Alternate Perceptions Magazine, March 2026
Haunted High Jinks
Random Occurances
By: Bernie O’Connor
2/9/2026
These are just random memories from the apartment house I grew up in.
SETTING THE STAGE:
The apartment I grew up in was on the top floor of a five-story walk-up. The building is still there on Ninth Avenue. It is in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. It was what is called a railroad apartment. This is because the rooms are in a straight line. The living room faces Ninth Avenue, and the other rooms run in a straight line with the bathroom being the last room and looks out onto a backyard. It consisted of a bathroom, kitchen, dining area, two bedrooms, leading to the living room.
Paranormal activity took place through the whole apartment, but most of the activity occurred in the living room. There were no babies in the buildings, but often we would hear a baby crying in the living room. Sometimes the crying sounded very far away, other times it was as if there was a baby in the room. Besides hearing a baby crying, we would hear voices, sometime mumbling, other times it was as if several people were having a conversation, but we couldn’t make out the words. At certain times, you would get the feeling that someone was watching you. There were various reoccurring cold spots throughout the apartment. I would be playing in the living room and all of a sudden, I would get this sense that someone was behind me. I would turn around and get a cold chill. The rooms had lights in the ceiling with pull chains. These lights would go on and off on their own. If you turned on the light, it would suddenly go off with the distinctive sound of the chain snapping the switch. The lights would also come on and off at night. I slept on the top bed of a bunk bed. My older sister slept on the bottom bed. I would lay on the top bed and watch the pull chain slowly begin to move back and forth. Eventually the chain would wind up spinning in a circle. Then it would stop and the light would snap on.
My mother woke up one night to see a figure moving through the rooms heading towards the living room. It was tall and looked like it was wearing a white shroud. It was sort of transparent. My mother asked “Who is that? ‘The figure turned and looked at her, then faded away. She couldn’t make out any features on the figure. Mom couldn’t sleep for a couple of nights after this encounter.
My aunt, who was married and lived in Brooklyn, claimed she would see a man sitting in a chair in the living room. She would see him with her peripheral vision, but when she looked at the chair, there was no one there. After she saw him a few times, she wouldn’t come to visit us anymore. This chair also had a habit of moving around on it own, as if someone was adjusting it for a better view.
The hallway would sometimes spook you when you were going up and down the stairs. Many times, my sister would run up the stairs, rush into kitchen and slam the door behind her as if something was chasing her. She would say “she suddenly felt spooked and had to get into the house.” The hallway also had cold spots on and off. Our dog, Tuffy, would sit at the edge of the kitchen and look towards the living room and whine. Often, he would refuse to go into the living room. If you carried him into the room, he would act restless, pace back and forth and finally run out of the room.
One of the most annoying occurrences was what we called the “Night Knockers.” In the middle of the night, something would knock on the front door and continue until you opened the door, but no one was ever there. This was sort of funny, because the neighbors would fight with other neighbors blaming them for being the knockers. The neighbors also shared stories of odd things going on in their apartments. Some of them asked Catholic priests to come in and bless their apartments. I remember my mother sprinkling Holy Water though the rooms. My mother’s father and mother also lived in the same building. She woke up one night and a thin white fog came down on her. At first, she was scared and though she was going to be smothered. Suddenly it was gone and she thought it was a dream. A week later the ceiling collapsed in the bedroom with big chunks of plaster landing on the bed. This happened during the day. If it had happened at night, it would have been a disaster. Minor occurrences, which are common in hauntings, would be happening all the time. Things would disappear and show up in other rooms, glasses would be pushed off a table. Just mainly minor annoyances, really. Sort of just to remind you that “something” was visiting you.
The rumor throughout the building was that it was built on an old graveyard. In the mid-eighties I met a gentleman who worked for the City of New York in the Landmarks and Preservation’s Department. I told him about the building on Ninth Avenue and he was intrigued. He also had access to maps going back to when New York was called New Amsterdam. He looked up the tract of land the building was located on to learn its history. But there never was any evidence of a graveyard at any time being in the area. The only thing he suggested was that at one time, especially in the rural areas, people buried family members on their property. There were no formal graveyards way back when. So, to how the rumor got started as the house being built on a graveyard is anybody’s guess.
In the next issue of Alternate Perceptions, Bernard O’Connor shares a chilling field investigation he was once involved in. The article is entitled “The Devil is in the Details.” You won’t want to miss this one either.
