Buried Secrets Podcast

A look at some 19th century tales of haunted houses in Astoria and Long Island City, NY. Highlights include: • A ghost spider • Debunkings • A runaway horse • A digression about The Great Gatsby For the shownotes and sources, visit buriedsecretspodcast.com .

Stories about smugglers, tunnels, and ghosts in Astoria, NY, as well as some more of the neighborhood's grim history. Note: There's mention of chattel slavery around the 15 min mark, and more details after the 18 minute mark. Highlights include: • A haunted cave that's disappeared • Horrific deeds done by a famous Astorian • Some awful deaths in a tunnel under the river • A manmade island • The sp...

A look at some female ghosts of Astoria, Queens. Note: There's discussion of chattel slavery after the 26 minute mark. Highlights include: • The American president who was supposedly shot on his way to see a haunting • A ghost who disappears if she stops knitting • A lady in white and a hag who haunt the same block • A shameful side of Astoria's history Tiffany Cabán for City Council (District 22)...

A look at the fortune telling teacups, which were popular in the early 20th century, and were adorned with symbols meant to aid in interpreting tea leaves. Highlights include: • The different varieties of fortune telling teacups • An attempt at a tea leaf reading For the shownotes and sources, visit buriedsecretspodcast.com .

A look at the caladrius, a fancy legendary bird that could supposedly diagnose and heal illnesses. Plus weird info about medieval bestiaries, and more. Highlights include: • A weird supposed cure for blindness • A visit to the Cloisters • A video game that makes you feel like a wizard • A bit of unicorn lore Other stuff I mentioned: • The Last Unicorn youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

A look at some weird medieval creatures from legend and lore. Plus some stories about some recent cemetery visits in Queens, NY, including Houdini's grave. Highlights include: • An ancient, impenetrable European forest • A magical glowing bird • A dragon with a rooster's head For the shownotes and sources, visit buriedsecretspodcast.com . Follow on instagram @buriedsecretspodcast

A colonial-era cemetery sits in a quiet residential part of New York City. Forgotten for years, and even used as a dump for construction materials and other detritus, the Moore-Jackson Cemetery recently been transformed into a beautiful community garden. Here's the story behind the cemetery and the people buried there. Highlights include: • Loyalists living in Revolutionary War-era Queens, NY • Th...

A look at the remarkable Lent-Riker-Smith Homestead and Cemetery, which one woman's dream and grit turned into a beautiful site with a secret garden. Highlights include: • A unique second date • A collection of vintage ventriloquist dummies • Fun historic home renovation details Note: There's discussion of chattel slavery and being held captive against one's will near the end of this episode, arou...

A look at the Lent-Riker-Smith Cemetery, a hidden family graveyard tucked away behind one of the oldest homes in New York City, which is still a private residence. This is part 1 of the history of the little-known Lent-Riker-Smith Homestead and Cemetery. This episode focuses on the history of nearby Riker's Island, as well as the Riker family, and sets the scene for next week's deep dive into the...

A look at a small family cemetery dating from the 1600s, tucked into a residential neighborhood in New York City. The Lawrences were an old family from Queens, New York, arriving in the area in the 1600s and buying land all over. Despite the destruction of many family cemeteries in NYC over the centuries, two Lawrence cemeteries have survived, one of which is in an Astoria man's backyard. The ceme...

Why are there tombstones around Socrates Sculpture Park? A look at a riverside New York City park surrounded by a wall of tombstones. It seems that very few people have asked this question, at least on the internet, and there are no obvious answers. There is, however, a fascinating history behind this little park, as well as a whole host of possibilities for how this site came by its morbid graves...

Two tiny, forgotten cemeteries sit near each other in old Astoria, Queens: one was a burying ground for the wealthy families who ran the town, and the other was for Irish immigrants who fled the famine. Here's a look at the history behind the graveyards, as well as a puzzling mystery about a nearby churchyard that may or may not be a burial site. Highlights include: • Robbers hiding their loot in...

When a woman sells her home and doesn't disclose that friendly ghosts haunt it, the subsequent court case leads to the New York Supreme Court officially declaring the house haunted. In 1989, Helen Ackley sold the 18-room Victorian mansion that she'd lived in for 24 years. Located at 1 Laveta Place in Nyack, New York, overlooking the Hudson River, and lovingly restored by Helen and her late husband...

