Hannah: 0:05

Because he makes it seem like it's going to happen overnight, Like we're just going to saw this part off and set it right Totally had to see it and then reattach it. So obviously it wasn't going to be that way.

Courtney: 0:13

Immediately, my thought was are these people being paid by the hour or when the project? Is completed Because you could easily have a whole lifetime of money on this guy, right, right.

Jonathan: 0:22

Not getting anywhere.

Courtney: 0:23

Job security right.

Hannah: 0:42

This to me as a former so former Manhattanite is extreme. Okay, Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm Courtney. Join us as we delve into true crime paranormal encounters and all things spooky.

Courtney: 1:06

Grab your flashlight and get ready to wander into the darkness with us. This is Wicked Wanderings. Hello Wanderers, you just sounded like an old talk show host. Hello Wanderers, hello Vietnam and hello Jonathan, who's here to join us.

Jonathan: 1:24

Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

Courtney: 1:27

You're very welcome. I was looking at Hannah, who was ready to speak into the mic, and I was like uh-huh, and then she was just making stim sounds. We're excited to have you back, jonathan. What do we have in store for us today, Miss Hannah, or Mr Jonathan?

Jonathan: 1:40

Should I jump in?

Courtney: 1:42

Yes, please.

Jonathan: 1:43

Cool, so I wanted to talk a little bit about this cool thing that I just found about. It's called the Manhattan Hoax.

Courtney: 1:50

Okay.

Jonathan: 1:51

So it was during this period in the 19th century, early 19th century, and this is more like weird than spooky. But this guy decided that Lower Manhattan because we have to remember that Lower Manhattan was considered the core part of New York City, upper Manhattan, which is now like Washington Heights and Harlem Upper West Side Upper East Side had not been settled yet, it was still considered the country. He thought that Lower Manhattan was so over-settled that it was going to weight down Lower Manhattan and basically sink it.

Jonathan: 2:31

So, he had this idea that if they cut it off roughly around Chinatown, where Chinatown?

Hannah: 2:37

is good. Like literally, take a shovel and like.

Jonathan: 2:40

Cut it off, push it out into the Atlantic, turn it 180 degrees and push it back and reattach it. That that would save it.

Courtney: 2:50

Did he have a drug problem? That sounds a lot easier than it is.

Jonathan: 2:54

So it said in the brown. Roughly 1824, a retired carpenter named Lozier stood on a soapbox in New York city and announced that because of all of the new buildings in the Southern tip of Manhattan, it had all become far too heavy. It was in danger of sinking the whole island. His fix, he would saw off the end of the island, tow it off to the sea, turn it 180 degrees and then reattach it back onto Manhattan Island.

Courtney: 3:27

Totally feasible.

Jonathan: 3:28

Which is extreme, yeah, but he said that, claiming that Mayor Stephen Allen had put him in charge of the project which he hadn't Lozier. Signed up hundreds of laborers offering triple wages to anyone willing to saw the island off underwater. He directed blacksmiths and carpenters to begin designing the 100-foot saws and 250-foot oars needing to saw the island and row it out to sea. He also arranged for the construction of barracks and a mess hall for his laborers and the delivery of 500 cattle, 500 hogs and 3,000 chickens, Though I don't understand where the hogs and the chickens come into this?

Hannah: 4:10

Yeah, what does it have to do with anything?

Jonathan: 4:12

Unless's no idea maybe to feed them.

Hannah: 4:14

Yeah, I don't understand it sounded like he was going for something self-sustaining, because he makes it seem like it's going to happen overnight, like we're just going to.

Courtney: 4:21

Saw this part off and reattach it so obviously it wasn't going to be that way immediately, my thought was are these people being paid by the hour or when the project?

Hannah: 4:30

is completed.

Courtney: 4:30

Because, you could easily have a whole lifetime of money on this guy not getting anywhere. Job security right.

Jonathan: 4:37

This, to me as a former Manhattanite, is extreme. After two months of planning, the day arrived for construction to begin. Scores of laborers, carpenters, blacksmiths, butchers and all of the animals he ordered laborers, carpenters, blacksmiths, butchers and all of the animals he ordered, uh, as well as marching band in hundreds of onlookers arrived at spring street, which is roughly around soho, ish, um and the bowery uh, to see the historic project go underway about. The only person who didn't show up was actually lozier, who was the one who created the project. He'd suddenly left town, on quote, on account of his health. Oh, he was actually hiding in brooklyn and although there was talk of having him arrested, he wasn't.

Hannah: 5:21

Why this book says the authorities didn't want to admit that they'd absolutely been duped okay, can we talk about, like new york city as a whole? Yeah, it's had so much historical things happen to it yeah like. I'm thinking about nelly bligh, who was the insane asylum that we went over um and that was the asylum that's out in the east river, yes, which is still an island. That's there, correct? You can still go out to it on a boat yeah, people live out there they live out there I'm pretty sure they live out there oh god.

