Latest / Places of DK / Halloween Episode!

Transcript

Halloween Episode! · Places of DK

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of Places of Decay.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is the end of October, and you know what that means.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's Halloween.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's that time for trick-or-treating.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Putting up all the decorations and carving those pumpkins to make some jack-o'-lanterns.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And spooky ghost stories.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, I think it's enough of the suspenseful music.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Are we gonna keep doing this?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, alright, enough of that.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jeez, I'm gonna fire my sound technician.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are going to talk about two spooky, haunted places that I have been to.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a little bit of experience being there.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first one being the ERN in New York City, which we spoke about, which I spoke about on the previous podcast about the, you know, your first time if you're going to New York.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is the place to hit.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't, if you haven't listened to that one yet, you can listen to it afterwards.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was pretty good.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second place we're going to talk about is in Asheville, North Carolina.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Asheville's not spooky itself.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love Asheville.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to do an episode on Asheville in the future.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a a place called the Grove Park Inn where I have stayed a couple of times, and it is haunted.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to talk a little bit about that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into that, as I was putting this together, I started to reminisce about Halloween when I was a child.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: We lived just outside of Detroit when I was kindergarten through sixth grade.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, prime trick-or-treating times.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about trick-or-treating, that is where my memory goes back.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, I would start to think about, all right, what did I what did I wear?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I realized?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: These kids today, they they have the they have great costumes and and and they have fabric that that breathes and they can be sort of creative.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I had?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: My parents took me to Kmart and they're like, all right, which of those costumes do you want?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: They were all made of like plastic, like with a the the mask was was plastic with this sort of fragile white elastic band that was super uncomfortable on the back, and then and then your your quote unquote costume was just this sort of vinyl smock.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I do remember one year I went as the Hulk.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think I went as Superman.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now now you gotta realize all you you you people that have grown up with all the Marvel stuff over the last you know 10-15 years, the Hulk and Superman and Spider-Man and Wonder Woman, they they were not they were not that cool back then.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean they were.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: There were cartoons and there were comics, but not like they are now.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I I'm pretty sure one year I was a Hulk, one year I was Superman.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this was Detroit, end of October.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I always recall it being very dark and windy, typically raining, not like a downpour, just like a really is there a thing as a strong mist?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was a very strong mist, and I and and the masks, they they had eye holes, but they were they were super little and you could barely see out, and then you just got hot and sweaty from this this vinyl smock that you're wearing, and my dad took us around.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: My brother and I with their friends.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just remember my dad always had like like a Budweiser in his hand, and he's not really paying attention to us.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But those are my memories, they're great.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I I wouldn't wish it any other way.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and the other thing is so this is the 70s, mid, mid and into the late 70s, and there were there were always like three houses that scared the hell out of me because they you knew they were gonna try and scare you.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And nowadays, you know, you know where the scary houses are, and sometimes there'll be somebody out there like trying to do something super scary.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if a little kid comes up, again nowadays, you know, they they kind of either take off the mask or they don't make it as scary and give them some candy.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, not in the 70s.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, I there I remember this one specific house, and I I knew the guy was gonna jump out with an axe.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing I don't think it was a fake axe.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think he actually had an axe.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: A real axe.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe nobody at least lost a digit, but I was always scared to go up there.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: One one, I think when I got really brave when I was in sixth grade, I walked up.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I almost soiled my pants because the dude jumped out of another bush and scared me to death.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But from what I recall, they gave out really good candy, so maybe it was worth it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing in Detroit, and I think this still goes on, October 30th.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the obviously the day before Halloween, they call it Devil's Night.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently that's free rain to go all around Detroit in the Detroit area to either burn things and just you know destroy personal property.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I recall there was one year that somebody came and took, I think it was actually crayons, and they they just wrote a bunch of stuff on our our garage door.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad got so mad that the next year, talk, I talked about the guy with the axe in the bush.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, my dad hid in a bush on October 30th with a with our garden hose.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he saw two kids approaching our house and he sprayed them right in the face.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We did not get a crayon on our garage door.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I you know, I missed.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad I grew up in the 70s.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good times.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, something that maybe wasn't great in the 70s, and I don't know if this was like a national epidemic.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I was a kid, but there was this must have been like 77, 78, and there was this whole thing going around that people were putting razor blades into candy bars.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why anybody would do that?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I have a feeling?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one person did it, and then it just ran rampant everywhere.