COS

COS, a clothing store now occupying the former Manhattan Bistro building on Spring Street, is situated on one of the most famous unsolved murder sites in the city’s history. In 1799, a young woman named Gulielma Elmore Sands was set to elope with her secret lover, Levi Weeks, but before they could get married Sands was murdered. Eleven days after the couple was set to elope her body turned up in a well on Spring Street with marks on her neck suggesting that she was strangled.

Levi was accused of impregnating Sand and then killing her. He was arrested and tried in the first murder case in US history to be recorded by a court stenographer, but ultimately was acquitted of the crime with the aid of his defense lawyers, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. A building would subsequently be built around the well, and two centuries later the remains of the infamous watering hole still remain within. Rumor has it that the well is not the only piece of history to remain; many people claim to have seen Sands’ ghost since her untimely death.