In the 1690s, a Transylvania-born mystic, occultist, musician, and writer named Johannes Kelpius led a group of 40 Rosicrucian monks to colonial Philadelphia to wait for the end of the world. Though Kelpius and his group of highly-educated mystics were disappointed when the day of revelation didn't come, they made the best of their new home, building an observatory, a botanical garden, and an orch...

It only took 15 minutes for the New York Crystal Palace, a beautiful building made of iron and glass, to burn to the ground. Financially insolvent and falling apart, New York City's Crystal Palace had seen better days. New management attempted to save the beautiful edifice, but its ruin was too far gone. What had once been a glamorous tourist attraction became a decrepit mess. New York City consid...

A look at New York City's ill-fated Crystal Palace, a beautiful structure built on an abandoned cemetery on the outskirts of town. In the mid-19th century, a castle of glass stood in the wilds of what is now a bustling part of New York City. It was an answer to a similar Crystal Palace in London, which had hosted an exhibition a couple years before. The Crystal Palace and the Exhibition of the Ind...

A look at the second-oldest church still standing in Manhattan, which is full of hauntings both legendary and questionable. Highlights include: • A wealthy man's remains being stolen and held for ransom • A very grumpy ghost • An heir who convened with his ancestor's ghost instead of marrying • A mysteriously ringing church bell For the shownotes and sources, visit buriedsecretspodcast.com . Follo...

A look at two of NYC's oldest and most haunted churches: Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel, two famous houses of worship in Manhattan's Financial District with cemeteries tucked into their churchyards. Check out the shownotes at buriedsecretspodcast.com to see pics of the cemeteries and churches mentioned in this episode. Highlights include: • Disinterring corpses to free up space in the cemete...

Paranormal stories about New York City's Hell Gate abound, from stories about a serial killer living inside the Hell Gate Bridge, to a tale of an encounter with the devil, and a possible EVP that Chris just found in a recording from April. Many of the stories of the Hell Gate center around the grand Hell Gate Bridge, so this episode dives into the bridge's history, as well as accounts of people sn...

Paranormal stories about New York City's Hell Gate abound, from stories about a serial killer living inside the Hell Gate Bridge, to a tale of an encounter with the devil, and a possible EVP that Chris just found in a recording from April. Many of the stories of the Hell Gate center around the grand Hell Gate Bridge, so this episode dives into the bridge's history, as well as accounts of people sn...

On a summer afternoon in 1904, the General Slocum, a supposedly unsinkable ship carrying about 1,300 people bound for a picnic, caught fire and sank in New York City's notorious Hell Gate. The General Slocum disaster was the second-worst maritime disaster in US history and the greatest loss of life in NYC before 9/11. But it's been largely forgotten. When a church group and their neighbors went on...

Legend has it that beneath the churning waters of the notorious Hell Gate, a tidal strait in New York City, lies millions of dollars worth of sunken treasure. In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, a British frigate called the HMS Hussar struck a reef and sank to the bottom of the East River. Many people believe that the ship carried an enormous amount of gold as payroll for British soldiers. Desp...

A look at the mysterious Gothic lighthouse that stands at the tip of New York City's Roosevelt Island. Did a lunatic named Thomas Maxey build the lighthouse? If so, why did a now-missing stone say that an unknown person named John McCarthy built it? Or was it designed by 19th century starchitect, James Renwick, Jr, who was also responsible for St. Patrick's Cathedral? There isn't a lot of good inf...

In the mid-19th century, Thomas Maxey, a patient at the New York Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island, built Fort Maxey, a strange structure complete with cannons, a garden of tall flowers, and mysterious carvings. The infamous New York Lunatic Asylum has its share of chilling stories. But one odd, forgotten story is the tale of a mysterious man who took it upon himself to build a bizarre, hobbit-...

A look at the haunted side of the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, as well as some of the tragedies and violence that have happened in the area. This episode is focused on the haunted aspects of the hotel, including creepy things that have happened there and nearby, theories about why it may be haunted, ideas about what should be done to counteract the Luxor "curse" and more. Note: This episod...