Cherry Hills: A Lost Neighborhood, Part ll

Cherry Hills

During the 1800s the Cherry Hills neighborhood and its tenement houses along the East River were the worst slums in New York City.

Crime and disease plagued this area that had once been an elite neighborhood where George Washington and John Hancock lived.

Within Cherry Hills sat a 3-room flat that many tried to live in but did not succeed. This flat in the late 1800s and early 1900s quickly became legendary in Cherry Hills for an entity that haunted it.

It was plagued by a violent poltergeist for 19 years. Several New York newspapers at the time documented this activity.

Twenty years before the haunting began a French woman lived in this flat with her husband. When her husband died it is said she was left desolate--both emotionally and financially.

In the act of desperation, she took a clothesline and hung herself in the flat. It was believed that she was the entity that plagued a variety of families that moved in after her suicide.

This flat first became notorious within Cherry Hills when a tough longshoreman, “Jackie” Haggarty decided to test the rumors that something strange was happening.

The night he visited he heard noises and left the flat. In the hallway, something thumped his eye hard. Left with a black eye, it is said this incident shattered his fierce reputation.

Tenement House

Housing was scarce in the Fourth Ward and several families despite the flat’s reputation moved in. The newspaper reports stated that most only stayed a few hours.

A couple by the name of Ryan moved in with their three children. In bed the first night they heard a loud racket. They all scrambled out of bed and watched as an unseen entity threw their furniture across the room.

The husband was punched in the face, his wife’s left eye was blackened, and the children became ill. This all happened within six minutes.

It had taken the family six hours to move in, it took them less than an hour to move their belongings out.

Other families found their furniture piled high and pictures that they had hung turned around.

Yet another resident of the flat, Mike Finnegan saw his big iron stove tip over. He

Cherry Hills Slum

moved out shortly after observing this strange sight.

As to whether this activity would have continued is not known for shortly after these incidents most of the Cherry Hills neighborhood was torn down because of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge construction.

Here is a link to a New York Times account of this haunting in March of 1900.

This East River, NYC Cherry Hills neighborhood should not be confused with the Albany, New York estate called Cherry Hills that is also haunted.

In Part l of Cherry Hills: A Lost Neighborhood, information about Cherry Hills' history is shared.

Cherry Hills, A Lost Neighborhood, Part l

If one goes in search of Cherry Hills originally located in the Lower East Side in downtown Manhattan, New York City, they will not find it.

For a century, from the 1830s to the early 1900s, this neighborhood contained the worst slum in NYC. Within its boundaries sat a 3-room flat that was plagued by an insidious poltergeist for 19 years.

What area looked like in the mid-1700s

In the beginning, the Cherry Hills neighborhood whose homes had a beautiful view of the East River was the fashionable place to live. George Washington during his first term as president had a home at 1 Cherry Hill Street.

John Hancock owned a home on the same street. Later Dewitt Clinton bought George Washington’s home. In 1824, the neighborhood was still upscale. Samuel Leggett founder of the New York Gas Light Company lived in the community.

The decline of Cherry Hills began with the birth of William “Boss” Tweed. He lived and worked in the neighborhood from childhood.

By the time Boss Tweed was an adult the neighborhood had become a slum. Its tenement houses became the worst in the city--including an area known as Gotham Court. The Fourth Ward now housed saloons, boarding houses, and brothels along Water Street.

Cherry Hills Tenement House
Photo Jacob Rilis

This included the legendary Hole in The Wall, which today is the Bridge Café.

The neighborhood became infamous when Jacob Rilis wrote a scathing account in 1890 entitled, “How The Other Half Lives.” He exposed the desperation, crime and

Rilis' expose

disease that was commonplace along this now notorious block.

After this, Gotham Court was demolished in 1897. By 1909, with the anchorage construction for the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, entrance traffic from the rest of the city was blocked to Cherry Hills. By 1942, with the construction of traffic ramps, what little remained of the original neighborhood was obliterated.

The Cherry Hills neighborhood should not be confused with the Albany, New York estate called Cherry Hills that is also haunted.

In Part ll of Cherry Hills: A Lost Neighborhood the story of a 19-year poltergeist ordeal is shared.