City of fear
Beware, gentle reader, chills await in places unexpected
The Boston area can be quite frightening, especially because everything around town is so old. But some local spots are scary for inexplicable reasons.
Murderous traffic, killer housing costs, heart-stopping sports teams - these are among Boston's well-known fear factors. But to celebrate Halloween, we asked some notable locals to name their own private terrors, things around town that give them goosebumps. Some of their answers may surprise you.
"One of the creepiest places I've been around here is the basement of the Somerville Theatre (not the movie theaters, the old basement where folks used to be able to put on their makeup). It's just dark and cramped and seems full of movement of things you can't see. I also get a very creepy feeling in the [Harvard University] Widener Library stacks - the remote ones, and where you can see down below the floor."
— Lesley Bannatyne, author of "Witches' Night Before Halloween."
"It's ... eerie to walk in the [Prudential] late at night ... It's so different from how it is during the day, and it almost seems like the ghosts of people remain behind. The stark white naked mannequins waiting to get their clothes changed don't help either!"
— Skye Schulte, artist and founder, Boston Martini Society
"Riverside has a ghost called Esmerelda. She has a special chair in the theatre, and if fresh flowers are not placed on [it] the nights of shows she will make lights not work, stop sound playing, or worse, if anyone sits in her chair, in the middle of the show, equipment stops working. Many here have felt her presence and have seen what she can do."
— Melissa Williams, executive director, Riverside Theatre Works in Hyde Park
"The new condos built on the old Man Ray lot. Every time I pass by I feel the cocktail-infused spirits of Goths dancing down the street."
— Kristin Bredimus, Boston Music Awards
"'Gates of Hell' at Maudslay [State Park]. They're the old gates to the estate, beautiful wrought iron, huge - and they're legendary in Newburyport."
—Melissa Day Vokey, Massachusetts Audubon Society
"The costume shop at Boston Ballet is also a fabulously eerie place since it is full of many fun and also some pretty creepy costumes, wigs, and props from our many productions."
— Mikko Nissinen, artistic director, Boston Ballet
"The three-story, arched, cathedral-like structure on Harrison Avenue near Waltham Street, now used for parking. It looks like the site of some ancient ritual."
— Gary Duehr, artist
"OK, I'll admit it: It's been 17 years since I moved from London to Boston and every single time I've tried to drive through the magnetic field of the admittedly beautiful and yes-of course-Olmstead-was-a-genius Emerald Necklace I get hopelessly lost and come out completely rattled. It's unearthly: Up is down, east is west, all roads lead to the same tree and I'm never where I expect to be when I exit. Sign posting in Massachusetts is notoriously bad, along the 'if you don't know we're not going to tell you' line, but the whirly-swirly loops of that stretch of Boston/Brookline/JP/West Roxbury are just mystifying. Give me a day in the Bermuda Triangle or the Twilight Zone anytime over 15 minutes in the Emerald Necklace!"
— Elizabeth Taylor-Mead, associate director, Coolidge Corner Theatre
"The bathroom at [the bar] the Boston Eagle."
— Doug Palardy, owner, Motley in the South End
"The place that creeps me out is the alley of the S.S. Pierce building on Harvard Street. It has this brick archway where the old horse and carriage came into the loading areas. It's dark, mysterious, and has old history. It looks like a scene from Jack the Ripper."
— Joe Zina, executive director, Coolidge Corner Theatre
"On the corner of Church Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square is the Old Burying Ground, a cemetery from the 1700s. It's pretty creepy. It's the view from my office window! One day I got locked in there by accident when some workers padlocked the gates while I was walking around! I don't step foot in that place now."
— Susan Scotti, PR and marketing coordinator, Club Passim
"Evergreen Cemetery right next to BC."
— Stephen Gionta, Lowell Devils player and Boston College graduate
Meredith Goldstein's column on going out runs on Wednesdays. She can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com. 