the early 1800s, a six-foot-tall Irishwoman named Gallus Mag was the bouncer everyone feared at the bar then named Hole-in-the-Wall. Her specialty was to haul unruly patrons out the door by their ears—with her teeth. Sometimes she overindulged and bit the ear off; other times, she hacked it off using a carving knife. She kept these “gentle reminders” in pickle jars on the bar. This gory bit of history was depicted in the 2002 film Gangs of New York.
The McCormack family bought the building in 1922 and survived Prohibition by operating as a restaurant but offering “cider” and beer via the local bootlegger, Charlie Brennan. The Weprin family assumed ownership of the building in 1979. They upgraded the menu and the restaurant and renamed it the Bridge Café. When Adam Weprin’s father passed away in 1996, Adam took the helm as manager.
I spoke with Joseph Kunst, Executive Chef at the Bridge Café. He’s worked there for six years and has had his share of ghostly encounters. Joseph’s office is on the second floor, but he prefers to do his paperwork at the bar or seated at a table by the waiters’ service area. Four years ago, he had to retrieve something from his office. His daughter, who was about sixteen or seventeen at the time, was there and went with him. While Joseph was searching through items on his desk, they heard heavy footsteps on the third floor above them. Joseph told me that the third floor is not used at all, nor even accessed by anyone, because large parts of the floor are missing and the remaining parts are not safe enough to walk on. Joseph and his daughter made a hasty exit, and to this day Joseph avoids the second floor as much as possible.
Pictures at Bridge Café have been known to fly off one wall and smash against another wall. On one such occasion the framed Zagat certificate in the front window, along with the Wine Spectator award and other awards, levitated over the planters behind the window and landed four feet away on the floor. Joseph said he was at the bar talking with a couple of customers. They heard the crash and had to look around to figure out where the noise came from. There was no one near the front of the restaurant or the window.
Paranormal scents infuse the charming restaurant, then leave as quickly as they’re detected. Lavender and other fragrances have occurred. In fact, Adam Weprin, owner and manager of the Bridge Café, said that recently he and a couple of employees were standing at the bar when what felt like a silk scarf dragged across each person’s shoulders, leaving the trailing scent of lavender. “As fast as we felt it and smelled it, it was gone,” Adam said. This paranormal scent most likely harkens from the brothel days of the restaurant; in the 1850s, “ladies of the evening” doused themselves in lavender since bathing was not a daily occurrence. Waitresses at Bridge Café have smelled lavender in the changing room. They, like Adam, report that the scent is there for a moment, then gone. Another smell noticed occasionally here is cigar, cigarette or pipe smoke. Smoking is illegal in bars and restaurants in New York City, but the ghosts don’t seem to care.
Joseph, the executive chef, remembered another incident when he was working at table one while a couple dined at table eleven. The woman went to the restroom. Meanwhile, the man leaned over toward Joseph and struck up a conversation about the ghosts of the restaurant. Joseph entertained the man’s query, telling him about the footsteps he’d heard on the third floor and about the pictures flying off the walls. When the woman returned from the restroom, the man said, “Honey, it’s true. This place does have ghosts.” She looked at him and at Joseph and said, “That would explain what just happened in the ladies’ room. I was combing my hair and looking in the mirror when I got the feeling someone was standing in back of me. It was so strong that I actually turned around to look.” Of course, no one was there, but the experience was unnerving enough that she skipped the rest of her primping and returned to her table.
Joseph told me that, on those rare occasions when he must venture up to the second floor, he says out loud when he gets to the top of the stairs, “Let me do what I have to do. I won’t bother you and you won’t bother me, and everything will be fine.”
Owner Adam Weprin has had two distinct experiences with the heavy footsteps. The first was when he was twenty-two years old and had been entrusted to lock up the restaurant for the night. He couldn’t resist inviting a couple of friends who lived nearby to have a beer with him. Around 11:30 P.M., they were enjoying their first beer; as Adam put it, “We were by no means drunk.” The restaurant was closed and the gate was locked, but the alarm was not set. When Adam and his friends heard footsteps on the third floor, they ran out of the restaurant, leaving the beers on the bar. Adam’s second encounter with the footsteps was on September 13, 2001, after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Adam and a rescue worker went to the Bridge Café, which was closed at the time, to gather food to donate to the rescuers. Adam said he could tell the worker accompanying him was tired and depressed, so to cheer her up, he offered her a glass of wine at the bar. They both needed the break before returning with the supplies to Ground Zero. Suddenly, they heard the footsteps on the third floor. The rescue worker looked at Adam and said, “I thought we were alone.” They grabbed the box of supplies and finished drinking the wine out in front of the restaurant.
I had the opportunity to speak with Adam via phone on April 16, 2010. He had just had another paranormal experience prior to my call. While in his office on the second floor, he heard a yawn coming from the changing room, which is also on the second floor. He went downstairs and asked the staff if anyone had recently been in the changing room, and Joseph confirmed that everyone had been downstairs the whole time. For Adam, this ranks high up among the many “Huh, that’s weird” moments he’s had at the Bridge Café. He hasn’t been scared since 2001, when he last heard the footsteps. He has reached a point of acceptance regarding these events that make one stop and wonder. He’s not frightened or upset by them anymore.
Adam told me about the time the Travel Channel sent a crew to the Café to film for one of their shows. The crew were there to highlight the restaurant for its menu and the age and history of the building; they knew nothing about the place being haunted, and Adam didn’t bring it up. “It was a hot August day,” Adam told me, “and there was no air moving at all. The producer asked if they could film on the second floor where the brothel once was, so I brought him and the cameraman up there. The upstairs was beyond hot, so we opened windows to get some air. It didn’t help, so the producer and I went to the roof to get what little air we could while the cameraman continued to film on the second floor. Minutes later, the cameraman came rushing up to find us on the roof. He was visibly shaken. He asked, ‘Is this place haunted?’ and wanted to know how the producer had whispered in his ear and disappeared so quickly.” Adam explained to me that the cameraman was six feet five inches tall, while the producer was much shorter in stature, so the only way the producer could have whispered into the cameraman’s ear would have been with the aid of a stepladder. Adam confessed to the cameraman that “certain things happen here,” and the cameraman told the rest of his story. While alone on the second floor, he’d heard a whisper in his ear. He looked around but didn’t see anyone and dismissed it. Then he heard it again, louder. He couldn’t discern what was being said, only that it was a man’s voice, so he assumed it was his producer talking to him. When he looked around again and still saw no one there, he became terrified and ran to find the others on the roof. Adam said that even though he could sympathize with the cameraman’s fright, it was still a bit comical given that the man could have been a linebacker for any team in the NFL.
On another occasion, Adam locked up the restaurant around 3:30 A.M. When the cook and staff arrived about four hours later to prepare for the Sunday brunch crowd, they found a mess. The container that holds the base for the Café’s signature pineapple martini had been emptied all over the bar. Several liquor bottles had been broken, also, including one of Grand Marnier. The workers laughed and cleaned up the mess, thinking their boss must have had a wild party the night before. When Adam arrived later that day, his cook was still giggling. “What’s so funny?” Adam asked him. The cook explained the mess the crew had found that morning, and he asked Adam if he was still hung over from his party. Adam assured him that there had been no party. The cook stopped giggling.
I