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this was before social media, so it was all just you know, moms and dads talking to each other, like, oh, we got to protect our kids from you know biting into a Snickers, and there's a razor blade.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Who would do this?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a big thing.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, quick note I think this must have been like 1978, and for whatever reason, you got to think about TV back then.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You there weren't many options to see sporting events, but I kind of started to get into baseball and they started to show more.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was at yeah, he was at the Yankees at then.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Reggie Jackson.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I love Reggie Jackson.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: He'd get on TV, he'd have interviews, he's like boisterous.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I like, I like, I like that guy.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a candy bar came out called the Reggie Bar.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I so desperately wanted a Reggie Bar, as luck would have it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm gonna guess this is 78.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I got a Reggie Bar, super excited, got home, laid out all the candy, but oh no, no, because there might be razor blades in the candy.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: My parents were friends with a policeman, and the whole thing was, and I think and I think I I know other families did this.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: The policeman came, he took all of our candy and took it to the low local precinct so they could x-ray all the candy before we could enjoy it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, the chances of a razor blade being in your candy bar were pretty high.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Candy came back.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Reggie bar, gone.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody ate it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was that cop.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: May have been, but somebody ate it, and I am now in my 50s.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is 2026, and I will never forget losing my beloved Regibar.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, enough of my tales of woe.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Mickey the Ghost at the Ear Inn in New York City and the Pink Lady who is at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so the ear in, if you listen to the previous episode, you'll hear a little bit more of the history, but it was built around 1770 for a man named James Brown.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: The guy that helped get it built was George Washington because James Brown was an aide to George Washington.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And after the years when he had passed, the the building became a tavern, then it became a brothel, then it became more of a sort of a prohibition speakeasy.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's had you know a lot of iterations over the last say 250 years.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So with that much history, no surprise that yeah, it might be a little haunted.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it is located in sort of the Soho West Houston Street area.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's on it's on Spring Street, and over the years has had many sailors and bootleggers and poets who have all visited.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the one thing they and I think I mentioned this on the previous episode is that if you go to the ear in right now, it is it's it's on the it's on the west side.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And not you can sort of see the Hudson River, but Hudson River used to only be about I think it was five feet or five yards away from where where the this location is.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, they built up Manhattan over the years, so just something to think about when you put it in your mind's eye about this old building.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a bar at this point in time that we're gonna talk about, and very close to the Hudson River.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so time to talk about our ghost.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Mickey, don't know his last name, not Rooney, not Mouse.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But lore has it that Mickey was he loved the ear in.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, not apparently more than I do.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: But he would frequent it every time he was a sailor, and every time he came into port, he would go straight to the ear in.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's there's a there's a couple of conflicting stories on how he passed.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: One of them was he stumbled out of the tavern one evening, intoxicated, and stepped on right on a spring street and was struck and killed by a passing vehicle.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I should say there's three.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Another one, very somewhat similar, is that he was stumbling drunk and didn't realize how close he was to the river, fell in, he was passed out, and he drowned.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Another one is that he was so happy after a long time at sea, he rushed to the bar, he sat at his favorite stool, and he drank hard liquor until he died right on that bar stool.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So patrons and employees swear that Mickey still haunts the ear in, but he's he's he's a playful ghost.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the reports are that he is known like for lighthearted and cheeky mischief, such as poking or quote unquote goosing the the wait staff, primarily the female guests.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: At the uh above the the bar, there is a residence, and sometimes people stay up there, and people have recounted waking up and finding a very strange person sliding into bed with them where they just feel the the mattress just go down.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would not gonna lie, that that would that would freak me out quite a bit.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And one year when I was there, oh another thing that they do is and and and apparently this happens even up till now is that people swear that they put their beer down, they put their drink down, and they look away for a moment and have their drinks gone.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the bar staff are like, I didn't do it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: People around them say they didn't do it, but they just see it go down.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So apparently, uh yeah, Mickey, Mickey has a hollow leg.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mickey likes to still drink in the afterlife.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And wrapping this up again, this is not this is not a super spooky one.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can lay your you can let your little kids listen to this podcast.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let them listen to this.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But one year I I did ask one of the employees after I had heard about this.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was down in the cellar and coming back, bringing some, you know, either I think it was some food back up, and I was like, hey, it is how long have you been here?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Ah, about a year and a half.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, this guy, Mickey, is this is this real?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, he's a pain in the ass.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he just walked away.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I think he's I think he's messing with me.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably just some extra lore, but but apparently, people working late upstairs often hear these like disembodied footsteps pacing up and down the uh the the stairs and the empty hallways, doors opening and closing on their own, and strange shadows moving across the walls.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I did read an account from I think it was about 15 years ago, where a guest was staying upstairs and they reported seeing a silent, tall apparition standing quietly in the corner of the room at night before vanishing into the dark.