Hannah: 5:55

Well then you also think about horror movies, that um, rosemary's baby, and then they just came out with the movie. Well, not just came out, but recently it was apartment 17a which was to be a prequel to that happening, and it was that famous building. I think you showed me before where a lot of elite live so rosemary's baby is based around the dakota yes, on the other side, yes because I was only.

Hannah: 6:19

I lived a couple of few blocks up, so that's probably why you remember it yeah, it was a huge deal and so they did a lot of outward shots of it and again for apartment 17a, a lot of outward shots of how they lived and everything, which I thought was really cool new york city is wild.

Jonathan: 6:35

I mean the idea that this island could have been settled so early by the dutch and then the english took over and still for like 100 years. The lower tip of manhattan was really the only part of the city, and the parts we consider still manhattan today, like the upper east side, the upper west side, harlem, washington heights, would have been considered.

Hannah: 6:58

The country is really extraordinary yeah and that's also densely settled so is that where, like sleepy hollow with the van tassels came into play.

Jonathan: 7:08

So the Sleepy Hollow is closer. It's further north, it's considered more. I mean now it's probably considered a suburb, but it's much more suburban country. Yeah.

Hannah: 7:23

Because you're talking about the Dutch, so that's why.

Jonathan: 7:25

Oh yeah, I mean, the Dutch were all you know so invested in New York.

Courtney: 7:30

I've never been to New York City, are you? Serious, I'm sorry what I'm serious, I didn't know this, we'll have to go.

Jonathan: 7:35

We'll have to make this spooky, wicked wandering strip.

Courtney: 7:38

I don't know why that just dawned on me. It's funny because sometimes places are so. I met somebody the other day who lives in Connecticut and they had never been to Boston. Oh, oh yeah, and I was like why, like we have all this stuff in connecticut, so and they're like down by the coast in connecticut, so like they're not like hartford, connecticut. They were like why would I go? Like everything I can just go to hartford if I want something, or I can go to bridgeport.

Courtney: 8:01

I'm like, yeah, bridgeport and hartford are not boston yeah, it's not it's not the same boston is very unique for anybody who's been there are people who live there. But it's just crazy to me that you can be in New England and people don't. They don't go to places that are that big. Oh my God, I've never been to New York City. I don't know what I would ever do in New York City.

Hannah: 8:19

That's why you have a tour guide. I hate crowds. Hint, hint. I know, I hear that.

Courtney: 8:26

We don't have to go to Times Square.

Jonathan: 8:27

That's like my nightmare there's so much in New York City that you would love to see.

Courtney: 8:32

Oh, I'm sure, History-wise, food-wise, I mean just the.

Hannah: 8:36

Strand For the books.

Jonathan: 8:38

Miles of books. I mean it's just you would love, and it's not loud, it's just like people that love books and want to go there.

Hannah: 8:46

It's like a bunch of quiet people. Yes, it's like a bunch of quiet people. Yes, but you have to get out of, like that first section, I feel, because they were like ah, it's a strand, it's like this big hype, but you have to get past those people.

Courtney: 8:54

Those are the instagram people. Those are the people who went in because they want their content, right, yeah, right. They didn't venture in all the way and they have a good bathroom that you can use, which is always a plus.

Hannah: 9:03

Do they have a bathroom in the strand? Yes, it's in the kids section.

Jonathan: 9:06

Oh, no, that's absolutely true. I have used that over and over and over and over again. I love a bathroom.

Hannah: 9:11

For some reason the kids section has the men's and women's bathroom in it.

Courtney: 9:16

Probably because not a lot of people would wander in there unless they had kids.

Hannah: 9:19

Probably.

Courtney: 9:20

Because most times when you go to a city in your walkable cities, they don't have bathrooms. They don't.

Hannah: 9:25

It's just thinking about Scotland itself. I know it's kind of a stretch, but like there's not like gas station bathrooms to go to right, so you have to like either purchase something to use their bathroom or you have to wait miles in advance.

Courtney: 9:38

Well, I noticed even I think it was the last time, hannah, that you and I were in northampton even, yeah, even, like if you had purchased something there was no bathroom for public use. Yeah, which to me is it's a little bit interesting because there's no street bathrooms either. When I went to Colorado a couple of years ago, we were in one of their downtown areas of a smaller area of Colorado, and I remember saying, you know, to someone we were traveling with I have to go to the bathroom where, like which store do you think, because they were from there, would have?

