New York Haunted Houses 2011

Jeralyn Gerba The Huffington Post 10/05/2011 16:11

New Yorkers already have plenty of skeletons in their closets. But if you’d like a run-in with a ghost or a spook in the night, you’ll have to summon them.

For A Couple
If it’s a little haunted romance you’re after, set the mood by booking a room at the Lafayette House, a narrow, 15-room hotel inspired by 19th century boarding houses of Greenwich Village (flocked wallpaper, marble sinks, lots of stairs). Rumors of apparitions and strange instances have been neither substantiated or denied by the staff.
  Lafayette House, 38 East 4th Street, between Bowery and Lafayette Street (212-505-8100). 

For The Cool Kids
The Steampunk Haunted House, situated on the Lower East Side, has a neo-Victorian aesthetic -- a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland-meets-Industrial-Revolution. There’s no gore to speak of, but there is a pervading sense of creepiness and hyper reality. Think gas masks, forceps, stopwatches gone wild.  
Steampunk Haunted House, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, at Pitt Street. October 22-31, ages 8 and up.  

For The Family
The New York Botanical Garden opens its sculptural Haunted Pumpkin Garden on weekends throughout the month. But on Saturday evenings (October 22 and 29), kids can roam the grounds to trick-or-treat with flashlights under cloak of night.
Haunted Pumpkin Garden, New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx. October 1-30, all ages.