America's Most Gothic: Haunted NYC Sites

Talk Highlights:

• Hear some of the NYC-based stories from the new book, America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction
• Learn how one of the strangest and most haunted houses in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where a young woman was allegedly starved to death inside a secret chamber, inspired famed horror writers like HP Lovecraft
• Unearth the connections between a Brooklyn cemetery and a case of possible premature burial nearly 400 miles away
• Find out how Edgar Allan Poe's connections to the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum (now the site of Columbia University) influenced his fiction
• Uncover the terrible secret hidden behind a tapestry in F.W. Woolworth's haunted mansion
• From its starring role in Rosemary's Baby, to an unsettling apparition of a 19th-century girl considered an unlucky omen and John Lennon's reassurance from the beyond, discover why The Dakota has been a harbinger and a haven for nearly 140 years

About this Talk:

The Gothic is all around us. Isolated mansions, trauma-riden specters, macabre love, and entrapped women are well-trodden archetypes that make any spooky story feel darkly familiar. The Gothic genre is an alluring, mesmerizing phantasm that tunes into our hidden fears, cultural anxieties, and forbidden desires - as pervasive in fiction, literature, and film as it is rooted in American lore.

AMERICA’S MOST GOTHIC: Haunted History Stranger Than Fiction (on sale Sept. 30th, 2025) by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes is a tour through the uncanny tales of people and settings that exude that elusive Gothic vibe, which has so effectively permeated across the arts into a distinct, atmospheric genre. (Cue up the Goth music!)

In this live virtual talk, the authors, two of the nation’s utmost paranormal authorities, will bring New York City-based tales from the pages to life!

About the Authors:

Leanna Renee Hieber is an award-winning author and paranormal history expert. A regular speaker at Sci-Fi/Fantasy conventions, she’s appeared on film and television on shows including Mysteries at the Museum and Beyond the Unknown. She’s a three-time Prism Award winner for her debut novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, and a Daphne Du Maurier Award finalist for Darker Still. After earning a BFA in Theatre Performance and a focus study in the Victorian Era, she spent many years in the professional regional theatre circuit, skills that serve her well as a speaker and a ghost tour guide for Boroughs of the Dead in New York. Leanna lives in New York, NY, and can be found online at: LeannaReneeHieber.com

Andrea Janes (she/her) is the founder and owner of Boroughs of the Dead, New York City's premier ghost tour company, which has been featured on NPR.org, The New York Times, Jezebel, TODAY, The Huffington Post, Gothamist, The Travel Channel, CondeNast Traveler, Mashable, and more. Andrea is also the co-author of A Haunted History of Invisible Women.