Courtney: 10:04

a bathroom like a Macy's or something Right, there's always a bathroom and this was very much like Northampton vibes not as big but like very small businesses and they were like oh, you don't go into those. There's this in the center of the park that was down the street. There's this building and once you go in, the door closes behind you and after like so many minutes it'll reopen again. So homeless people can't sleep in them and I'm like well, what if you are not done going to the bathroom and they're like the door is opening the door is opening and I was like, oh my God, I've never had to like time, my pee.

Courtney: 10:33

But it was such an interesting like it reminded me of smart house, the movie.

Hannah: 10:38

And the whole building was like bionic, it like moved around you, um, and I always thought I've never seen one of those someplace else again, wouldn't those be great for like a city or we don't do that out here, but I think I've never seen it, so it's such a weird taboo thing to talk about. But, like, plumbing and bathrooms are such a huge thing for, like, any human has the right to use a restroom the core of modern civilization is to be able to go pee when you want to so many places you can't I know why.

Hannah: 11:07

Why do we still have these like sandy cans that are just like disgusting and inaccessible and gross, I mean?

Courtney: 11:13

and even some places when you're thankful there is like just a sandy can outside because there's no other place to go. But sometimes there's events and it's like nobody even thought about. Yeah, people are gonna have to go to the bathroom, right, and I get like bathroom anxiety, like if I go someplace and I don't know what, I'm gonna be able to pee.

Hannah: 11:28

I'm gonna have to pee 76 times yes, it's supposed to take you to shit. I'm sorry, like it's just. I have an anxious belly and I'm like I don't know at 31.

Courtney: 11:37

That's definitely a barrier to me going places where I have to pee all the time and if I can't plan out where I am going to pee and how I'm going to be easily able to do that, I'm not going.

Hannah: 11:45

Yeah, that's sad to say, but it's 100 you went to a beautiful, interesting concert in ohio and the first thing I asked you was well, how was the plumbing did?

Jonathan: 11:55

you have bathrooms.

Hannah: 11:55

Like that's sad. I didn't ask you about who you saw. Who were the the acts on, like what were the bands?

Courtney: 12:01

I was like how was the plumbing like so I do have to say they did a really good job. They cleaned, cleaned them out. It was day one of a festival and they were cleaning out those toilets like constantly, so it was really well kept. But anytime there's alcohol in a rock concert, the bathrooms are questionable.

Hannah: 12:20

That's a good thing for the Big E, like they have attendants that are constantly cleaning those bathrooms and I always have dollar bills on me.

Courtney: 12:28

And they have a physical bathroom.

Hannah: 12:29

I will tip them Like thank bathrooms and I always have dollar bills on me and they have a physical bathroom.

Jonathan: 12:32

I will tip them like thank you for having a clean bathroom. Make it rain.

Courtney: 12:34

Yeah, I appreciate it I know we were just talking about it earlier too, but brimfield flea market does an amazing job. They have set up like um porta potties but they have attendants at the porta potties who clean them mop them, wipe them down in between, hold the door for you. I and they didn't always do that. A few years ago they started doing that and I have this one field that I'm like that's my guy back there.

Hannah: 12:56

He's always keeping those bathrooms.

Courtney: 12:58

good, I will wait and cross my legs until I can get to his bathroom.

Hannah: 13:02

I appreciate it If it smells like bleach and I have clean toilet paper. I love it.

Courtney: 13:05

He's always like I was trying to go in last time and he was like oh, honey, honey, no, there's no toilet paper on that one. I was like sir, good looks, thank you.

Hannah: 13:13

Remember when we went to the Biggie, like before we even got into the park, you're like I have to freaking go and it was just a random porta potty. And you're like, does anyone have a napkin? Yeah, and somebody we were with had a backpack that had the minute, especially as a woman, having to think about that because, like, men don't have to wipe, men don't right, not every time maybe some of them do by preference.

Courtney: 13:32

They're so lucky, but like we have to unless we want infection like you don't know what it looks like to be hovering over a porta potty toilet trying to shake it dry. It's not a good situation, strange history.

Hannah: 13:43

Here we come, present time. Oh, let's talk about the horrors of babylon oh, yes, please.

Jonathan: 13:51

I do love horrors and I do love babylon.

Hannah: 13:53

Let's do that. More than 4 000 years ago, ancient babylonians in modern day iraq worship the goddess ishtar, also known as the great whore of babylon. Ishtar was the goddess of war and sexual love and the most powerful goddess in the Mesopotamian religion. If you want to be a part of her cult and everyone did you had to participate. Oh, that doesn't sound too hard. Every female citizen was expected to go at least once in her life to the temple of Ishtar and offer herself to any male worshiper who paid the required contribution. Mm-mm, mm-mm. There was no shame attached to being one of Ishtar's prostitutes. In fact, it was considered a sacred means of attaining divine union between man and goddess.

Jonathan: 14:40

Mm.

Hannah: 14:41

Any person who was there worshipping, meaning like any random person there worshipping, but could you pick that man? Or did you.

