photo: courtesy of Bridget Cicenia; pictured: Amber Bree opens the door to Red Lion's haunted bathroom
The countdown to Halloween is a foreplay that inspires the most skeptical minds to believe—if for only a short while—that the dead walk among us. In a city rife with brazen paranormal activity, much of it originating from our historical flirtations with vice, there's no better way to summon the spirits than in a cozy pub with a sordid past. Forget sitting around a campfire and telling ghost stories. Pull up a bar stool and take your haunting with a shot of whiskey.
A tough critic at Red Lion Pub
It's always a party at the Red Lion—even when living and breathing folks aren't around. An ominous structure built in 1882, the pub's seedy history has no doubt contributed to its build-up of ghosts. A "Wild West" saloon, a gambling hall and rooms of "ill repute" occupied the building in its early years, and sightings of various ghosts have been reported since. The chief culprit is a dark-haired young woman named Sharon. Mentally diseased in life, Sharon enjoyed locking herself inside rooms and screaming like a banshee. She presently enjoys locking patrons into the second floor bathroom, despite the fact that the door has no lock. The most concentrated paranormal activity in recent history occurred on a warm August night last year when local artist Susan Barton, wife of pub co-owner Joseph Heinen, curated an art exhibit on the second floor. Apparently, the spirits didn't appreciate the rearranging of the furniture; a painting of Shakespeare flew from the wall, an isolated part of a suspended glass installation began swinging wildly, a visitor found herself locked in the bathroom, and the curator heard thunderous banging on the bathroom door—while she was all alone on the floor.
The hippie hippie shakes at the Tonic Room
Surely, this trendy Lincoln Park lounge with sleek furnishings and hip-hop music couldn't possibly be housing any phantom tenants, right? But long-time bartender Robert Newman explains that EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) Researchers captured the voice of a young woman in the building. The woman, who was purportedly murdered in the basement, revealed her social security number and they discovered her name was Mary Haggerty. The low-slung, five-foot-tall basement once housed a series of tiny stalls used in the seances of a fringe occult group that inhabited the building during the '60s. Two well-worn pentagrams still cover large parts of the floor and an oxidized dagger, adorned with a skull and a cross, was found embedded in a wall during a recent renovation. The Tonic Room folks are fairly certain it belonged to the clan of black-magic hippies that did the decorating down here.
Wearing white after Labor Day at Chet's Melody Lounge
Chet's sits directly across from Resurrection Cemetery, a location that has resulted in decades of entanglement with the ghost of Resurrection Mary. Chicago's favorite spook story has all the goods: a beautiful girl in billowing white, scads of credible eyewitness encounters spanning decades, and an imposing Catholic cemetery chock full of spirits. Drivers claiming to have accidentally mowed down a young girl in a white dress periodically rush into Chet's to call the authorities; many cab drivers have stopped by hoping to find the blond beauty in the pallid gown who jumped fare. As the only late-night establishment around, Chet's is the perpetual after-party for nearby Mary encounters. Many experts agree that she was the young victim of a 1930s hit-and-run, struck while fleeing from the O'Henry Ballroom and her loutish lover. Some research suggests that the spirit is 12-year-old Anna Norkus, who was killed during a car accident after a birthday dance with her father, and eventually laid to rest in a temporary grave. In fact, Chet's seems to be one of the only common threads running through the disparate explanations of this supernatural saga.
A drunken flirt at Ole St. Andrew's Inn
It's said that Frank Giff has an affinity for taunting redheads, so those with copper locks who enter Edgewater's most haunted pub rightfully worry it may lead to ghoulish trouble. Nearly 50 years ago, the pub owner drunkenly stumbled behind the bar, falling with great force on his head. The next morning he was found dead by his red-headed wife, and his spirit decided to stick around. Throughout the years the pub, which was initially called Frank Giff's Pub before being rechristened The Edinburgh Castle and finally becoming Ole St. Andrews Inn, has experienced a glut of ghostly activity. Stemware has flown from shelves, ashtrays have flung themselves from the bar and many a female customer has reported the ice-cold fondlings of an over-eager (albeit invisible) flirt. Giff was passionate about ladies and liquor, with a particular taste for vodka, a substance that has continually disappeared from the bar's inventory for 50 years; bottles—open or sealed—often inexplicably drain overnight.
Other paranormal pubs:
Clark Bar
Adjacent to the site of the most infamous gangland massacre of all time, the Clark Bar hosts some serious spirits. Have a nip under the ghastly photographic mural of the St. Valentine's Day murder victims in the back room, which was a once a speakeasy frequented by North Side gangsters.
Gold Star
This Ukie dive was once a vice-ridden enclave tucked into the seediest stretch of Division Street. Illegal boozing, rampant gambling and loose women called the Gold Star home, and the victim of a 1950s murder still hangs out around the front doorway.
Subscribe in your favorite reader using the links below. To learn more about feeds and RSS, click here.
