Boroughs of the Dead Walking Tours Discover the Skeletons (and Ghosts) in the Closets
Boroughs of the Dead, a boutique sightseeing company offering unique ghost and dark history walking tours, launches “The Uncanny Upper West Side,” Oct. 18-30.
| 23 Sep 2025 | 07:16
One prominent landmark on the tour is The Dakota, which has historically been home to many artists, actors, and musicians, including John Lennon, who was murdered outside the building on December 8th, 1980. The exterior also served as the headquarters of the original “Ghostbusters” comedy hit. (
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Guide Leanna Renee Hieber is an actress, playwright, and award-winning bestselling author of multiple Historical Fantasy series for adults and teens. She is the co-author of A Haunted History of Invisible Women. (
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One stop on the tour is the landmark Ansonia, which has housed conductors, opera singers, and baseball players, as well as gamblers, prostitutes, and other “shady characters.” (
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Guide Adrian Sexton’s passion for American history, as well as the macabre, began in her youth, wandering the Boston area’s colonial graveyards. Currently, she also works as a Museum Educator at the Morris-Jumel Mansion. (
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Andrea Janes is the co-author of America’s Most Gothic and A Haunted History of Invisible Women and the owner and founder of Boroughs of the Dead. (
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At one point in the distant past, the Upper West Side was considered the hinterland of Manhattan, making it rich in history and folklore. (
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A chill up your spine. A prickling feeling on the back of your neck. A murmur of anxiety that something is not quite as it seems. Welcome to Halloween on the Upper West Side with Boroughs of the Dead.
The sightseeing company specializes in unearthing secret and sinister histories and hauntings throughout NYC’s neighborhoods, from Greenwich Village and Lower Manhattan to Roosevelt Island, Astoria, and Brooklyn Heights.
Now the area that was once considered the hinterland of Manhattan joins the ranks with “The Uncanny Upper West Side,” a blend of spooky tales with real history, folklore, and a look at some of the movies and literature that have informed our understanding of terror.
“We’re so excited about this one,” says Boroughs of the Dead founder Andrea Janes, who personally designs all the tours. “Everything fell into place while we were researching in a way that felt, well, uncanny. The connections felt somehow more than coincidental.”
Replete with strange tales of spirits, psychics, and séances, this two-hour walking tour covers 1.5 miles, beginning at West 65th Street and Central Park, which has as many secrets to share as it has acres. It ends around West 83rd Street, inside Riverside Park, near the former farm where horror master Edgar Allan Poe penned his famous poem “The Raven.” The mysterious histories of the Upper West Side are all showcased along the way and feature the company’s trademark in-depth historical research.
“Far from retreading the same old ‘Most Haunted’ locations you may have already heard about,” says Janes, “this tour will recalibrate the way you see your own neighborhood, showing you what lies beneath and beyond the immediately visible. It will defamiliarize the Upper West Side until you, too, will realize that it’s so much more than it seems.”
Janes, co-author of the new America’s Most Gothic, loves how literary the Upper West Side tour is.
The tour features Toni Morrison and Edgar Allan Poe because both contributed landmark ghost and horror stories to the American canon. Toni Morrison was a frequent visitor and sometime resident at the apartment building owned by James Baldwin, who may seem like an unlikely choice to include in a ghost tour—but, says Janes, “Have you ever read his review of The Exorcist? It’s fascinating to discuss that just a few blocks from the exterior filming location of Rosemary’s Baby.”
She then adds, “You might think you know everything about the spooky spots of the Upper West Side—it’s no surprise to anyone that Sigourney Weaver’s Ghostbusters apartment is at 55 Central Park West, aka Spook Central—but what do you know about Dan Aykroyd’s real-life connections to the Spiritualist movement? We’ll tell you about those on this tour . . . and then we’ll take you to the former headquarters of the American Society for Psychical Research, which is only a few blocks up the street. It really is uncanny, the way all these stories are clustered together geographically and seem so entwined thematically.”
You’ll not only discover those aforementioned films’ real-life connections to the spirit realms, you’ll get to peer into the secret worlds of the city’s grand old apartment houses, where Manhattanites dwell happily alongside ghosts, murders, and layers of ghoulish history.
Boroughs of the Dead tours cater to intelligent and educated New Yorkers, discussing the complex and potentially disturbing content, particularly with “The Uncanny Upper West Side,” in a sophisticated way. Concludes Janes, “These are not spooky jump-scare tours; rather, they are in-depth discussions of our darkest histories and most unsettling experiences.”
It all sounds downright uncanny.
This walking tour is of easy-to-moderate difficulty. Tour takes place on city sidewalks and is wheelchair/scooter accessible. Tours commence rain or shine.
Due to the subject matter, this tour is not recommended for children under 13.
The price of the tour is $35. More ticket information, as well as dates and times, is available at boroughsofthedead.com
Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel The Last Single Woman in New York City.
“Far from retreading the same old ‘Most Haunted’ locations, this tour will recalibrate the way you see your own neighborhood.” — Boroughs of the Dead founder Andrea Janes