Between the beautiful fall city streets, inescapable Chicago sports spirit, and enough haunted buildings and hotels to fill all of your spookiest needs, Chicago is the place to be this October. Between the magical colors of the leaves changing colors and flooding the city streets, and the smell of pumpkin spice and sweet, delicious apple pie, Chicago has so much to offer during this wonderful time. This city is known to have some of the scariest and most-haunted buildings and hotels known to man. Here are some of my favorites because I do love a good scare.
1. The Congress Plaza Hotel
The Congress Plaza Hotel, located in the heart of Chicago’s Loop, is known for being Chicago’s famously haunted hotel. It has been known in past years to have the longest employee strike in history, due to its workers never feeling quite safe because of the hotel’s past. The twelfth floor has a room so haunted that it has been personally sealed and locked off. Brides have gone missing from the main piano room during pictures and guests have sworn they’ve seen a one legged man in the elevator. The Congress Plaza Hotel is open to the public. So…enter if you dare. (At your own risk of course.)
2. Holy Family Church
Holy Family Church, located in Chicago’s Little Italy, is known for being one of the main buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire. Built in the late 1850’s, church-goers swear they see ghosts late at night when closing the church down. At the forefront of the church bears two statues of boys, each holding a candle over the altar. These two statues are said to be believed that the two statues of the boys that held spirits leading a priest to a woman that was dying, who needed to receive a lasting ritual. Witnesses have also seen several figures standing in the loft of the choir, even after the church had been closed off for years. The Holy Family Church is also open to the public…again, enter at your own risk of course.
3. The Drake Hotel
The Drake Hotel, located in Streeterville along Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive, holds one of the most tragic stories to ever be told. Otherwise known as the night that the “Woman in Red” ended her very own life. It happened on the night of New Year’s Eve in 1920. A young woman accompanied by her fiance attended a huge gala located in the hotel’s famous Gold Coast Room. During the middle of the night, the woman lost sight of her fiancé, and in return went through the hotel looking for him, only to find him fooling around with another woman. In agony, the woman climbed to the roof of the hotel and jumped to her death. Guests have reported seeing the ghost of her not only on the top floor of the hotel, but in the Gold Coast Room as well. The Drake Hotel, also open to the public is all yours if you need a good scare. Quite tragically romantic...I would say.
