Haunted Houses & Ghost Tours in New York, NY

The history

New York's haunted map is anchored by two museum houses, one at each end of Manhattan's surviving past, and by a burial ground hiding under a famous park.

The older anchor stands in Washington Heights. The Morris-Jumel Mansion's own history page records that the house was built in 1765 for the Morris family, on land the museum identifies as the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people; that it served as headquarters for General George Washington and, in turn, for British military and Hessian troops during the American Revolution; that after a period as a tavern, Stephen and Eliza Jumel purchased it in 1810 and renovated it; and that it became a museum in 1904. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it an Individual Landmark in 1967 and an Interior Landmark in 1975, per the museum, and it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The museum bills it, accurately on the collected record, as Manhattan's oldest surviving residence.

The second anchor is downtown. The Merchant's House Museum's own about page records that its house at 29 East Fourth Street was built in 1832 by Joseph Brewster — described by the museum as a fervent abolitionist who designed the house with a hidden passageway, making it, in the museum's account, Manhattan's only documented Underground Railroad site open to the public. In 1835 the house became home to the prosperous Tredwell merchant family and their Irish servants, who lived there for nearly a century, until 1933; the museum preserves more than 3,000 of their original belongings. The museum also records that the house was the first building designated in the borough of Manhattan after the Landmarks Preservation law passed in April 1965, and a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

The burial ground is Washington Square. New York Ghosts' own tour history, collected, recounts that the city purchased eight acres for a potter's field in 1797 and puts the number buried beneath today's Washington Square Park at over 20,000 — the operator's figure, given here at that strength. The same page names the disaster that anchors the Village's darker memory: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which its tour copy lists among the terrible incidents that "still haunt the city today"; the tour's booking listing summarises the fire as the death of nearly 150 people.

The legend

This section is folklore — reported by the sources cited, and never asserted as fact here.

The Merchant's House legend belongs to its last resident. The museum's own "Our Ghosts" page tells it in the museum's own words: Gertrude Tredwell, born in an upstairs bedroom in 1840, never married and lived her entire life in the house until she died, at 93, in 1933 — the last Tredwell before the house became a museum in 1936 — and "is thought to be watching over her family home." Since the 1930s, the museum says, staff, volunteers, visitors, neighbours and even passersby have reported "seeing, hearing, and smelling things that weren't there"; psychics and investigators came and went with inconclusive findings, the museum mounted its own investigation in 2006 with Historic Paranormal Investigations, and The New York Times has called the house "Manhattan's Most Haunted House." Village Preservation's haunted-history account, collected, adds the human story the legend is built on: a youthful love for Luis Walton that her father Seabury disapproved of — on grounds that account lists as his profession, his family's Catholic faith, and his Irish mother — after which Gertrude remained unmarried. US Ghost Adventures' write-up of the house adds the best-known anecdote, dated by that account to 1933: Gertrude's ghost "came rushing out the front door" to shoo children off the lawn. All of it is reported legend attached to a documented life, and it is labelled as such here.

Uptown, the Morris-Jumel legend belongs to Eliza Jumel. A CitySignal account collected calls her "The Madame of the Mansion," said to shush visitors who get too loud near 65 Jumel Terrace. A Metro account of the mansion's ghost hunts reports what visitors and employees say they have experienced: schoolchildren in a tour group pointing at Eliza's portrait and identifying her as the woman who had yelled at them; fingernails clicking on a pot in Eliza's room; basement doors opening and women laughing when nobody was downstairs; a heavy table moved; items shifting on the mantel — with the most activity reported in Eliza's and Aaron's chambers and the basement, in that account. The museum itself makes no such claims as fact: its paranormal page says only that the mansion "is perceived by many as a paranormal site."

Greenwich Village's folklore, as New York Ghosts tells it on its own tour page, is a catalogue of attributed reports: the "House of Death," a brownstone where, the operator says, twenty-two spirits including Mark Twain are trapped; the restaurant One If By Land, Two If By Sea, in Aaron Burr's former home, said by the operator to be prone to flickering lights and apparitions disrupting dinner; and an Edgar Allan Poe house where the operator says the spirits of Poe and his wife mingle with another presence. These are the tour's stories, told as the tour tells them — folklore, labelled as folklore.

Haunted today

Hountix lists 3 places in New York, NY. Seasonal attractions keep their own open dates, so check each business's own site before you go.

• Merchant's House Museum — haunted house, 29 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003
• Nightmare Dollhouse — haunted house, Teatro SEA at The Clemente, 107 Suffolk St, New York, NY 10002
• NYC Gangsters and Ghosts Tours — ghost tour, 24 Mulberry St, New York, NY 10013

Attraction stories

Merchant's House Museum

The museum's own account of itself is a preservation story first and a ghost story second. Its about page, collected, records a house built in 1832 by abolitionist Joseph Brewster with a hidden passageway — Manhattan's only documented Underground Railroad site open to the public, in the museum's telling — that became, in 1835, the home of Seabury Tredwell's prosperous merchant family and their four Irish servants. The family stayed nearly a century, and the museum keeps their home intact: over 3,000 original items, from Duncan Phyfe-attributed mahogany chairs to 39 dresses worn by the Tredwell women. It was the first building designated in Manhattan under the 1965 landmarks law and a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and it celebrated 85 years as a museum in 2021, per its own page.

