Kreischer Mansion

Kreischer Mansion is said to be haunted by a ghost who has been seen as an apparition and even felt when he has touched living visitors, though the identity of the ghost is uncertain. The historic Staten Island home was built by German brick-maker Balthasar Kreischer, who died just a year after completing the house. His son, Edward, died by self-inflicted gunshot less than a decade afterwards. More than a century later, in 2008, the house was the scene of a gruesome murder.

Joseph “Joe Black” Young, the building’s then caretaker and a reputed hitman for the Bonanno crime family, was contracted to kill one Robert McKelvey. Young lured McKelvey to the mansion where he attempted to strangle the victim; McKelvey managed to break free and tried to run away, but Young caught up to him and stabbed him repeatedly after tackling him to the ground. To make sure the job was done, Young dragged the body to a nearby pond to drown McKelvey; he and three other mobsters than hacked the body into pieces and burned them in the Mansion’s basement furnace.