The Strange History Podcast “Ghosts of the Speakeasy Tunnels: The Haunted Side of New York’s Underground” Part 2

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back, dear listeners, to the world Beneath the world. In our last episode, we explored the hidden speakeasy tunnels of Prohibition era New York, the secret passages where flappers, mobsters, and jazz musicians kept the party going when the law said absolutely not. But tonight we're staying after last call because when the lights went out and the music stopped, something else stayed behind. These tunnels may be bricked over, forgotten, and flooded, but according to construction crews, bar owners, and a few unfortunate plumbers, not everything that moves underground is alive.

0:38 Speaker 1: So grab your EMF reader and your gin. This is Ghosts of the Speakeasy Tunnels, the haunted side of New York's underground.

0:46 Speaker 2: The echoes beneath mcsorley's.

0:49 Speaker 1: We begin where so many stories do, with a creaky wooden floor, a pint of ale, and an Irish ghost who refuses to mind his own business. Mcsorley's Old Alehouse has been around since eighteen fifty four, and beneath it, workers uncovered a hidden storage tunnel lined with kegs and bottles, sealed shut since Prohibition, but ever since that, discovery staff and patrons alike have reported phantom footsteps from below, especially after midnight. A longtime bartender once said he heard a voice say pull one for me when he was closing up alone.

1:28 Speaker 1: No one was there. The next morning, a full mug of ale sat on the bar, still frothy. Either the ghost wanted a drink, or it's just the most polite bar spirit in Manhattan. Either way, I'd tip it.

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2:09 Speaker 2: The Cotton Club and the Phantom Band.

2:12 Speaker 1: In the nineteen thirties, Harlem's Cotton Club was the epicenter of jazz and danger. Its owner, Gangster Ony the Killer Madden, used tunnels to sneak liquor and occasionally himself out of police raids, but musicians who've performed there in modern times swear the club still swings. After hours, when the lights are off and the sound system dead, Faint trumpet solos have been heard drifting through the floor. One janitor even recorded it on his phone, a haunting version of it. Don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

2:46 Speaker 1: Experts claim its echoes from the subway below, but jazz lovers prefer to think it's Duke Ellington himself, still riffing from the other side the Afterlife's most exclusive gig, and you just know Saint Peter's up. They're like Duke, buddy, it's been eighty years clock out already.

3:04 Speaker 2: The twenty one Club's locked room.

3:07 Speaker 1: The twenty one Club, perhaps the most famous speakeasy of all, has its own resident apparition. During renovations in the nineteen eighties, workers uncovered a small, bricked over chamber in the sub basement, filled with broken bottles, melted candles, and an old stool facing the wall. The story goes that a watchman guarding the liquor stashed during prohibition vanished one night and was never seen again. Now staff say that the motion sensors in that part of the building go off at two twenty one am every night, despite no one being there.

3:43 Speaker 1: One guard even claims he followed the sound of shuffling footsteps into the tunnel, only to find a bottle of nineteen twenties whiskey sitting upright on the floor with a cork halfway out. Some people leave notes, some leave voicemails. Others just leave Bourbon.

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4:29 Speaker 2: The subway that's sang.

4:31 Speaker 1: Not all ghost stories involve old bars. Some are buried deeper. In twenty eleven, maintenance workers under Canal Street discovered a sealed service tunnel with remnants of tile mosaics and strangely, dozens of empty whiskey bottles dated between nineteen twenty two and nineteen thirty one. But that wasn't the strange part. When they opened the tunnel, one worker said he heard what sounded like a full band, tuning up brass, shuffling feet, then silence. They thought it was reverb from nearby trains until they realized the tracks above were inactive.

5:09 Speaker 1: The tunnel was recealed, but to this day, subway conductors on the late night shift report unexplained music under Canal Street a kind of ghostly swing band in perpetual rehearsal. Imagine being a ghost and still stuck playing second trumpet. That's the real punishment.

5:28 Speaker 2: The Whisky Wells of Brooklyn.

5:31 Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, during restoration work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, workers uncovered several hidden passageways once used for smuggling whiskey off ships during Prohibition. Inside one chamber, archaeologists found two rusted flasks engraved with initials JM and l R, along with a pocket watch frozen at eleven forty seven pm. When the watch was cleaned and inspected, it began ticking again briefly, then it stopped. Locals claimed that the two initials belonged to Joseph Mancini and Lewis Rocco, bootleggers who drowned in a warehouse flood in nineteen twenty eight.

6:11 Speaker 1: People say that if you stand near the old tunnel entrance after midnight, you can hear men laughing followed by the sound of rushing water. Ah Yes, the classic Brooklyn love story Two guys, one heist, and a bad case of drowning while drunk.

6:27 Speaker 2: The ghosts of Chumley's.

6:30 Speaker 1: Chumley's, the literary speakeasy on Bedford Street, has long been haunted by more than just the ghost of Hemingway's ego. After renovations reopened it in the two thousands, staff began noticing strange occurrences, books flying from shelves, glasses shattering when no one was nearby, and most chillingly, the sound of a door creaking open to a tunnel that no longer exists. Paranormal investigators claim there's residual energy from patrons who won it fled police raids. Some EVP recordings even picked up voices saying eighty six it the old slang forget out.

7:10 Speaker 1: You know you've made it as a bar when even your ghosts are shouting last call.

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7:32 Speaker 2: Modern ghost hunts in old tunnels.

7:35 Speaker 1: Paranormal investigators across the city have turned these tunnels into their playgrounds. The New York Paranormal Society once explored an abandoned tunnel beneath Mulberry Street rumored to have been part of an Italian speakeasy. Using thermal cameras, they captured what looked like two glowing figures, one seated at a table, the others standing behind a bar. When they tried to re enter weeks later, the tunnel had mysteriously flooded with clean clear water, even though every other nearby passage was bone dry.

8:09 Speaker 1: Meanwhile, urban explorers in Harlem recorded the sound of piano keys echoing through an inaccessible basement near one hundred twenty fifth Street. The building above once a jazz club raided by the FEDS in nineteen twenty nine. You can shut down a speakeasy, but you can't shut up a jazz ghost.

8:27 Speaker 3: Spirit Box Bar Edition want to contact the other side and order a cocktail? Introducing spirit Box Bar Edition. It's part ghost detector, park drink mixer. Just say Gin and Tonic, and maybe, just maybe your great grandfather will join you for one spirit box, because who doesn't want a haunted happy hour?

8:52 Speaker 1: New York has always been a city of stories, and some of them just don't stop even after death. These tunnels were built to hide the wildest parts of human nature. Joy, defiance, laughter, and of course gin. Maybe that's why their ghosts remain not as warnings, but as reminders that life, even underground, was worth celebrating. So next time you're in a bar that feels just a little too old and you hear faint jazz when there's no band playing, don't panic. Just raise your glass. Someone somewhere might be toasting back.

9:27 Speaker 1: I'm Amy and this has been the Strange History Podcast. Stay curious, Stay spooky, and if you hear a trumpet under your feet, maybe pour one out.