Jonathan: 14:50

No, you were offered up as an offering, I mean, so were they like on a I just picked.

Courtney: 14:56

I have this horrible image. I'm so sorry for everybody listening of them in a line and the people who are there worshipping just get to select like a menu of women I don't know if it was even that specific.

Hannah: 15:09

But that's just. It had a an interesting vibe until it was like any man could have you.

Courtney: 15:17

I'm like when you just picture all the dirty old men like why can't we pick the men? We never get to pick? We have vaginas that's how that works.

Jonathan: 15:25

We're just girls boo fail so I found this note about the terror called the soldiers in china yes which I thought was, you know, not exactly scary, but kind of spooky and interesting.

Jonathan: 15:39

Yeah, um right because they found that whole army in the ground right exactly and especially because of the the recent event of there was actually a gentleman who threw himself into—so right now the terracotta soldiers have all been uncovered. So there was a full army's worth of terracotta soldiers that were buried underground and they've all been uncovered and now they're covered with this kind of like dome so tourists can see them, with this kind of like a dome so tourists can see them. But recently, like two weeks ago, this man threw himself into the pit and started like kicking them over like insanely.

Courtney: 16:20

He was all over tiktok some kind of mental health crisis would be my best guess here exactly, but like for no particular reason.

Jonathan: 16:27

But I think a lot of people might be like, oh, that's really interesting, like what are all these soldiers doing in the ground? So I was like, oh, this really is really fascinating. So when a farmer was digging a well near Xi'an, china, in 1974, a group of farmers struck what they thought was an oddly shaped rock. A group of farmers struck what they thought was an oddly shaped rock and in actuality it was a life-size clay statue of man's head, his hair and a top knot. The farmers had accidentally unearthed the first of an estimated 8,000 life-size warriors, and they have still not uncovered all of them, which is actually really extraordinary.

Courtney: 17:07

It's heartbreaking too.

Jonathan: 17:09

That's insane Life-size warriors, chariots, charioteers, horses and the cache of swords and spears buried and forgotten for over 2,000 years.

Hannah: 17:18

That's incredible.

Jonathan: 17:20

The find was the terracotta army of China's first emperor, xin Shi Huang forgive me for my pronunciation who died in about 200 BC. It's believed that the army was built to guard the mausoleum, which was over a mile away. In the practice of the day, the emperor's childless concubines, all of the artisans who contributed to the mausoleum were killed and buried with him after construction was completed. Although the tomb was mentioned in the works of a Chinese historian writing about 100 years after the emperor's death, the army of figures was completely forgotten until it was uncovered in the 1970s.

Courtney: 18:00

Nobody wondered where all those people went. These are the things that strike me after things like that.

Jonathan: 18:05

It was 2,000 years ago.

Hannah: 18:07

But it's an incredible find and they're not even done, uncovering everything you said no, it's not completely uncovered.

Jonathan: 18:16

From what I understand, the army around it has still not been completely uncovered and the mausoleum itself has not been uncovered at all.

Courtney: 18:25

Oh, my gosh what?

Jonathan: 18:26

I understand there's a lot of legends legends about how it's been booby trapped. So I think, that there's a lot of caution around uncovering it, which is actually really exciting.

Hannah: 18:40

So, like thinking of the Egyptians in our last episode, well, there was a lot of booby traps and unknown items that they buried, yes, and wanted to take into the afterlife yeah, so like was this a emperor that just wanted to have an army in the next life that was one of the ideas right, yeah, I also can't do it completely but like wonder about, because culture plays a big role in the way that people perceive death and people in the afterlife.

Courtney: 19:10

I wonder if some of the hesitancy about trying to uncover different parts of it too has to do with superstition and culture, religion, belief of the afterlife and that kind of thing too which, according, you were saying everything that we were saying in our last episode about the afterlife and how cultures perceive it, and, religions perceive it and that all of us have our own type of afterlife agenda in a way that just fascinating.

Courtney: 19:35

It's a very sensitive topic when you I did a ceu event yesterday for my recertification. That was all about like diversity and inclusion and it talked a lot about people's belief when it comes to death or families and all those different topics. So maybe that's why it's fresh in my head, which is very progressive for our job yeah, I was like, yeah, they were talking about transgender.

Courtney: 20:00

They were talking about, yeah, they're talking about gay, transgender, different, like how do we diversify the field into not just being white women, which I love to see especially working for?

Hannah: 20:09

a black-owned business. I was like Black and female-owned Yep, black and women.

Courtney: 20:15

Whoa what. So there's a lot of progress happening there.

Hannah: 20:19

That's amazing, that's really. But I'm glad you had like the same thoughts we did from our last episode, like just it's a very interesting topic.

