OLD MARKWELL HOUSE
Location: Built in 1920, the Old Markwell House once rested at the northeast corner of 64th Street near Park Avenue on Manhattan in New York City.
Description of Place: Once a grand single-family residence with a full 100-foot frontage, the Markwell House eventually fell into a state of disrepair. A narrow five story-structure, the once prime piece of real estate rested atop a full cellar and included forty rooms, a grand staircase and a fifth floor-loft.
Ghostly Manifestations: The old Markwell House is long gone. In its place rests a Park Avenue high-rise, but between 1948 to 1988, the once grand townhouse had succumbed to ages of weather, neglect and loneliness. Young kids between the ages of eleven to eighteen distracted from wisdom and common sense would use the structure for target practice. Rocks pelted its exterior and shattered its windows. Bored vandals unleashed their anger on the world toward the defenseless furnishings and innocent plaster walls. Markwell Manufacturing who owned the house for its creator kept caretaker C. W. Owen on hand to look after the house for several years, and Owen scared away many a potential criminal, possibly giving rise to the later ghost stories, but to listen to him yourself, he possibly perpetuated some of those legends himself.
"Was the Markwell House haunted? Are you kidding? It was the most haunted house in New York City." C. W. Owen declares with excited theatrics and eyes shining with the spark of a talented storyteller. "Clinton Court? Boring. Morris-Jumel Mansion? Give me a break! The Dakota? Cafe Bizarre? The ghost at the Dolphin never even leaves the freaking room! I lived at the Markwell House by myself for over forty years after Old Man Markwell vanished, and that place was as twisted as a promise from George W. Bush!" He resonates as if he were a character from the files of Charles Addams.
"I had a small bedroom apartment on the second floor there." He continues. "And I recall one day hearing stirring sounds that seemed to be coming from the floor below. I thought the noises were coming from outside, maybe someone on the sidewalk, but soon the noises increased in volume and took on a piercing, roaring quality. Then I thought it might be kids inside the house and I screamed down for them to get out. That seemed to do the trick because it got quiet, but only briefly.
"After about ten minutes of listening to doors opening and slamming shut and large heavy objects dropping on the floor, I had had enough. I decided the kids had come back, so I called the police station and was describing the noises to the guy when the noises began again, this time from the floor above. The officer even heard the noises through the phone. The noise was deafening - constant pounding that reverberated throughout the third floor. The police said they be right over so I hung up and listened to what seemed to be a figure walking the third floor that seemed to be coming down the staircase. I'm meanwhile standing in the hall waving a flashlight at whatever is supposed to be coming at me, but nothing ever comes into sight. The sound of the police cars broke the night and I went to meet them. They took me through the house, but we didn't find anyone... Well, not of the living sort.
"I think it was a little time after that I was making my way in through the back way when I heard the sound of a door slamming shut from one of the floors over my head. I stopped, grabbed hold of the handrail and peeked up the stairway expecting to see someone. I waited, I looked, I heard the footsteps approaching the stairs and ascending as if they were coming toward me. Soon, it seemed the steps were a few feet in front of me and then they were coming the floor beneath me. I never saw anything go past me, not even a ball of light.
"I seemed to have a period of silence for a while after that. Felt like it was a few months, but it could have been no more than a couple of weeks. One evening, I was watching television, and when I switched it off, I became aware of the noises having returned to the floor beneath me. They had come back. It was this... loud slamming of the doors and the pounding of the walls so I again called the police to report not a ghost, mind you, but an intruder. The police don't take you seriously if you call on them about a ghost, but this time, I asked that they arrive without lights so they could surprise whoever was in the house. The officer that arrived told me that he saw blinking lights on both the second and third floors. They seemed to be moving rapidly as if someone was carrying them, and he went to confront them without me, but he did not find anything."
Eventually, Owen confesses that the activity frayed his nerves a bit, and a police lieutenant made arrangements for him to see a psychiatrist. In his absence, officers keeping an eye on the Markwell House reported lights gong on and off in the house, even in rooms without lighted fixtures. The sound of human voices emanated from empty rooms, and once loud laughter came from an empty room. One officer pulled his gun and stormed a room when a force jerked a door shut rather than allow him enter. C. W. Owen eventually returned to his duty after two months of rest in the hospital.
