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THE CRYPT
HAPPENIN’ OTSEGO
(The Job Corps’ Crypt)
BEST BETS
AllOTSEGO.SPOOKy
Jim Kevlin/
Ghouls, goblins, heroes and princesses took to the streets for a weekend of 2014 Halloween fun!
Halloween Weekend Features Parades, Dances, Ghost Tours
W AllOTSEGO.SPOOKy
Ian Austin/
Why is that ghostly girl bouncing a ball in the former Homer Folks Hospital’s hallways?
A Morgue, An Icebox, And The Girl With The Bouncing Ball By LIBBY CUDMORE ONEONTA
L
ate at night, students in the Betty Shabazz dorm at Oneonta Job Corps have seen a little blonde girl in a yellow dress walking up and down the dorm halls, bouncing a red rubber ball. She giggles when they try to talk to her. And then, she’s gone. Students and overnight staff alike have reported seeing her, one of three ghosts said to be haunting the former Homer Folks TB Hospital off upper West Street, giving a new meaning to the phrase “Graveyard
Adina Feliu stumbles across Amanda Reeder (she’s alive) in the Homer Folks morgue’s icebox.
Shift.” “We hear stories!” said Adina Feliu, Job Corps business & community liaison. “I know that I’ve been walking through the
basement and I’ve heard footsteps behind me.” “You see things out of the corner of your eye,” said Amanda Reeder, training coordinator. Not much is known about the individual patients at the former tuberculosis hospital, which operated from 1935 to 1973, but children were housed there, both as patients and with parents undergoing treatment. “There was a playground on the hill,” said Reeder. “We know they had children here.” But perhaps Adina was visited by the Wandering Nurse, dressed all in white, walking the halls, sometimes pushing a cart, between the hospital’s former morgue and autopsy room, located in the basement Please See CRYPT, B3
Judge Cooper’s Dearly Departed Keep Returning For Halloween
Bruce Markusen has been recounting Cooperstown’s ghost stories for a decade now.
By LIBBY CUDMORE COOPERSTOWN
W AllOTSEGO.SPOOKy
Ian Austin/
hen his young wife, the former Jennie Cooper, died at age 20 of tuberculosis in 1863, John Worthington was devastated. He commissioned a large painting of his departed bride for his Greencrest Home, 30 River St. “Jennie never lived in the house,” said Bruce Markusen, proprietor of
Cooperstown Candlelight Ghost Tours. “But if the painting was taken down, she would haunt the house with strange noises and breaking objects until they put the painting back up.” Greencrest – now painted beige – is one of Markusen’s favorite spots on his ghost tours. “Her painting was displayed in the stairway, and guests would say Jennie’s eyes followed them as they walked up and down,” he said. Greencrest is one of several spots on River Please See HAUNTINGS, B2
ill you have your own tales to tell about “haunted” historic Hyde Hall? Start your Halloween early Thursday-Friday Oct. 29 & 30, with a candlelit ghost tour. Tours depart at 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. $20; call (607) 547-5098 to reserve. Enter through Glimmerglass State Park on Rte 31, Cooperstown. Info, www.hydehall.org PUMPKIN GLOW: Annual Cooperstown Halloween display. 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30. Cooperstown Art Association seeks your jack ‘o lanterns; bring carved pumpkins, with candle inside, 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. to CAA, 22 Main St., Cooperstown. Info, www.cooperstownart.com DEAD DANCE: Get on your dancing feet at the Oneonta Teen Center’s annual Halloween Costume Dance, featuring a costume contest, pinata and prizes for teens 13-19. 7-10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, Oneonta Teen Center, 4 Academy St., Oneonta. Info, (607) 433-2009. COOP LOOP: Run or walk 5k/10k in your Halloween costume, 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 31. Registration 9:30-10:30 a.m., at Clark Sports Center, or online. 124 County Hwy 52, Cooperstown. Info, www.clarksportscenter.com SUNY CARNIVAL: Order of Omega honor society hosts family carnival & dorm trick or treat. 5-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31 at the SUNY Oneonta’s Hunt College Union. Info, (607) 436-2514. ONEONTA PARADE: 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31. Line up at 6:15 p.m. at Elm and Walnut Streets. Trick-or-treat at participating businesses in afternoon. Bring your non-perishable food donations to United Way carts along parade route. Main Street, Oneonta. COOPERSTOWN PARADE: Meet at Cooper Park, 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, for the annual costume parade down Main Street; cider and treats at parade’s end. Afternoon trick-or-treat at participating businesses. Main St., Cooperstown.
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