What’s in the basement beneath the kitchen and bar?

JUNE 9, 2013

I HAD TO DO SOME QUICK ELECTRICAL WORK IN THE HOTEL BASEMENT, so I was down there alone in the pitch dark, using my cell phone as a light source. It was like my phone was swatted out of my hand. Really? It bonked to the floor and dismantled. Really? So I am reaching down around the bottom of the old creepy stairs trying to find the phone parts in the dark. I gather up the phone but realize the battery is gone, and can’t find it anywhere in the darkness, seeming to have probably bounced down behind the old wooden creepy stairs into the forbidden zone. Really? So I have to start digging around with my hand in one of ‘those spaces’: ancient cobwebs, mud, rusty nails, little bits of history, and other things better left untouched in the complete dark, you know the scene. I kept thinking about the rhyme a psychic friend years ago told me she picked up on from a dead little girl in our basement: “609, come and see me anytime, I play in riddle and in rhyme. My father killed me, what a crime.” And I kept visualizing the creepy dead kid under the stairs from that movie that circulated recently, imagining that’s what she looked like. No, I don’t want to play, I’m thinking. And don’t touch my hand (as I reach back and dig around in there). I was having such an enchanted morning. Anyway, I eventually find the phone battery waaaaay back in there under those stairs.

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A BODY IN THE BASEMENT?

So, the history of the child ghost in the Midway starts like this…

About six months after our purchase of the building someone involved with the sale of the hotel (maybe a lawyer, maybe a real estate agent, maybe a code inspector, maybe a police chief, maybe a family member) told us a story of how there was supposed to be a body buried in the basement.  A child.  Wow! So, we started doing research.  Eventually, several psychics, not knowing this story, stated flat-out how there is a body buried in this hotel basement.

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SLEEPING IN THE BASEMENT

Above is a photo in the basement from our first season when Jonathan Rabkin slept alone down there.  It’s a large dungeon.  A lot of bones were found in the walls of the basement.  we puled countless animal bones from the walls.  Jonathan felt compelled to sleep down in the basement alone, possibly to commune with any spirits down there.  He brought with him what looked like a Christmas tree of sage.  He was he only person to have slept down there since we’ve taken over the place.  He survived.

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LITTLE GIRL GHOST STORIES

Many guests have reported experiencing a little girl ghost.   Though the stories take place all over the hotel, the basement and the third floor seem to be their most popular domain.

The claims by guests were mostly from woman.  They were not negative so much as playful, mischievous, or wanting attention.  I can remember Sarah Ireland mentioning it the first time, how she was certain a little girl climbed up on her when she was napping and took a nap next to her.  Years later, Deana Kane was vacuuming on the third floor and she’d watch the curtains in the doorways rise to mid level as if someone was passing through.  Fifty stories later of a Little Girl Ghost touching someone and she seems like just another resident in the building anymore.

THE LULLABY GHOST

Since spirits can supposedly communicate through electronic devices, many a recording has been attempted here in the Grand Midway by researchers. Perhaps the most dramatic audio recording was the very first attempted where hotel hosts Damien Youth and myself when we were caught off guard to hear a woman singing a child’s lullaby in the middle of the night inside the hotel from their small recording device. Then as the recordings continued there were further recordings that same night of a young child crying. We dubbed her the Lullaby Ghost.

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THE LULLABY GHOST  -by Damien Youth

There was an odd feel to that old Hotel. One that even, on occasion, unnerved a hardcore skeptic such as myself. Perhaps it was the aesthetics of the place? Upon first arriving, the place reeked of dead relative. So many discarded items. Old clothes, shoes, records, the old guest book. Regardless to what contributed, I knew no other way to react when a strange occurrence took place on one particular evening.

Blair & I were down on the first floor, brain storming, moving things about. I had my baby monitor on, as our family rooms were way up on the third floor. As Blair & I were chatting, I noticed periodically, voices coming through my baby monitor. I didn’t pay much attention at first as, it sounded like Elizabeth & little Starr talking. At one point it sounded as if Starr was upset so I decided to excuse myself & run up to the room to see if Elizabeth needed help with Starr.

When I reached the third floor, I cracked the door & peeked in. I got a deep chill when I saw that Elizabeth & Starr were both in a deep sleep. They couldn’t have dropped off to sleep that fast! Not in the short time it took me to run upstairs!

I shared this with Blair. We were both moved by this. And this opened a whole new door to us for a while. The baby monitor began a ghost busting device! There were a few nights that we set the monitor up, turned on maximum volume. I had a tape deck recording it. Blair had a camera turned on it. And we were determined to capture these voices!

Yes! Me! A skeptic, wandering about those old halls, holding the monitor in different areas to see if the voices could be detected with more clarity. And a few times they were! Blair & I both heard a mother singing an old lullaby to a child! Really!!

