Many locals
know the best place to experience a one-on-one
encounter with some of the resident ghosts and
ghouls that prowl the streets of Haunted New
Orleans. Haunted New Orleans Tours has created
a definitive guide to some of the city’s
spookiest and most ghost-ridden thoroughfares
where specters make contact with the living
on an almost daily basis. The following locations
are those most frequently reported to Haunted
New Orleans Tours:
#1. Canal Street at City Park
Avenue.
One drive
through this major city intersection and it’s
obvious to see why the area ranks number one
on our list of Haunted New Orleans Streets.
This major intersection once marked the outermost
limits of the old city of New Orleans and is
a location where an amazing thirteen cemeteries
converge. Beyond the intersection is the median
(in New Orleans vernacular, the “neutral
ground”) that once was the location of
the New Basin Canal: in itself yet another graveyard
for so many Irish, German and Italian immigrants
died in digging it and all of them were buried
where they fell.
There have been a variety of reports stemming
from encounters near vortex of the dead: from
spirits seen walking hand in hand down the
wide avenues of Greenwood Cemetery, to the
plaintive, disembodied voices that call to
bus riders waiting at the corner near Odd
Fellow’s Rest, the reports are astonishing.
Near this location several witnesses have
spotted the ghost of a young woman dressed
all in white running into the path of oncoming
traffic at the corner where Canal Boulevard
becomes Canal Street. Some have speculated
that the figure is that of a bride and they
point to the fact that one of New Orleans’
legendary reception and dining halls –
Lenfant’s -- stood nearby for decades.
Why the bride is running or what she might
be searching for will forever remain a mystery.
Others who have seen her have debunked the
bride theory for something more sinister:
they have said she has all the appearance
of a pale, ghostlike creature, with a gaunt,
skeletal face and long, bony hands that make
a horrible “clack-clacking” noise
on the car doors of the hapless souls who
wait too long at the Canal Boulevard stop
sign. There have been other reports of ghostly
funerals passing through the CLOSED gates
of the Masonic cemetery late in the night,
and this is one of the intersections where
the infamous Haunted Bus is said to stop,
and barrel on into the empty night. If you
happen by this particular intersection remember:
here the dead truly outnumber the living,
and they are not restful.
#2. Esplanade Avenue at Moss Street and Bayou
St. John.
This intersection, where grand old Esplanade
Avenue crosses over Bayou St. John at the
Moss Street Bridge has long been reputedly
haunted. Along the Avenue near this intersection
is St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 where many of
the great old New Orleans families now sleep
in eternal repose. But some of the families
who chose a better view of the Bayou with
their earthen beds surely must have felt betrayed
when their remains were exhumed and moved:
Originally, St. Louis No. 3 extended nearly
all the way to the shore of the Bayou. In
the 1940’s a part of the land was sold
and houses were built where gravestones once
stood; later, in the 1970’s, the huge
Park Place apartment building was erected
where the houses once stood. Reports have
come of spectral beings loitering near corner
of Esplanade and Moss, as if they are lost
souls looking for their resting place. Also
near this intersection is the old convent
of the Cabrini nuns, who still teach at Cabrini
High School on nearby Moss Street. Mother
Cabrini, the founder of the order, lived in
the building herself and tales of her spirit
still being seen kneeling and praying at the
grotto are legendary. In the early 1900’s
Bayou St. John and the surrounding area were
the domain of Jose Planas, the King of the
French Market. He owned most of the land from
Esplanade to the French Quarter and operated
several barges and tugs that did commerce
along the Bayou, once a major route to Lake
Pontchartrain and ultimately to the Gulf of
Mexico. Residents who live in the restored
cottages near this major intersection tell
stories of hearing the resonant voice of Jose
himself, still giving orders to his barge
crews; when Jose is seen, he appears as a
man dressed in a white, Havana style suit,
usually near the base of the statue of Confederate
General P.G.T. Beauregard.
#3. St. Charles
Avenue.
This grand promenade of old New Orleans has
its share of reputed apparitions and haunting's.
Union soldiers and once even
the ghost of General Benjamin “The Beast”
Butler have been sighted on the steps of famous
Gallier Hall. During the Union occupation of
the city of New Orleans, Gallier Hall was used
as a Federal headquarters. There is also a ghost
connected to Gallier Hall that appears only
during the Bacchus Mardi Gras parade: Some rattled
parade-goers have run screaming to police reporting
that they have just witnessed a stabbing. When
police return to the scene of the alleged crime,
the first block on the Lafayette St. side of
Gallier Hall, there is no victim and nothing
out of the ordinary is found. As it happens,
in 1972, a young man was attacked and brutally
stabbed between two cars on this side of Gallier
Hall. He died two blocks down at the intersection
of Lafayette and Baronne Streets. Perhaps what
we are seeing is simply the ghostly reenactment
of his tragic last minutes on earth?
