It was Halloween night in the late seventies and I was living in a modern apartment building on First Avenue and Seventy Second Street. A friend who was a well-off doctor invited my roommate and me to a Halloween gathering at his brownstone in Greenwich Village. It was not a costume party or a haunted house show, just a small group of friends getting together for cocktails and some food.
After arriving by taxi, my roommate and I went up the front steps and stood in front of the beautiful wooden front doors. We realized that the cobblestone street and Nineteenth Century building were part of New York City history.
During the get-together, the conversation, like many around this time of the year, turned to Halloween, ghosts and the paranormal. Our host, a very down to earth gentleman, said that ever since he bought the building, he was curious about one room on the second floor that would never warm up, no matter what the temperature was in the rest of the house. Mind you, the house was very old and did not have a temperature control in every room.
Curious, we all walked up the stairs and stood in the second-floor hallway looking at the open doors to the various bedrooms located off the landing. Then the host said to enter each of the rooms, and we would know which one he meant. One at a time we went in and out of each of the rooms. When I entered the second room I felt the ghostly chill; it was unnerving. I didn’t say anything to any of the others but, with goose bumps on my arms, I left the room as quickly as I could.
When we were all gathered together again in the living room, every one of us chose the same room as having an unnatural chill. It was an unexpected experience for a Halloween evening.