"Things changed after my return." Owen reflects. "I was taking a shower and I heard a woman's laughter in the room. I immediately parted the shower and peeked out, but there was nothing amiss. A little bit after that, I was asleep but had been stirred awake by a noise in the room. I slowly opened my eyes and saw the image of this woman in the room. She looked as real as any person I ever saw, but instead of looking at me, she was floating across the floor. That's how I know she wasn't real. She looked real, but for that floating act, but instead of going out the door, she just seemed to grow vague and vanished. I heard the sound of laughter again, and it was the same sort of laughter I had heard before in the shower.
"After those incidents and several others, I no longer could stay there as caretaker, and I started working around people again. The Markwell people were liquidating their assets anyway, and I heard rumors they were wanting to sell the house off anyway. They were calling on me to show the house off, but they made it clear that under no circumstances whatsoever that I was not to talk about the ghosts, but by then, I had been blabbing a lot to the kids living in the Drummond building, and the Markwell house got its reputation anyway. One day as I was gong by the house, and I saw the figure of a man standing in the third floor window. He seemed to be staring at the street. People who knew me by reputation on that street told me that I was not the only person to see him."
In 1992, the structure was being remodeled into an apartment building, but the contractor quit rather than complete the job. It seems he could not keep or get anyone to work there. Workmen in the basement kept hearing a woman's voice sobbing and screaming. Among the many mediums who visited the place was Rochelle Blaumberg, who detected a "horrible presence" there when she visited in 1992.
"I was there when the place was finally knocked down," Owen adds on. "The foreman allowed me to walk through the location one last time as they posted explosive charges to level it, and I said good-bye to the ghosts. Don't know if they said good-bye..." He beams his cock-eyed grin. "But I kind of miss the old place and I wish them well with the new building now on the site. Funny thing, every so often, I hear that the people going up the elevator in the new building look over and see the reflection of Old Man Markwell staring out from the side of the elevator..."
History: Built around 1920, the old edifice was both a residence and low-faring housing briefly before it was acquired by an obscure inventor and industrialist named Clarence Markwell. A brilliant man comparable to Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla, Markwell was known in his time as the owner of Markwell Manufacturing, but he also made his fortune by improving upon the design for the original refrigerator, creating longer lasting batteries, using recording discs in radios, developing the prototype of the modern VCR and engineering devices to be used in the modern automobile. What is not quite so well known was his interest in the paranormal and his talk about creating a device that could contact the spirits of those who had passed over. The rumors of which were also attributed to Edison. Although fascinated by the paranormal, Markwell was confronted by military leaders during World War Two for developing weapons and improving upon tank design. Opposed to violence and developing weapons, Markwell vanished for several years. In fact, to the general public, he was considered as having passed away. Of course, during this time, rumors of his home being haunted became quite popular. Everyone believed Markwell's ghost was haunting the house until he turned up alive in 1984 during a secret visit to his home. (Whether his secret returns to his old house resulted in the stories of ghosts is open to interpretation.) He lived a few more years and eventually passed away in a Utica bed and breakfast. His home was meanwhile briefly protected by the Drummond Corporation until it could be declared a landmark, but it was finally demolished in 2001.
Identity of Ghosts: Tradition claims the ghost of Clarence Markwell wanders the site. However, since he was alive for much of the hauntings, one has to wonder of the apparitions could date to previous inhabitants. Just who these personalities are is unrevealed.
Source/Comments: Different Strokes (Episode: "A Haunting We Will Go") - Hauntings loosely based on the Ocean-Born Mary House in Henniker, New Jersey, the Grant Corner Inn in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the former Halfway House in Hendersonville, Tennessee and the Congelier House in San Diego, California.
C. W. Owen was played by John Astin, Gomez Addams of "The Addams Family" and The Judge of "The Frighteners." Clarence Markwell was played by Roy Bolger of "The Wizard of Oz," which also starred Margaret Hamilton from "13 Ghosts."
Rochelle Blaumberg from "Night Court," Episode "Come Back To The Five And Dime, Stephen King, Stephen King." John Astin played Buddy Ryan, Judge Harry Stone's biological father, on that series. (Could Buddy and C. W. be one and the same person?) Buddy: "But I'm feeling much better now!"