I’ve never had the misfortune of being ghosted by a man in finance, but I have gathered ’round plenty a campfire (natural-wine bar) and heard blood-curdling tales of M.B.A. demons obsessed with golf and insider trading, Rolex-flaunting Goldman ghouls with situationships in multiple European cities, and IPA-guzzling bogeymen who voluntarily work hours that would make your skin crawl. Those aren’t the only spooky creatures lurking about Wall Street, though — there are rumored to be a lot of actual ghosts down there. According to legend, most of the old, history-laden bars downtown are crawling with spirits, sailors, and other professionals of yore who sought out shots and sex in the watering holes that line the cobblestone streets of what is now Fidi. I’ve never been one for going out of my way to scare myself, but this — the ghosts and goblins of Wall Street’s past and present, all mingling in the shadow of the Charging Bull — I had to see. So I stopped in one of the “most haunted” bars on the block after work one recent evening to see just how terrifying things could get.
Fraunces Tavern pops up on many “Most Haunted NYC Bars” lists, mostly because of its Colonial-era history — its eponym, Samuel Fraunces, bought it in 1762 a few decades after it was built and opened it as a tavern, hosting a bunch of important societies and, once the Revolutionary War started, housing armies and often George Washington himself. (The Fraunces Tavern Museum, which is upstairs from the bar, is pretty much just a shrine to Washington and his buddies.) If you were a Revolutionary-era ghost, wouldn’t you want to spend your afterlife evenings hanging out at your favorite bar where ale is still on tap? The hauntings go further than that, though: In 1798, when Fraunces Tavern operated as a boarding house, ballerina Anna Gardie and her husband were both stabbed to death in what was ruled a murder-suicide. Almost two full centuries later, in 1975, four people were killed there in a bombing.
So, exactly how haunted is this place? In the absence of an EMF meter, I walked into the bar on the lookout for amateur signs of ghost activity: sudden cold spots, random whiffs of strong smells like tobacco or perfume, pets acting strangely. I asked the hostess which of the many rooms is considered to be the most haunted, and she smoothly informed me that she was “not at liberty to say,” so I decided to test them all out.
Up first was the Dingle Whiskey Bar, a small, dark lounge area that would fit right at home in the lobby of a historic Boston inn. I was instantly greeted with the words “She’s hot for a 40-year-old MILF,” spat out by a middle-aged man in a cable-knit short-sleeve button-up. He was talking to his bald co-worker about their friend’s new post-divorce girlfriend. (I eventually learned that everyone at this bar appeared to be at some kind of work gathering that they all described as “just drinks” with a shrug that suggested I should not inquire further.) I ordered a whiskey sour, which arrived topped with whatever the egg-white equivalent of latte art is and tasted infuriatingly good.
In the next room, I spied a woman walking out with a tiny Maltese dog in her bag. Remembering that pets often act weird around ghosts, I attempted to read the Maltese for any signs of recent encounters. He looked irked to be in someone’s purse in the Financial District but showed no signs of having recently convened with anything spectral.
In the Independence Bar one room over, a much bigger and more crowded hall, I could smell truffle fries and stale floor beer — an odor I don’t think I can attribute to poltergeists. I asked two insurance-data analysts on a business trip from abroad, Satya and Greg, if they knew this place is haunted. “Now you’ve scared the shit out of me,” Satya said, and Greg decided to comfort him by joking that Satya was actually the ghost. As I squeezed myself into the only free bar seat, I could’ve sworn I heard a woman merrily shout “Buy low, sell high!” to her friend before downing the rest of her drink.
Two whiskey sours in, I started to worry I was getting too tipsy to feel a cold spirit pass through my body, on the off-chance one might decide to do so. Maybe ghosts save their hangs for the wee hours of the night, when they don’t have to hear talk of “team building” and “really wanting to move to Chicago.” My next idea was to ask some bartenders if they’d ever had supernatural encounters while closing up, and one of them, who’d only been working here for two months, told me she was “dying to” see one but thinks the spirits sense she’s too desperate, so they haven’t shown themselves. Another bartender, who introduced himself as Eric and said he’s frequently at the bar alone until 3 a.m., said he’s “never seen or heard anything” but “would love to” see a ghost. What he has seen, though, is some co-workers “freaking out” during their own spectral encounters on the security cameras.
I went looking for his colleagues in yet another room, where a shortish server with a beard and suspenders loading up a drinks tray told me he “loves weird questions” but seemed to immediately lose interest once I asked about ghosts. He vaguely assured me he’s experienced “multiple happenings” before dashing away with the tray. But then something kind of strange happened: He did not reappear over the next hour. Had my whiskey-sour-tainted brain imagined him? Then I asked another bartender, Luke, who told me I should talk to Sam, a “big tall Irish guy floating around here.” Interesting choice of words, considering no one matching Sam’s description was anywhere to be found, even after I made several laps around the bar.
Back in the whiskey room, there was noticeably less commotion. I asked the man behind the bar, Francisco, if he’d heard any ghost stories since he started working here. According to Francisco, one woman fainted while she was closing up about a year ago, and the next day she swore a man had appeared and walked up to her just before she passed out — but the man was nowhere to be seen on security-camera footage of her incident. Before this gig, Francisco worked at another old bar nearby, where one of his colleagues saw the same little-girl apparition twice, late at night, accompanied by a distinct cold feeling. Francisco was about to tell me something else spooky he’d remembered about the mirrors upstairs, but we were interrupted by a bossy guy in a QuantZ Capital puffer vest before I could get more information.
In the end, the closest thing to supernatural activity I sensed at Fraunces Tavern was a tourist wearing an argyle sweater with little Casper-like silhouettes knitted around the top. I guess that’s one thing to their credit — guys in finance aren’t the only ones doing the ghosting. After bidding adieu to Francisco, I headed outside and, in a wild fit of wishful thinking, briefly mistook a wisp of vape smoke for an ectoplasm. Can ghosts vape? my inner monologue speculated, Carrie Bradshaw–style. And sure enough, a chill went down my spine.