Mayor Eric Adams, who moved into Gracie Mansion, has made a surprising revelation about his official residence: he believes it is haunted by ghosts, reports nypost.com.
Adams turned his attention from the Bronx Bombers to the Manhattan boo-ers as he broke news in the Yankees press box during Tuesday’s game: Gracie Mansion is haunted.
“I don’t care what anyone says, there are ghosts in there, man,” Adams told Yankees announcers Michael Kay and Cameron Maybin, according to the New York Post. He said he sees things moving around and hears footsteps in the 223-year-old country house that became the official mayor’s residence in 1942. “Listen, they’re creeping around,” he added.
Adams is not the first inhabitant of the house to mention ghosts though: former first lady Chirlane McCray said in a Halloween interview in 2017 that she had witnessed some unusual activities, such as doors opening and closing by themselves and floorboards creaking as if someone was walking through the rooms.
However, historians, ghost hunters and former employees of the mansion told the Post they were not aware of any stories of spirits or hauntings at the People’s House.
“Absolutely not, I never heard of such idiocy,” said Anna Maria Santorelli, who worked as a chef and event manager at the mansion under mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.
The only person known to have died at Gracie Mansion is Elizabeth Wolcott Gracie, the daughter-in-law of Archibald Gracie, the merchant who built the house in 1799. She died of apoplexy in 1819.
But one death at an address is actually quite low for New York City’s history, historians said.
“Any time there is a well-known location in a city, especially one that was built before 1800, there’s naturally going to be speculation: ‘Oh, it’s totally got to be haunted right?’ ” Professor Mortimer (real name: Robert Gonyo), co-founder of the Haunted Manhattan tour company, told the Post.
Gracie Mansion is one of the oldest wood structures in Manhattan and has a general aura of spookiness to some visitors. The mansion has been decorated for Halloween several times by previous mayors.
Adams, however, seems to be more serious about his paranormal encounters than his predecessors. Whether he will call for an exorcism or a ghostbuster remains to be seen.