On the Uptown side of St. Charles Avenue,
in the area that inspired the chronicles of
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, strange
things are reported near the famous Bultmann
Funeral Home where some have witnessed ghostly
hearses idling on side streets and have heard
the piercing cry of a young woman in jeopardy.
Ironically, some years ago, a young woman
was attacked near the funeral home entrance
and was dragged to her death along a side
street, all during the height of rush hour
traffic.
Near the intersection of St. Charles and
Napoleon Avenues a ghostly couple is said
to await a bus that for them never comes.
They are seen dressed in Sunday best and when
the bus arrives, they apparently never get
on. Also near this intersection is sometimes
seen the ghost of a lost little boy. He is
seen crying broken-heartedly and standing
in the gutter on the river side of Napoleon.
When someone approaches him, it is said he
turns and runs away, disappearing into thin
air. Tragically, a little boy was pulled under
the wheels of a Mardi Gras float at just this
location many years ago when the Super Krewe's
(as they were then called) first began using
the Uptown parade route. Could this spectral
image be that of the lost little boy whose
Mardi Gras was ruined so long ago?
#4. Lakeshore
Drive
Like St. Charles Avenue, this long stretch
of famous New Orleans roadway seems to have
more than its share of haunting's, such as:
Lakeshore Drive and Kildeer where a biker
and his child were killed in a hit and run
trying to cross at the base of the high rise
bridge here; many people have reported being
startled by the ghostly figure of a man on
his bike, with a child fixed in a seat behind
him, who rushes out in front of vehicles and
disappears into thin air. Lakeshore Drive
at “TI- KI Beach,” where the ghost
of a college student who drowned during a
fraternity initiation is seen walking up to
cars that park here and looking mournfully
into the windows before vaporizing into the
dark. Lakeshore Drive at Mardi Gras Fountain,
where the ghost of a motorcyclist who plowed
off the road here and into the fountain in
the 1960’s is said to come and sit beside
hapless visitors to the old fountain; they
report that he is still wearing the torn leather
jacket and the blood stained helmet that he
was found in. And somewhere along Lakeshore
Drive is to be found one of the most troubling
haunting's in New Orleans, though the exact
location is unknown. It is told that during
the 1930’s a man who was swimming in
the Lake was sucked under the seawall steps
and drowned because he could not escape. Friends
searched for him and finally a diver located
the opening under the steps and the body was
discovered. Haunted New Orleans Tours has
received several reports from people who have
unintentionally chosen the exact spot of this
tragedy to share a quiet moment, only to be
startled into abject terror as the ghostly
arm and shoulder of a man appear in the wash
near the bottom of the steps: According to
all reports, NO ONE has stayed around to see
the head and face come up out of the water.
(This one is hit or miss and you never know
if the spot you’ve chosen is the right
one, until you see that glowing hand reach
up from the black waters of Lake Pontchartrain.)
#5. Rampart
and Basin Streets.
You can’t have one without the other
in this “two’fer.” Rampart
Street was for years uncounted the northern
boundary of the French Quarter and has been
the source of many reports of haunting's and
paranormal encounters. Basin Street, Rampart’s
raunchy sister, is a legendary cradle of brothels
and the blues, and a perfect recipe for haunting's.
The Old Mortuary Chapel, or Our Lady of Guadeloupe
and St. Jude Shrine as it is called today,
was once the final stop before an earthen
bed for victims of the yellow fever epidemics
of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The dead and dying of Bronze John’s
subjects were taken en masse to this chapel
to receive the Last Rites from the only souls
still willing to approach the victims with
compassion, the priests and nuns of the Mortuary
Chapel. Today there is almost continuous activity
in and around the church and novenas to St.
