Ghosts, Christmas and New York City December 1, 2014 This is the first in a series of holiday themed posts celebrating our annual Christmas tours. We’ll be presenting three holiday themed ghost tours, Ghosts of Christmas Past, this December. To buy tickets to these events, click here! We in New York City are lucky enough to have had some jolly old Dutch forefathers, who […]
Ruth Edna Kelley: Librarian, Authoress, Badass October 27, 2014 Who was Ruth Edna Kelley and why am I obsessed with her? Kelley was a twenty-six year-old librarian who literally wrote the book on Halloween. Back in 1919, Kelley wrote The Book of Halloween, which I picked up in a slightly crumbling hardback first edition (!!!) from the Brooklyn Public Library (why and how they […]
Poe Land by J.W. Ocker October 3, 2014 J.W. Ocker’s Poe Land is pure fandom fun. Structured like a road trip from Boston to South Carolina, this engaging travelogue meets up with collectors, enthusiasts, actors, and scholars, to form a fascinating picture of the people who keep Poe’s legacy alive. I must admit that, initially, I wasn’t crazy about the fact that the […]
Poe Trivia and Ticket Giveaway September 29, 2014 Hardcore Poe fans know that October 7th is kind of a big deal. It’s a day we don’t usually let pass without some kind of ceremony. If you’re in New York City, might I suggest honoring the day with a walking tour of Poe-related sites in Greenwich Village? It’s one of my favorite tours of […]
Q&A With Paul Collins, Author of The Fever Called Living September 26, 2014 This autumn, fans have been lucky enough to see the release of two great new books on Edgar Allan Poe.* The first of these, The Fever Called Living, has rapidly become my most recommended resource for anyone out there looking for a really solid and straightforward Poe biography. In an astonishing 107 pages, Paul Collins […]
Q&A with Lauren Glennon September 17, 2014 Meet Boroughs of the Dead’s newest guide, Lauren Glennon! Lauren is a writer, actress, and part-time usher at a legitimately haunted theatre! She’s not a stranger to real-life ghostly phenomena, so she’s the perfect fit to lead our Ghosts of Broadway and Hell’s Kitchen tours! We’re super excited to have her on board, and to […]
Halloween Activities from Brooklyn to Broadway September 9, 2014 There’s no shortage of Halloween activities in NYC, but for those who want to get beyond the standard parades and haunted houses, Boroughs of the Dead offers tours of over half a dozen neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. When paired with some of the other unique activities the city has to offer, you can create […]
The Fox Sisters, Spiritualism, and the Burned-Over District September 4, 2014 If you were mystically inclined in 19th century America, the best place for you to be was New York state. While the runner up might have been New England, with its Transcendentalism, for pure religious and spiritual fervor, there was nowhere quite like New York.
The Brooklyn Enigma September 2, 2014 My discovery of the Brooklyn Enigma was a mistake. On one of my recent research trips to Green-Wood Cemetery, I was scouting graves and stories for my upcoming tour, Murder and Mayhem, Scandal and Spiritualism. I was using one of the cemetery-issued tourist maps, the kind you might be familiar with if you’ve ever visited […]