In retrospect, I can think of 101 reasons why I was picking up voices on that device. But the point is simply this. In the midst of it, with-in the structure of that old building, nothing seemed more feasible than it being the voices of past lives. And getting me to entertain such a thought as being feasible, is an accomplishment all on it’s own!I mean, if you told me it was the government or space alien’s… perhaps … But ghosts!!!!

…Perhaps?

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VOXX’S NURSERY RHYME MURDER POEM

Her web page boasts: Voxx is listed in the national best-selling book, “America’s Top 100 Psychics,” where she is featured as the world’s youngest and most accurate Psychic. Voxx is respected as the nation’s leading Love Psychic; however, she also gives amazingly detailed Psychic Readings regarding all aspects of life. Voxx astonishes clients during Psychic readings by literally giving names, specific dates and details that are miraculous. A gifted Trance Medium, Voxx also connects the living with spirits of their loved ones on The Other Side.  Voxx possesses a unique combination of amazing, natural Psychic ability and Metaphysical scholarship. Voxx is the only professional Psychic in the world who is an initiated High Priestess. A lifelong student of the sacred Kabbalah, Voxx is also an esteemed member of several ancient, mystical orders. Voxx was born Psychic, descended from a family of gifted seers, dating back to 10th century scotland. Her Psychic mastery includes: Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Clairsentience, Trance Channeling, Kabbalah, Tarot, Astrology, Numerology, Dream Interpretation, All Forms of Divination, and Ritual Magick. She’s written books on Positive Spellcasting, Psychic Ability, and Astrology. With over 20 years of experience, Voxx is one of the most trusted Psychics in the world. She has proven her talents on numerous television and radio shows, as well as several films, over the last 10 years.  Voxx is the first Psychic to have hosted her own national radio show on KLSX 97.1 FM, where she was the lead-in to the “Howard Stern Show.” Every 2 AM out of Los Angeles, five nights a week, this paranormal show was wildly successful. “The Voxx Show” averaged over one million calls per month! Currently, Voxx co-hosts Love Calls with the Poorman on KMPC 1540 FM.

I have known Voxx for years, going back to when he first interviewed her for my film Black Pearls. I wrote her and requested any images that came to mind about the Grand Midway. All she had was a picture of the hotel exterior. She had no prior knowledge of the hotel, nor of the often-mentioned possibility of a child buried in the basement, only that I’d relocated from LA and was currently doing something with this old Pennsylvania building. This letter was her response:

Hi Blair,

Re: Spookiness in general … I see a young girl named Sarah with long hair in spiral curls. She is wearing a white pinafore and holding a doll. She says:

“609, come and see me anytime,
I play in riddle and in rhyme.
My father killed me, what a crime.”

That’s automatic writing from Sarah in “609” … sometimes spirits speak backwards and this could indicate she may have been born in 1906. You could check it out.  Hope all is well Blair.  I might come visit you soon.  Let me know when is a good time.  Blessings, -Voxx

(NOTE FROM BLAIR:  I have always thought the use of ‘609’ in her poem was a reference to my first area code in New Jersey which was 609 when I was also a little kid.)

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ORIGINAL PHOTOS OF WOMAN AND CHILDREN OF THE MIDWAY

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CHIP COFFEY VISITS THE BASEMENT / CLAIMS TWO BODIES HERE!

Chip Coffey celebrity psychic / medium from Psychic Kids and Paranormal State joined Adam Blai and I for an hour in the hotel basement.

Chip said, after considering the space, that we not only had one body, but two bodies buried in the basement!  “A child and a young woman. The woman was a sad story.  She died by accident, killed by accident, almost in a kind of auto-asphyxiation.  The man who killed her was too important in the community, so she was quietly buried here in the basement.”

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I stood there bewildered for a moment, then, not worrying about how crazy I might sound to the other hotel residents, I called after her something like, “Wait, come back! I want to see you!” But she didn’t return that night. For about a half hour following her disappearance, I was aware of the energy in the bar which felt like standing near a power plant – electric, alive, almost oppressive in a tingly sort of way. It destroyed any chance of concentration, and eventually forced me to call it a night and head upstairs to sleep, and later, to share my exciting encounter with everybody else.

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GUEST COLLAPSES SCREAMING!

One day we had a bbq with a house full of people.  Everyone was outside.  We suddenly heard screaming from within the building.  All of us so used to pranks by that point just laughed at first.  But the screaming continued.  It sounded terrible, like they were sawing a oman in half.  We realized something was genuinely wrong.  we raced up the stairs.  There lay one of our good friends on the ground shaking and screaming.  She wasn’t faking anything.

After a while, after she eventually calmed down, she told us she was in a room on the third floor and got shocked touching an electric lamp.  When she next stepped into the hallway, she turned to see what she described as a dead little girl right before her, arm stretched out pointing, screaming at her.  With that our friend lost it, started screaming uncontrollably, and fell to the ground.

Her screaming was so loud and had gone on for so long the Windber Police showed up!

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THE BAT CHILD DRAWING