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THE BIZ
PERSONNEL PROFILE
Marilyn Egan This ‘Wicked’ tour guide visits some of Delray’s favorite haunts Written by JOHN THOMASON
"A lot of the ghosts in Delray are here because they love the community.” — Marilyn Egan
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tanding across the street from the Blue Anchor Pub, Marilyn Egan’s voice rises with excitement as she shares what is arguably Delray Beach’s most famous ghost story. It starts in 19th-century Britain, at the original Blue Anchor Pub in Whitechapel, a favored watering hole for literary and political luminaries as well as Jack the Ripper. It was also the pub of choice for Bertha Starkey, a hard-partying gold-digger who married a sailor for his money but caroused with other men when he was away at sea. One night, her husband returned home early and found Bertha at the Blue Anchor, in the arms of another man—and promptly murdered her. Starkey reportedly continued to haunt her favorite dive from beyond the grave. And when Lee Harrison, the original owner of Delray’s Blue Anchor, purchased architectural details from the original pub at auction to establish his business on Atlantic Avenue, her spirit traveled 4,000 miles along with the oak paneling and stained-glass windows. One year, on the anniversary of her death, the quarter-inch thick glass behind the Blue Anchor’s bar suddenly shattered, along with the bottles lining it. This is one of a trove of stories Egan shares on her Wicked Delray Ghost Tour, the one-woman business she’s been operating since 2013. She recently made
her national TV debut on the Travel Channel’s“Booze Traveler,”in an episode dedicated to haunted Florida bars. Egan, a Delray resident whose day job is in real estate, is a longtime devotee of the paranormal. So when the subprime mortgage crisis cost her a lucrative position at Toll Brothers, she used the time to study Delray’s rich legacy of the unexplained and craft a walking tour of its haunted history. The tour begins at Veterans Park and continues along the marina and other spooky hot spots, including the railroad tracks and the Colony Hotel. Errol Flynn makes a cameo, along with nightlife visionary Michael Elwood Gochenour and the Arcade Tap Room.“A lot of the ghosts in Delray are here because they love the community,”she says. The tour costs $20 per person and can take about 90 minutes. Egan’s business, which attracts locals and tourists alike, ebbs with the seasons, but it always thrives around Oct. 31. Act now, and you just might be able to scare up a reservation for Halloween night.
September/October 2017
8/2/17 11:33 AM