The ghost story is the museum's own, published on its "Our Ghosts" page and attributed to it here in full. The Tredwells, the museum says, may never have left — Gertrude Tredwell in particular, born upstairs in 1840, dead in the house at 93 in 1933, "thought to be watching over her family home." Reports of unexplained sights, sounds and smells have accumulated since the 1930s from staff, volunteers, visitors, neighbours and passersby; the museum's own 2006 investigation, run with Historic Paranormal Investigations, is described by the museum as mounting evidence that "something is here," while earlier investigators' findings "have always been inconclusive." The museum sells a board member's compiled booklet of its ghost stories, Some Say They Never Left, and invites visitors who have an "experience" to add it to the roster. None of that is asserted as fact here — it is the museum's published account of its own legend, which is precisely what makes this the rare haunt whose lore comes with a named, checkable source.

Practically: the museum is at 29 East Fourth Street, and its own program listings include candlelight ghost tours (a 2026 series appears in its current program menu). Confirm current hours, admission and ghost-tour dates on the site before going.

*Website: https://merchantshouse.org/*

Sources

• Merchant's House Museum — official website, About/Mission page (built 1832 by Joseph Brewster; hidden passageway and Underground Railroad account; Tredwell family and Irish servants from 1835; 3,000+ item collection; first Manhattan landmark designation after the April 1965 law; National Historic Landmark 1966; 29 East Fourth Street; candlelight ghost tours in the museum's program menu): https://merchantshouse.org/
• Merchant's House Museum — "Our Ghosts" page (Gertrude Tredwell born 1840, died 1933, last Tredwell, museum from 1936; reports since the 1930s; 2006 investigation with Historic Paranormal Investigations; Some Say They Never Left booklet; "Manhattan's Most Haunted House" — The New York Times): https://merchantshouse.org/category/our-ghosts/
• Village Preservation — The Haunted History of the Merchant's House (house completed 1832; Gertrude born September 17, 1840; Luis Walton account and Seabury's disapproval; died 1933 at 93): https://villagepreservation.org/2026/10/02/the-haunted-history-of-the-merchants-house/
• NY Ghosts (US Ghost Adventures) — The Old Merchant's House (Gertrude anecdote dated 1933; family history as the operator tells it): https://nyghosts.com/old-merchants-house/
• Morris-Jumel Mansion — official website, About page (built 1765 for the Morris family; Washington and British/Hessian headquarters; Stephen and Eliza Jumel purchase 1810; museum 1904; Individual Landmark 1967, Interior Landmark 1975, National Register 1966; 65 Jumel Terrace; site banner: mansion temporarily closed, park open 10 a.m.–5 p.m.): http://www.morrisjumel.org/
• Morris-Jumel Mansion — Paranormal Historical Investigations page (public investigations September–April, 7–9:30 p.m., $65–$95, 18+, max 16, equipment provided; private investigations $750/$1,500; candlelight ghost tour on hold in 2026; featured-program list; "perceived by many as a paranormal site"): https://morrisjumel.org/programs/paranormal/
• Metro — Ghost hunting in Morris-Jumel Mansion, Manhattan's oldest house (reported experiences: portrait identification, sounds in Eliza's room, basement laughter, moved table; activity reported in Eliza's and Aaron's chambers and the basement; Miranda writing Hamilton in Burr's bedroom): https://www.metro.us/ghost-hunting-in-morris-jumel-mansion-manhattans-oldest-house/
• CitySignal — The Madame of the Morris-Jumel Mansion (Eliza "Madame" shushing account; 65 Jumel Terrace): https://www.citysignal.com/morris-jumel-mansion/
• NY Ghosts (US Ghost Adventures) — official website and New York Ghost Tour page (Washington Square potter's field 1797 and the operator's 20,000-burial figure; Triangle Shirtwaist fire in its hauntings history; House of Death, One If By Land Two If By Sea and Poe house accounts as the operator tells them; nightly 8 p.m. tour from $25 at the Washington Square Arch; pub crawl 7:30 p.m. from $29): https://nyghosts.com/new-york-ghost-tour/
• GetYourGuide listing for the New York City Chilling Nightmares & Necromancy Ghost Tour (9 locations; Jefferson Market Library prison/night-court history; Triangle fire "nearly 150" deaths summary; Mark Twain House white-suit reports; meeting point): https://www.ghosttourbookings.com/us/ghost-tours/nyc-ghosts-ghouls-of-greenwich-village-walking-tour/