Javier M.
Yelp
I remember passing this place as a little boy and seeing the sign with the screaming ghost coming out of the No sign; I asked my father what it was and he spoke to me in a soft voice, as if confiding a secret: "Oh, this is the Ghostbusters HQ". I remember being afraid and asking him: "G-ghosts?". "Yes"-was the answer. "Ghosts"
For almost a decade, the Ghostbusters were a Manhattan institution, and perhaps the most bizarre business that ever grazed the island. Spearheaded by famous parapsychologist Dr. Egon Spengler, he shocked the scientific community with his theories on ectoplasm and psychokinesis, and with his now famous invention, the "Ghost containment facility", which led to many scuffles with the EPA and the DOH during the tenure of the short lived business. Nevertheless, the fringe science proved to be a fantastic success in New York City and the tri area, and many of the Ghostbusters jobs received copious amounts of publicity and press coverage during the 1980's. Reported "cleansing" of so-called haunted places, resurrected an interest in the fields of parapsychology and alternative science, and soon enough, other inventions to contain or harness ectoplasm started popping up in Sweden, Germany and elsewhere. The Ghostbusters vogue, also invited a resurgence in spiritism, with a plethora of charlatans setting camp all over Manhattan; needless to say, the 80's became a beehive of superstition in its waning days.
The only experience where I was personally involved with the Ghostbusters, was when our great aunt died in 1991, and they were called in to clean her apartment in the UWS from her "presence". According to my cousins, they could distinctively hear her footsteps going to the kitchen and opening the fridge at 2:00am in the morning (as it was her custom while alive), or they would arrive home to find the television turned on and tuning her favorite program (Geraldo) Everything came to a head when they had friends visiting from out of town which were to stay in the house for a few days, until one of them saw the reflection of my naked great aunt in the bathroom mirror. No more. The Ghostbusters came in and took care of the problem, but in doing so, they wrecked much of my cousin's furniture, and spooked the neighbors as they could clearly hear my great aunt's horrid howls as she was being "contained". My family couldn't file a lawsuit since they had signed a waiver with the services, but at least our great aunt never bothered us again.
The Ghostbusters finally went out of business when Giuliani took office and decided to make a Manhattan house cleaning, which included getting rid of shady or questionable parsons and businesses. The Ghostbusters were harassed by the EPA, and with the help of a respectable cadre of Doctors from Columbia University, forced the business to close its doors on Nov. 1994 due to the alleged threat of environmental hazard. Dr. Egon Spengler went on to sell his patented "ghost containment facility" in other parts of the world, opening Ghostbusters franchises in Japan, Taiwan and Europe. In America, the application of such fringe science has since been prohibited and sternly regulated by code, but New York will always remember that time when it used to sing: "If there's something strange, in the neighborhood, who you gonna call...?"
***
Located in the famed location featured as the headquarters in the Ghostbusters movie (You can even see the symbol from Ghostbusters II on display inside the station), this FDNY station has been around since well over a century, moving from two different locations until finally settling in this one. So it is always reassuring when the boys in black and yellow whizz through the streets (ok, we all know we detest the damn siren when it invades our ears on a daily basis but...), always ready to dash into action and contain the firestorm. But as much as our ears ring whenever it is they pass by, the surely deserve the accolade: Heroes.
Check their collection of molten/destroyed telephones that they have recovered from various jobs, which is on display inside
So if, god forbid, your house is on fire, you left the stove burning, or you forgot not to smoke your joint underneath your sheets, who you gonna call? Hook & Ladder 8
DISCLAIMER: Please note that this review is being done in the spirit of Halloween; meaning that the uppercase review is a fake review, while the lowercase review is a real review, in other words: Trick & Treat.
Happy Halloween!