Courtney: 20:34

Yeah, and I also feel like there's a lot of and most of my knowledge about this is about, like native american culture and then burial sites and things. I don't know how the maybe in china they're treating okay these people were buried here, whether it was by choice or not, what that means for their culture, about disturbing them. Are there certain processes they have to take? Pretty good point it could be a bigger process too, because they have special ways that they have to cleanse the earth and things like that too.

Hannah: 20:54

I'm feeling like we don't have a lot of respect for the Native Americans because I remember I'm sure it was a past episode, I feel, or a past documentary I watched about how certain Native American tribes buried their dead in circular graves and how they kind of were covered over in grass and sticks and everything and we kind of just shot them over like we didn't really care about them or they just weren't. When you look at a burial site, you see gravestones. You're like, oh, this is a burial site.

Hannah: 21:25

There's an honor part of it yeah, oh, there's just sticks and grass here like we're not thinking of as a burial site and we uncover it.

Courtney: 21:32

We're like, oh shit, there's bones here well, and how many times do you read about how a building was going to be erected someplace in the us? And they were like, oh crap, this was actually a burial site and instead of doing the right thing and stopping all the process and figuring it all out, people are just trying to shove money at someone to continue to disturb the resting place of right essentially hundreds of people right.

Hannah: 21:52

Instead of understanding, like how these people dealt with their dead and their death rituals, it was like, oh well, this must have been like a pity burying, like right, they just killed them.

Courtney: 22:03

And they, there's the white privilege, right, right very much so, because if somebody ever said to any of those people who believe that way like, oh, we're going to go into this cemetery and we're going gonna just wreck it to the ground, and who cares if your ancestors are there, we're just gonna build something over the top, they'd lose their mind.

Hannah: 22:16

Oh yeah, because if we had a church with a separate like cemetery, like oh my god uproar, like we need to have these up people up shoot in a specific way and we need to let these families know or give them a choice.

Courtney: 22:27

I don't even I'm not familiar with, like what I would imagine, because I'm thinking about spider gates.

Courtney: 22:32

When we were talking about spider gate cemetery and how, that cemetery is owned by a church and if they own the land, I would imagine that they would have to consent to whatever it is that you were going to do and they would get a say in what the I don't want to say disposal, because it sounds horrible but what the next steps would be if you were going to build on that land and removing a body, but also depending on when it was buried, certain funeral homes will tell you we can't move that body here, we physically can't.

Courtney: 22:59

Right, I know I had a family member that we had talked about with the funeral home just a few years ago. My mom had an infant sister who had passed away a couple weeks after birth, so she was very small and we had asked about getting her moved. My grandmother passed. Can we move her remains over here? And they were like no, back when that happened, the way that they something about the way that they treated the body and the way that they buried the body of children. He was like we, we literally legally cannot move that body. Yeah, so it made me really start to think about if you can't do it for that, is it the grounds itself that makes it legally binding or is it a process that has to do with human bodies in the state of massachusetts?

Hannah: 23:38

right, because that's a really good question, because I know the church that we were affiliated with, the. The plot of land where they had ashes buried is a separate, whole entity in itself. So if the church got sold, this was a separate thing and, yeah, because there's people's remains there, that's a whole different issue for the church you would imagine that there would have to be some kind of like licensing for that plot of land.

Courtney: 24:00

I would imagine that's a good question, that we should look into that, just because that's something good to know. Yeah, I want to say because I originally I wanted to say that cemeteries would become town or city property, but that can't be true either if churches own plots of land.

Hannah: 24:12

There's a whole board for this one, so I don't know what it's. It's definitely more complex.

Courtney: 24:20

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of intricacies about it.

Jonathan: 24:22

That reminds me of like thinking back to what we talked about earlier, but like the lower Manhattan, thinking back to what we talked about earlier about, like the lower Manhattan, I know that in lower Manhattan they've recently, relatively recently, in like the last maybe 20 years, uncovered a cemetery of black citizens and free sl and paupers. That kind of existed around what's considered lower Manhattan and it's like half under a modern courthouse and there's like if you come out of Chamber Street, the subway station, that's in quite the lower part of Manhattan, you can actually see a sign that says like the. I think it says enslaved person's cemetery or something along those lines. I don't love that. That points you in the right direction and you know there's nothing there.

Jonathan: 25:21

And I've been there because the office I worked for, the agency I worked for, had an office in lower Manhattan and I would take a walk around that part of lower Manhattan on days I didn't have a lot to do and I could take my full hour, you know, uh, lunch break, um, but it's really interesting to think that again, so much above what's now wall street was considered country. It was considered like the far reaches of the city, um, it was considered like the far reaches of the city right um.

Jonathan: 25:50

It was considered a cemetery at one time, but the progress of manhattan completely steamrolled it and it was considered just buildable land. And of course they built on top of it and then when they tore, things down. Then they reconsidered relatively modernly in like the last 20 years of like. Oh, there's more to this piece of land.