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: All right, on to Asheville, North Carolina and the Grove Park Inn.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So a little bit of the history on the hotel.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I I do want to do an episode on Asheville, but the hotel it opened in 1913.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was built by a gentleman by the name of Edwin Wiley Grove, and he had made all of his money selling Groves tasteless chill tonic, essentially.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was he just sold stuff to people to make them feel better.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: But he was from, I forget where he was originally from.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about that on the Asheville one.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: But he had moved to Asheville for sort of the the crisp, cool air.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: He had made a lot of money and he wanted to buy build a retreat for people who were ailing.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have like I said, I've been there.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: This hotel, it is beautiful.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the the original hotel, it's just made of this beautiful stone.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's up on a hill.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you look at the hotel from from the distance, looking up at it, it kind of reminds me of the shining.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it gives a little bit of spookiness to it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they since then they they've added some some they've added a spa, they have a nice golf course, they have extra rooms that are not in the historical section, but it's it's a really cool hotel.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you walk in to the lobby, there is this massive, massive fireplace that you could walk into.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's that big.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're there in the in the cooler months in the winter, the fires that they they have in the in the the lobby, it's it's amazing.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there have been people over the year, many presidents have have stayed there.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas Edison stayed there, F.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Scott Fitzgerald, he probably drank everybody out of the bar.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Henry Ford, so it's a very well-known older hotel.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so the legend of the pink lady.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: This dates back to the 1920s, so not too long after the the hotel had had opened.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at it, and I did I did some research, I got on the internet, but there's no official name for this person, so hey, maybe this is folklore, but I'll get I'll get to something here in a minute.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: But they they figured that she was a debutante attending a dance, or possibly a mistress staying at the hotel for a secret rendezvous.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, scandalous.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But apparently what happened, there was a fall.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So she was staying on the fifth floor of the main inn in room 545.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Had on a pink ball ground, ball ground, pink ball gown, and for whatever reason, she fell to her death from the fifth floor balcony, overlooking the lobby below.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Bunch of people saw it.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrific.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody knew, still doesn't know, still don't know if it was an accidental sort of tumble over the the stone wall, or if she was going through something and in grief, just flung herself over from a failed love affair, or something, or maybe it was more sinister.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe somebody pushed her.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, much like Mickey from the Earn, she's more of a playful, kind ghost.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's been many reports of when when well when people see her, it's more of a sort of this pink mist that they see.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes occasionally it's a it's like a full, it looks like a fully formed woman, sometimes just you know, more of a well, like I said, a mist.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: People that occasionally stay in that room, 545, report minor little pranks like flights, lights uh flicking on and off, and the room temperature changing, you know, going suddenly hot to suddenly cold, doors opening.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that wouldn't freak me out.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would freak me out.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's also many reports that I saw about her interactions with children that many parents come up to staff afterwards, or I've left notes saying, hey, thank you so much to the nice lady in the pink dress for playing with our children unaware that there is no such staff member at the hotel.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what got me was I so for this is many years ago, it must have been like early early 2000s.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I used to go to a work event, it was there every other year, and there was one guy who I knew, apparently not well because I don't remember his name, but he requested to stay in this room, and I was like, Yeah, whatever.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: We were all kind of joking at the bar.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the next morning he came down to breakfast and he was he was he looked a little shaken.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Well, hey, what's going on?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I tried, I was sleeping, and I just felt this weight come on the the lower end of my mattress, and it just woke him up, and then all of a sudden he said a couple of lights came on, and then he went back to sleep.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the morning, he was taking a shower, door door to the bathroom was open into the room, and as he got out to take his towel, he saw a person staring at him, and it freaked him out.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: He thought maybe hotel staff was in there, ran back out, and there was nobody there.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: He told us, he swore to us that this was true, but he was a bit of a jokester, so I wasn't 100% sure, still not a hundred percent sure.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: He he he he he asked some of the the staff to come over and to corroborate sort of what he saw, and they're like, Oh, yeah, that happens all the time.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think he paid him off, but maybe he didn't.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, and that is it for our first inaugural Halloween episode.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoyed it.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe next year we get a little more creepy.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: This wasn't that creepy, but I didn't have a lot of time.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is I do this on the weekends.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just needed to get something out.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: So hope you guys enjoyed it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really bad way to sell this podcast.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: But but if you just happen to stumble on this because you're like, hey, I like Halloween stuff, go back and listen to my other episodes.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have four other ones, and then, oh, here, here, next week, I have a guest.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: First time I've had a guest.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, please uh subscribe just so it pops up in your your in your podcast, and then you don't have to listen to it right away.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can listen to it when you want.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, that's it.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Halloween, everybody.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to you soon.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.