Jude, the Patron Saint of Impossible Causes,
are a constant. But in the quiet interludes,
in the dark hours before dawn and at sunset
after the rush hour traffic has passed, some
say the sound of Latin benedictions can still
be heard over the ghostly moaning of the dying
in the last throes of the grip of the yellow
death. One startling report comes to Haunted
New Orleans Tours of a group visiting from
South Carolina who decided to take an independent
tour of the old chapel and somehow got a glimpse
of the Other Side: while wandering the aisles
of the church, amid the muffled conversation
of churchgoers and other tourists, the group
came face to face with a nun wearing a habit
so antiquated that it immediately stood out
as odd. It is said that she passed them without
a look or word, and in such complete silence
that it made at least one of the party give
her a second, longer look. To his dismay,
he realized as he watched that the nun was
FLOATING almost a foot above the chapel floor.
Struck speechless by the sight, all he could
do was watch in shock as the nun literally
floated onto the altar and through the sacristy
door. Often visitors to the church smell an
intense scent of lavender in the nave of the
church when no one is there: lavender was
used to mask the scent of illness that once
so pervaded the little old chapel.
Another famous and haunted Rampart Street
landmark is Congo Square. Today it is adjacent
to Armstrong Park near the Municipal Auditorium,
but in the 18th and 19th centuries it was
the beating heart of the African Americans
in New Orleans. Frequented by both Free People
of color and Negro servants and slaves of
the gentile New Orleans families, Congo Square
quickly took on a life of its own. African
Americans who came together to share and celebrate
their African culture in a marketplace atmosphere
that in the evenings became a celebration
of music and dance held great gatherings there.
Many distinguished New Orleanians would join
in the celebrations at Congo Square, including
Marie Laveau and her followers who practiced
their voodoo rituals there deep into the night.
The wild rhythms also attracted one of the
most famous American composers of that time:
young Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the composer
of such famous works as “A Night in
the Tropics” and “The Banjo,”
visited Congo Square as a child and into his
youth – and some say he still visits
there in death. Reports have come to Haunted
New Orleans Tours of a tall man, dressed in
19th century clothing, groomed in the style
of the day with sideburns and moustache, who
walks silently down Rampart Street to the
gates of Armstrong Park and disappears inside.
One report tells of the man being accompanied
by an Octoroon woman dressed in servant’s
clothes of the time: it is a well known fact
that the servants of Gottschalk’s household
are the ones who first exposed him to the
fiery rhythms that would plant the seed of
ragtime in his musician’s heart. Perhaps
his Octoroon is still accompanying him? Those
who have researched the story of Gottschalk
have recognized his tall, dark figure immediately,
but he is not confined to Rampart Street and
is often seen near the corner of Royal and
Esplanade standing outside the cottage where
he was born. The ghost of Marie Laveau has
also been seen in the park itself, dancing
in a ghostly dance to music only she and the
spirits of the Other World now can hear. Dressed
in white and looking as beautiful as when
she lived, her dark eyes flash as if she knows
very well she is dead and that she is scaring
the life out of you!
Nearby Basin Street has always had a seedy
reputation and the brothels that flourished
there in the late 1800’s and early 20th
century did nothing to change that opinion.
But can it be that the ghosts of prostitutes
from long ago are still working their Basin
Street beat? One man claims that he was actually
approached by one of these ghostly prostitutes
and was led to a rendezvous in a darkened
yard, only to find himself completely alone:
the woman had vanished altogether. Ghostly
music haunts Basin Street; remnant notes from
days of yore when jazz and the blues were
in their infancy. One complaint to the New
Orleans Police Department about “the
jazz band practicing upstairs in that empty
building” seem to be proof enough that
ghostly musicians still get together to jam:
when the NOPD arrived, they found the place
deserted, without even electricity or a way
inside. One familiar Basin Street ghost is
that of famous turn of the century craftsman
and painter Alphonse Aveton, who is still
seen in his turn of the century painter’s
clothes, walking down Basin or climbing scaffolding
that IS NOT THERE along the sides of buildings
now decrepit and abandoned but which once
bore the mark of his artistry. Family members
of Aveton claim to have no idea why their
relative is still plying his trade in the
hereafter but wish wholeheartedly that he’d
come over to their houses and do some work
for them! Such is the way with most old New
Orleans families: you may be gone but you
are never forgotten!
So the next time you feel like
a nice, relaxing drive, or you’re out
“cruising” with your friends or
significant other, be sure to take this handy
list along and keep your eyes peeled when your
path crosses one of the Haunted Streets of New
Orleans!!
Haunted New Orleans Tours would like to thank
famous paranormal investigator GINA LANIER
for her contributions to this list. Through
her continuing investigations into reports
YOU send us, we are uncovering many previously
overlooked but VERY haunted spots in this
great old City.
