Chicago boasts rich history of ghost stories and spooky lore ahead of Halloween
CHICAGO - The Gangsters and Ghosts Tour of Chicago was ranked the second spookiest in the country this month by TripAdvisor.
With Halloween approaching, there seems to be an increased energy around your usual haunts.
People who have experienced a haunting say it’s an unsettling feeling.
Kai Kwiatkowski has.
She is a trained historian and tour guide for Gangsters and Ghosts and says people describe the feeling as a heaviness in their chest, the air around them feels heavy, a clamminess — a general feeling that something isn’t right.
Hauntings can happen in the busiest places, such as the Magnificent Mile, where Fort Dearborn once stood and where the massacre of 1812 occurred. Thousands of people walk by the small marker in the sidewalk every day.
The alley behind what is now the Nederlander Theatre is known to be haunted. In 1903, 602 people died in the Iroquois Theatre fire.
These days, workers say they still hear the screams. They nicknamed the space "Death Alley."
"We've been on a lot of ghost tours at home. We thought it would be nice to compare," said a tourist from Savannah, Georgia – another city known for ghosts and spirits.
Then there’s the Eastland Disaster, when 844 people died without setting sail. The loaded ship rolled over on the Chicago River in 1915. Entire families died.
Kwiatkowski says Chicago is known for its crime and gangster history. But ghost history has been on the rise.
Chicago’s architecture and gangster history combine naturally to make this a haunted city. But if you want to know another Chicago connection to ghostly encounters, it’s in the pizza.
Paulie Gee’s in Logan Square is known for gourmet pizza and a haunting that was captured on video this month.
A bartender opened the place early, alone. She heard a loud crash and a man’s voice. She saw silverware out of place. No one was around. The temperature dropped drastically, she says it felt like 40 degrees inside. She told the owner, Derrick Tung, and he checked his security camera recordings. The video was posted on Instagram.
Knives can be seen tumbling off of a shelf. But the bartender says the crash she heard was much louder.
She told FOX 32 that she worked up her courage and said outloud, "I know we share this space but I need it for the next couple hours and you’re being very distracting, please respect my time right now."
She said the temperature returned to normal and the noises stopped. No one at Paulie Gee’s knows if something historical happened in their restaurant. It is an old building, located at 2451 N. Milwaukee Ave. Put it on the list of places that make Chicago a cult favorite.