Hannah: 26:11

Oh shit we fucked up.

Jonathan: 26:14

Than just what there is now. So they've actually created a beautiful memorial, but there's so much more to that.

Courtney: 26:22

Yeah, again, that's where culture and race comes into play again, where I said I find myself sitting here as a white woman like, well, would that have ever happened to my ancestors for being white? I don't. I just don't think so. No, probably not. And that's so incredibly heartbreaking. That's building a building on top of it, because at some point in the development you had to have known what was there, whether it was on record or whether it was like visible to the eye at some point, which it must have been.

Hannah: 26:47

Hey, this is a cemetery, but I, I think when you so, even on to the not trained eye. When you look at bones, I think it's very easy for anyone that's educated to see the difference between bones of a white individual and a black individual you talked about that in an episode a few episodes back, yeah, when you were getting really into the bone.

Courtney: 27:08

I forget which book it was that you had read, or maybe it was a documentary, but you did a really good episode.

Hannah: 27:14

I think it was that I got into yeah, I believe it was that one. So that's really sad because they must have had some type of doctor of anthropology in some respects to look at them and that's just really sad yeah, you had to have known.

Courtney: 27:32

You had to have known when you disturbed the first set, especially when you call it. What did you say?

Jonathan: 27:36

it was like the enslaved people's cemetery yeah, I'm trying to remember what it was actually, what it's labeled, but when you come out of chamber street cemetery uh, chamber street subway station in lower manhattan it's like enslaved's cemetery.

Hannah: 27:50

Do you know where the bones went after all that?

Jonathan: 27:53

They're still there, they're still underneath it.

Courtney: 27:55

It's on the out.

Jonathan: 27:55

What they did was they built on top of it until they tore buildings down, maybe in the 80s or 90s, and then they discovered through archaeology that it was actually a cemetery. Now, this is not the only place in manhattan that has a cemetery for black individuals that's built upon. When you think about um going further north in manhattan, there's actually a cemetery which is currently under a um, like a, like a car repair garage.

Courtney: 28:32

At least the courthouse had some kind of merit.

Jonathan: 28:34

And there's actually there's whole historians who actually go there and they actually have all sorts of events next to this garage that say, like you know, black individuals from our ancestry were buried here in the 19th century and, uh, they're underneath this concrete, um, but it's been built on top of a terrible resting place, all those wrenches and things all day but what's wonderful is that they're recognizing it yeah, and they're saying yeah, our ancestors are under this concrete floor Right, because it's not their fault that it happened Right exactly.

Jonathan: 29:11

But they're doing really wonderful work, but of course there's a business on top of them and what do you do? Now.

Courtney: 29:20

Right, and they're just as entitled legally to that land as the bones are. At that point too.

Jonathan: 29:24

Exactly, but this is not the only place. I mean, this is just Manhattan, but when you think about places like Lanier Lake in north of Atlanta, where they basically drowned black neighborhoods in order to build a lake north of Atlanta, and where houses and cemeteries of a free black community are buried under miles of water. Oh my God. And people now have their summer houses on top.

Hannah: 29:57

Oh God, that's sick, so gross, that's sick.

Jonathan: 30:00

But it's similar to what they did in Enfield Massachusetts when they wanted to build a water for Quabbin, but it was considered part of progress.

Courtney: 30:11

Yeah.

Jonathan: 30:11

But in the South it was very much influenced by well, you're Black people and this is a free neighborhood and you're thriving economically. We're going to choose this and we're going to bury you, right.

Courtney: 30:27

With the. Quabbin. It was more chosen geographically. From my understanding, the Quabbin is an area that I've always been really fascinated by. But I do believe there were white communities, or at least mixed communities, that were underneath it, but it was quite a few communities that they just came in one day and were like hey, guess what, you don't live here anymore.

Jonathan: 30:42

You're chosen yeah.

Courtney: 30:43

And there are actual ruins of things underneath the Quabbin.

Courtney: 30:51

Absolutely. The way that we treat different populations of people is just, I don't know in the afterlife too. I was thinking about the whole conversation we were having about how a lot of the state hospitals and state schools that existed all across new england and other areas too but new england had a lot of them. Most of the graveyards that you can find are completely unmarked fields where there's either no markers at all telling you that a person's life amounted to being there, or it's this tiny little square that's like the size of half of an index card with a number on it yeah a number somebody's life amounted to, a patient's life amounted to a number of where their body fell, and that, to me, there's so many ways you can get involved.

Courtney: 31:28

Being in massachusetts, there's a lot of organizations that work to hey, we're going to get names put on these, or hey, we're going to get these bodies moved or something, or at least some kind of memorial put in. And I always am interested in that kind of work because to me, especially for that, that hits my heart deep. The patients, like their patient number and their family, doesn't even know where they are.

