HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Horror author H.P. Lovecraft lived in this Brooklyn Heights building from late 1924 to April 1926, writing 'The Horror at Red Hook' and describing the building as 'a dead, vampire creature which sucked something out of those within it.'
169 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The building is a private residential address. Exterior viewing from the public sidewalk only. Drive-by literary pilgrimage site.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat Brooklyn Heights sidewalk
Equipment
Photos OK
H.P. Lovecraft residence, late December 1924 – April 1926 · Written here: 'The Horror at Red Hook' (Weird Tales, 1927) · Lovecraft's letters describe the building in terms borrowed directly into his horror fiction · Documented in Poets & Writers Literary Places database · Brooklyn Heights literary pilgrimage site
Howard Phillips Lovecraft arrived in New York City in 1924, drawn by his marriage to Sonia Greene, a Ukrainian immigrant and fellow amateur press enthusiast whom he had met through a convention. When Greene relocated to Cincinnati for business in 1924, Lovecraft stayed behind in New York, eventually settling into a first-floor apartment at 169 Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights, on New Year's Eve 1924. He paid a modest rent and subsisted largely on bread, cheese, and canned beans.
The two-year period at 169 Clinton Street was among the most productive and miserable of his life. He was robbed in May 1925, losing most of his clothing. He found the poverty, the urban density, and the demographic shift of 1920s Brooklyn profoundly unsettling. His friend and fellow amateur press enthusiast George Kirk, a bookseller, lived above him, and the two communicated by banging on the pipes. Poet Samuel Loveman lived nearby at 78 Columbia Heights.
The most significant work Lovecraft produced at 169 Clinton Street was 'The Horror at Red Hook,' written over two days while in residence and published in Weird Tales in 1927. Lovecraft explicitly stated the story drew from his walks through Red Hook and his alienated reactions to the neighborhood's immigrant working population. His letters describe the building itself with the language he would use for fictional haunted places: 'I conceived the idea that the great brownstone house was a malignly sentient thing — a dead, vampire creature which sucked something out of those within it.' He also wrote of 'the vast thing lying subterrenely in obnoxious slumber' beneath it.
Lovecraft departed for Providence in April 1926, describing his New York years as a kind of exile. Despite calling the city a 'pest zone' in an unmailed letter found after his death, he reflected in 1936 on the period with surprising warmth, recalling 'the long informal sessions' and 'the bookshops and the tours of exploration.' The building is documented in Poets & Writers' Literary Places database and is a recognized stop on Brooklyn Heights literary walks.
Sources
The paranormal tradition at 169 Clinton Street is essentially a literary ghost story: the building's reputation rests entirely on Lovecraft's own written descriptions of it as a sentient, malevolent structure, applied in reverse to suggest his spirit remains there. A New York Post piece, cited in various Brooklyn haunted-places roundups, describes modern tenants reporting objects falling and disappearing, unexplained noises, and persistent bad dreams — phenomena attributed to 'Lovecraft's unhappy ghost.'
The sourcing trail for these accounts leads back to tabloid and aggregator coverage rather than named witnesses with specific accounts. The Brokelyn 'unofficial Brooklyn ghost roundup' notes the building in this context; the BKMAG and Runstreet haunted Brooklyn lists include it. No paranormal investigation with documented methodology has been published for this address.
The building's actual dark history is more interesting than invented haunting: Lovecraft's letters from this address document his psychological unraveling in a city he found hostile and alien, his poverty, his isolation, and the racialized dread that fed his most xenophobic fiction. He was describing his apartment as a vampire when he was living in it. The ghost lore is essentially his own metaphor, recycled.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The building at 169 Clinton Street is a documented stop on Brooklyn Heights literary and dark history walks. Lovecraft occupied the first-floor apartment from late December 1924 to April 1926; exterior visible from the public sidewalk.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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