The Most Haunted Places in New York

Ranked

1. 

   1. Merchant's House Museum New York · Museum / Historical Site · Family Comfort: High

   Built in 1832 by hatter Joseph Brewster, this rowhouse was bought in 1835 by merchant Seabury Tredwell, whose youngest daughter Gertrude was born there in 1840 and lived in it for ninety-three years until her death in 1933. The New York Times has called it Manhattan's most haunted building. Witnesses describe a woman in a brown period dress moving through the parlors, along with piano music, conversation, and footsteps in the empty house.

   4 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1933-2014 · retold in 3 later publications

2. 

   2. Rolling Hills Asylum (Genesee County Home and Infirmary) East Bethany · Asylum / Hospital · Family Comfort: Low

   Rolling Hills Asylum opened in 1827 as the Genesee County Poorhouse, housing orphans, the elderly poor, and people with mental illness on a working farm; it became a county infirmary in 1938 and a nursing home in 1964 before closing in 1974, with more than 1,700 deaths documented on the property. The building reopened in 1992 as a paranormal-tourism site. Investigators report footsteps, voices, and slamming doors in the nurses' quarters on the third floor.

   3 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1826-1958 · retold in 9 later publications

3. 

   3. Yaddo Saratoga Springs · Haunted House / Historic Home · Family Comfort: High Private, not open to visitors

   Yaddo, a 55-room mansion on a 400-acre estate, was bought in 1881 by Spencer Trask and his wife Katrina, whose four children all died young. The original house burned in 1891; the Trasks rebuilt, and in 1900 Spencer endowed the estate as an artists' retreat that welcomed its first residents in 1926. Resident artists report a woman in white on the staircase, identified by many as Katrina, along with children's laughter and impressions on beds.

   5 original accounts · documented across 4 decades, 1984-2024 · retold in 1 later publication

4. 

   4. Manhattan Well (129 Spring Street) New York · Haunted House / Historic Home · Family Comfort: High

   In the well now preserved beneath 129 Spring Street, the body of 22-year-old Gulielma Sands was found strangled on January 2, 1800. Carpenter Levi Weeks was tried for her murder and acquitted in under five minutes, defended jointly by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. After the well was rediscovered in 1980, tenants reported bottles falling and doors opening on their own, and the current retailer's staff report electrical malfunctions attributed to Sands.

   3 original accounts · documented across 3 decades, 1829-1990 · retold in 5 later publications

5. 

   5. Canfield Casino Saratoga Springs · Museum / Historical Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

   John Morrissey built the Canfield Casino in 1870 as a gambling club that Richard Canfield ran until reformers shut it down in 1907; the city bought the building for a museum in 1911. The third floor preserves rooms of the Walworth family, including nurse Reubena Hyde Walworth, who died of typhoid in 1898 while caring for soldiers. Staff and visitors report a woman in white believed to be Reubena, and the smell of cigar smoke.

   3 original accounts · documented across 1 decade, 2010-2019 · retold in 9 later publications

6. 

   6. Palace Theatre New York · Theater / Performance Venue · Family Comfort: High

   The Palace Theatre opened at 1564 Broadway in March 1913 for vaudeville impresario Martin Beck, later staged Judy Garland's record-breaking 19-week run beginning in October 1951, and reopened in 2024 after a renovation raised the auditorium 30 feet for ground-floor retail. Acrobat Louis Bossalina fell 18 feet during a performance on August 28, 1935 in front of roughly 800 people; contemporary reports claimed he had died in the fall, but he survived and lived until 1963. Reports describe a white-clad figure repeating the fall through the 1980s and possibly into the 1990s, and during a 2011 revival an actor reported hearing a disembodied voice call out a name linked to Garland.

   2 original accounts · documented across 5 decades, 1935-2011 · retold in 4 later publications

7. 

   7. Landmark Theatre Syracuse · Theater / Performance Venue · Family Comfort: High

   The Landmark Theatre opened in February 1928 as Loew's State Theatre, a 2,908-seat movie palace designed by Thomas W. Lamb, and narrowly escaped demolition in 1977 before community activists rescued it as a live-performance venue. An actress remembered as Clarissa is reported to have fallen to her death from a balcony around 1930, in some tellings after witnessing her boyfriend's electrocution and in others after simply fainting over the railing. Workers and guests report a pale figure in a white dress accompanied by the scent of lilac perfume.

   2 original accounts · documented across 2 decades, 1930-1960

8. 

   8. Shanley Hotel Napanoch · Haunted Hotel / Inn · Family Comfort: Low

   The Shanley Hotel was rebuilt in 1895 after fire destroyed the original 1845 building, and under owner James Shanley it housed a gentlemen's club and, during Prohibition, a speakeasy that federal agents raided in 1932. The proprietress lost three infant children between 1912 and 1916, and separately, a hotel barber's three-year-old daughter drowned in a well across the road in 1911. Guests report a woman in period dress and floral perfume moving through the upper hallways, a child's voice heard in the corridors, and a bootlegger's presence still checking dark corners for the liquor confiscated in the 1932 raid.

   4 original accounts · documented in 2005

9. 

   9. Morris-Jumel Mansion New York · Museum / Historical Site · Family Comfort: High

   Built in 1765 for Colonel Roger Morris, this Washington Heights mansion is Manhattan's oldest house and served as George Washington's headquarters in 1776. Later owners Stephen and Eliza Jumel saw Stephen die in 1832 under disputed circumstances; Eliza married Aaron Burr in 1833 and divorced him the day he died in 1836. Visitors report Eliza in a violet dress on the staircase, a figure schoolchildren said shushed them from the balcony in 1964.

   3 original accounts · documented in 1960 · retold in 4 later publications

10. 10. The Arcade Building Saratoga Springs · Other Dark Tourism Site · Family Comfort: Moderate

    HauntBound identified two distinct published accounts at this documented site, across six kinds of published source. Two later publications retell those accounts. Reported phenomena include a sensed presence and apparitions.

    Documented since 1907 · 6 independent sources · 3 media mentions

Superlatives