Hannah: 31:48

They're just in a field, someplace some of them all in one grave and, I think, also understanding, like with our field, courtney, you know, with individuals that may have some mental deficiency in some way or just being different. I mean, we're all different in our own ways, right? So many of these people have taught me so many freaking things. It's, it's, it's appalling to me how they would be the people kids, adults that I've known. For them have to be a number, cause I think of them as a name. Right, that's how far we come as a society, which I appreciate, but I can't see these individuals just being a number in a graveyard Like that would break my heart, because I think they have a lot to teach us. They're a part of society and they should be a part of who we are as humanity, as a whole and they're people, I think that's the biggest thing for me is that when you look and you do research, so many families are impacted by mental health crises.

Courtney: 32:51

Every single person in most rooms has either we were talking about this earlier, the three of us has been in therapy or on-psychotic type of drugs. Uh, you know, it's not uncommon and it very easily could have happened to any one of our families, to any one of us sitting in this room. We're all blessed by the situations we were born into and by the choices that we've made and just who we are that we didn't end up right, which I feel like just what it is to me there's no excuse for I can't.

Courtney: 33:21

I can't come up with any excuse in my head of why these people don't have names. They were a person the whole time they were there. They had admission paperwork that had their name on it, that had their date of birth on it, that had their social security number on it. There's no excuse for the reason why they ended up being amounted to numbers. Um, and I feel like it breaks my heart that as a society, I think we're moving back towards that. I think for a while, deinstitutionalization was a huge movement. We were going in such a great direction. We were looking at halfway houses, we were looking at community living and now, all of a sudden, I'm seeing things on the news and I'm like we're going right back to these state funded, not enough people to take care of people, poor level of treatment, and I just I think that has a lot to do with our presidential party candidate.

Hannah: 34:08

It does now um where it's like let's just defund everything that's been helping our society, why they were funded in the first place exactly. We're spending too much money.

Courtney: 34:17

No, this money was going towards people and individuals and families that needed it, special education being defunded, I mean all of it is just it breaks my heart because there are so many populations of people who end up in these situations. We just we talked about it with soldiers.

Hannah: 34:33

we talked about it with the people, unfortunately, in manh Manhattan who ended up buried underneath buildings, and I just and I think also talking about different demographics, like oh well, this is happening because you know, if you look at the percentages, they they're mostly in jail. Well, ok, why?

Courtney: 34:51

Well, why Don't get me started on the American jail system too? Because rehabbing people is not what we do.

Hannah: 34:55

No, it's not what we do. And if you look at them like okay, they're mostly in there because of X, y and Z, like there's reasons why this is happening, and you call them congo ghettos and whatever, but this is the society problem. This isn't just their problem, this is our problem.

Courtney: 35:10

Like 50% of jails, are people who needed mental health treatment. Yes, which is if you had an appropriate mental health system, even if they ended up on the wrong side of the law, and you were able to help them get their medications right, get them into therapy.

Hannah: 35:24

Right Medications, therapy, everything.

Courtney: 35:26

They'd be a functioning part of society.

Hannah: 35:28

Exactly Also, and they're not getting it.

Courtney: 35:30

The people who get arrested for something and then two years later they make it legal to do that thing, to do that thing, and I'm like, could, can we come up, can we? There are murderers in there. Can we go get that guy for selling pot?

Hannah: 35:40

back out of jail, please, for the love of god. Oh we're having a rape against a white and a black man, but the reason the white guy got out is because he had enough money to that. That doesn't make any sense. It's sick. It's, it's sick and terrible and I feel like we're getting off track from what we were talking about, but it's good conversation.

Courtney: 35:57

I feel like it's not a lot of places. You can go in a place with free speech that you can go to actually say the observations that you make, and it's um, I don't know. If somebody hears it and it's not for them, then that's, that's okay.

Courtney: 36:13

But we're gonna speak our truth our job is to just expose people to different information than what their biases might have. And I always tell people challenge your biases. When you start to feel something about a certain population of people or things, the best thing you can do is challenge it, learn more about it. Go meet with somebody who fits into that stereotype that you're judging and ask them questions, figure out how they live and why they do things. And if you're not comfortable doing that, then that's how they feel every day. So if it's uncomfortable for you that one day, that's pretty much their every day tales from the cryptids.

Courtney: 36:48

Oh okay, very much me not crypto cryptids it's important information there the ogobogo monster Oogie boogie.

