of people.

They were laughing and singing and talking joyfully, but he couldn't hear it anymore.

All he could think about was Isabel and that secret room that had become her prison.

And that's when the impossible happened.

Every single candle in the room went out.

At first, everything was dark, but then a subtle glow began to illuminate the edges of the room.

One newspaper from 1886 described it as a sickly glowworm light.

Then, The sounds began.

They were soft at first, low and distant, as if they were coming from a great distance.

Then, just as they exploded in volume, the closet burst open and the secret door swung outward.

That 1886 article also described the woman who stepped out as ashen pale, each vein strongly defined on the emaciated features, her long black hair hung drooping over her shoulders to the floor, and she seemed clad in airy gossamer.

She didn't walk, so much as glide, and she headed straight toward William Axtel.

The room was silent.

Every eye was on this strange new visitor.

But maybe they were frightened.

Perhaps they were waiting to see if this macabre performance would end in applause, or maybe they were under some sort of spell.

Whatever the reason, not a single sound could be heard as the pale shape came to a stop just inches from their host.

The woman lifted her hand, a single finger extended, and aimed it at Axtel's face.

And then she opened her mouth and uttered a single, chilling word.

Betrayer, she said.

And then the glow vanished, leaving them all in pitch darkness.

When candles were brought in and lit, the guests found no sign of the pale woman in the room, but they did see something else.

Axtel was sprawled out on the floor, eyes closed and body motionless.

He was moved to his bedroom almost immediately, and a doctor was called to the house.

But the legend tells us it was too little, too late.

Colonel William Axtel, they say, died that very night.

In places as old and sprawling as New York City, history is bound to get buried beneath the bustle of everyday life.

The tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory evolved into a watershed moment for labor reform and working conditions.

The burial vaults and shallow graves of Washington Park have given way to beauty and art and culture that practically pulses with life.

History slips away.

It fades into the backs of our minds, much the same way it sinks beneath our feet.

Humans are good at a lot of things, but forgetting is one of our crowning achievements.

But there are always clues, if you know where to look for them.

Colonel William Axtel was a real person.

In fact, if you visit the Met today, you can see him.

There's a painting of him hanging in Gallery 747.

He commissioned it in the 1750s, just before moving into Melrose Hall, and it hung there for years.

But as it turns out, William Axtel didn't die that night in the banquet hall of his home.

The tides of war turned against the British, and by 1782, Axtel had packed up his family and returned to England.

He died there in 1795, and there were no reports of ghosts at his deathbed.

Stories can be tricky, it seems.

Sometimes they're rooted in fantasy, in events that never happened at all.

Other times, they sprout from truth like a sapling and take on a shape and a life of their own.

Stories grow, they evolve and shift with the passing of time, but the truth is always there, even if it's buried beneath centuries of hearsay.

Melrose Hall passed from hand to hand over the years that followed.

In a bit of irony, the first couple to take ownership after the Axtells left was their own adopted niece, Elizabeth Shipton, and her new husband, an American military officer named Aquila Giles.

In 1880, the house was purchased by Dr.

Homer Bartlett and he felt it was time for some changes.

An entire neighborhood had grown up around the property in the centuries since the Axtels had left, so he had the main house lifted up and moved 400 feet farther back from the road, and it was a change that came with some casualties.

All of the external buildings were torn down, as were a number of the ancient trees.

The biggest loss of all, though, was the left wing of the house, which Bartlett decided was no longer necessary.

But right before they moved it, Melrose Hall gave up one final secret.

While searching the structure for valuables worth saving, someone discovered a secret chamber.

After grabbing a light and venturing inside, they made a grisly discovery: it was a skeleton, many decades old and covered in dust.

The skeleton, they say,

of a woman.

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This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research help from Marcette Crockett.

Lore is much more than a podcast.

There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released.

Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both.

Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.

You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.

And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

When you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi.

And as always, thanks for listening.

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