Every Halloween, we turn to scary costumes, screeching motion-activated lawn decorations, and eerie horror movies to get a fright. But the real scares might be closer than we think.
What is the scariest place on campus?
Ashley Gonzalez, a junior in McCormick, says it’s the Tech basement. She’s not alone in her fear of the Technological Institute.
It’s shared by Grace Chung, a Bienen junior. She says, “I get lost in there and there’s just so much going on. There’s a new hallway every turn I go and I can never find the actual room I’m looking for. Also, STEM is scary.”
But according to Ashley Ortiz, a pre-med student and frequenter of Tech, “the scariest place on campus would be the little path or alley behind Swift Hall, especially at night.”
Grace Cho, a neuroscience major, agrees. She says, “There’s not as many lights or there’s no people, and if there are, they’ll just be like some random man just walking.”
It’s not just alleys and sprawling academic buildings that are scary — Ashley Gonzalez’s first-year dorm, the Greenhouse, often spooked her. She says, “The guys leave their underwear on the counter, like the bathroom counter. It’s pretty scary.”
But Kevin Leonard, Northwestern’s University Historian, has a different view.
His personal answer for the scariest campus spot is the registrar’s office, the repository of his grades. But, he added, “In terms of ghostly apparitions and eerie spookiness, I don’t think there is a scary place at Northwestern.”
That might be a letdown for ghost hunting enthusiasts, but Leonard says there’s a reason for that.
When Northwestern began, it was affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, now called the United Methodist Church.
Northwestern was a Methodist-affiliated school for decades, and its early faculty and student body was of Methodist heritage. One of the planks in the social platform of the Methodist Episcopal Church was temperance, the avoidance of alcohol.
Leonard suggests that, “Because you don’t have a bunch of drunks around here who are imagining things or inclined to see things that might not really be there, there are no ghosts. There are no ghost stories.”
But if you’re searching for a scare, Leonard has a few ideas.
“Well, I work in the library. So I’d say go to the library and check out a scary book, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or something like that, or Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” he recommends.
In terms of the best physical location for a seance or something of that nature, Leonard suggests the Shakespeare Garden. “It’s a little secluded, it’s beautiful in the daytime and, particularly in the spring, summer, fall,” he says.
With the wind blowing and leaves scraping against the pavement, Leonard says, “A late night at the Shakespeare Garden might give you a little bit of a chill.”
So if you’re looking to be spooked this Halloween, look no further than Northwestern’s campus. For WNUR News, I’m Supriya Akella.