On a picturesque street in New York City stands a house with a dark past. Number 14 West 10th Street is called the House of Death and is famous for being haunted by the ghost of Mark Twain and 21 other spirits. The brownstone was built in the late 1850s and many of New York’s elite called it home. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, lived there for about a year, and sightings have been reported many years later of the author in his white suit near the staircase on the first floor. In 1937 the house was converted into multi-family apartments, and actress Jan Bryant Bartell moved into the top floor with her husband. She immediately started feeling a presence like a monstrous moving shadow, and documented her battles with the paranormal in her book, Spindrift: Spray from a Psychic Sea. Many paranormal investigators have visited the house claiming to sense a lady in white, a gray cat, and a young child. Unfortunately, the house was occupied by a true demon and former criminal defense attorney, Joel Steinberg. In 1987 he was convicted of manslaughter for beating his illegally adopted six-year-old daughter to death.
