The Ghosts of Washington Square Park
Beneath the lively rhythm of street performers, dog walkers, and NYU students lounging on benches, Washington Square Park hides a much darker past — one of death, disease, and executions. While today it’s one of Greenwich Village’s most beloved green spaces, this iconic park sits atop what was once a potter’s field, where over 20,000 bodies were buried in mass, unmarked graves.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, yellow fever ravaged New York City multiple times. Fearing the contagious disease, city leaders moved the dead away from populated areas, turning the then-rural land into a pauper’s cemetery. The burials were hasty, the graves shallow. The sick, the poor, the forgotten — all laid to rest without ceremony or headstone.
As if that weren’t unsettling enough, the northwest corner of the park is home to the "Hanging Tree", a gnarled English elm believed to be over 300 years old. Folklore claims that the tree — still standing — was used for public executions in the early 1800s, when the park area was used as a public gallows. Though records are murky, some say the tree witnessed the hanging of traitors and criminals, and that the park's spectral energy is strongest beneath its branches.
Today, strange occurrences are still reported. People speak of sudden chills even on warm nights, the feeling of being watched, and faint, disembodied whispers carried on the wind. Some say they’ve seen shadowy figures moving just beyond the edges of their vision, or felt an inexplicable heaviness in their chest when walking near the Hanging Tree.
The city has tried to move on, covering the graves with paths and gardens, but every so often, the dead make themselves known. During renovations or maintenance, human bones have occasionally been unearthed, a grim reminder of what lies just a few feet below.
Washington Square Park might be filled with life today, but when the sun dips below the skyline and the shadows stretch long, it’s not hard to imagine the past clawing its way back to the surface.