Hannah: 36:57

That's how I love, oogie boogie. So the Ogobogo is sometimes referred to as Canada's Loch Ness monster, and sightings go back to the 1800s Lurking in the cold waters of British Columbia's Oconagan Lake. He was called Nataka or Lake Demon by First Nations peoples. They say he was once a man who got possessed by a demon and then murdered another man, so the gods condemned him to live forever as a serpent. He got the name ogobogo from a 1924 english music hall song called the ogobogo the funny fox trot.

Jonathan: 37:33

okay, weird okay, there have been numerous. I don't know if that's entirely clear, but yeah, I'm confused there have been numerous eyewitness accounts over the years.

Hannah: 37:43

One of the most famous took place 1947, when several boaters saw the monster. At the same time, according to a man named mr k, ogobogo had a long, sinuous body, 30 feet in length, consisting of about five undulations. What's an undulation?

Courtney: 37:59

that sounds hot it sounds phallic, apparently separated from a long, sinuous body five. That's really got me thinking who's?

Hannah: 38:09

gonna say let's stop that they're gifted monster apparently separated from each other by about a two foot space, oh boy, in which that part of the undulations would have been underwater. There appeared to be a forked tail, of which only one half came about above the water. From time to time the whole thing submerged and came up again, so that sounds like it had multiple boo-boos, I guess you would call it.

Courtney: 38:38

I'm sorry. How do you spell the word undulations?

Hannah: 38:43

It is U-N-D-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S.

Courtney: 38:49

That's what I typed in, but the dictionary response is an action.

Jonathan: 38:55

Yeah, it's undulations. It's like the up and down.

Courtney: 39:01

Like what is it?

Jonathan: 39:02

as a noun. What's the name of the monster again?

Hannah: 39:05

the monster is the ogobo what's the monster?

Jonathan: 39:10

in the nightmare before christmas. Okay, this sounds like yes, it's also something they ripped off the loch ness monster this sounds like the Oogie Boogie.

Hannah: 39:16

It also sounds like they ripped off the Loch.

Courtney: 39:17

Ness Monster. Yeah, this sounds fake.

Hannah: 39:20

O-G-O-P-O-G-O Ogo Pogo.

Courtney: 39:24

They can't convert me. I'm a Nelly. I'm all about the Loch Ness Monster. That's what I'm about.

Hannah: 39:29

Oh, and see, the last number was what 94. Yeah, you already did that one.

Jonathan: 39:41

That was you did that one. That was the terracotta. That's so weird what?

Courtney: 39:43

look how good you are. That's a happy evening, wanders. Yes, happy evening wanders. Almost assassinated president abraham lincoln in august 1864 okay a would-be assassin took aim at lincoln's head, but the bullet went straight through his tall top hat and missed his head completely.

Jonathan: 40:00

Girl.

Courtney: 40:01

That's why you wear a tall hat. They should really bring those back into fashion.

Jonathan: 40:05

Accessories are everything.

Courtney: 40:07

And then they had a different one under the same category General Ulysses Grant. Less than a year later, on April 14, 1865, lincoln was killed. He had his famous hat with him, but it was sitting on the floor Bastards. But it could have been even worse. Lincoln had invited General Grant and his wife Julia to accompany him and Mrs Lincoln to Ford's Theater. The Grants declined. Had his assassination plot gone according to plan Carl Sifakis writes in the Encyclopedia of Assassinations, john Wilkes Booth would have killed not only the president but a future president as well.

Jonathan: 40:42

No way, general Ulysses S Grant. I didn't know that.

Courtney: 40:45

Why didn't the Grants go?

Jonathan: 40:46

That's interesting.

Courtney: 40:47

Because Julia Grant detested Mary Lincoln.

Jonathan: 40:50

Oh well, girl, she had issues.

Courtney: 40:53

A few weeks earlier, while touring Grant's headquarters together, mary snubbed Julia so many times in front of so many important people that Julia refused to spend another night in Mary's company. Wow, grant biographer William S McKeeley writes, was left to make the president the most classic and limp of excuses. He couldn't go because of the children. Oh, my gosh. Moral of the story wear a tall hat, and Abe Lincoln is also my favorite president. Don't know why, but he always has been.

Hannah: 41:20

Oh, that's Rob's favorite president. Of course it, rob. Get out of my head. Rob loves Abe Lincoln, okay.

Courtney: 41:25

Oh, this one's in Spanish. What La Historia de Esperanto.

Jonathan: 41:34

The history of hope.

Courtney: 41:36

I don't know, that's all it says. I don't have anything in English here. Esperanto is a language created in 1887. The history of hope. I don't know, that's all it says. I don't have anything in English here. Esperanto is a language created in 1887 by Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof, an idealistic 28-year-old Polish ophthalmologist. He was troubled that his fellow Europeans deeply mistrusted each other. If only they spoke the same language he, he figured they could begin to see eye to eye. Zamenhoff came up with a simplified hybrid version of all the romance languages, with only 16 rules of grammar and no irregular verbs. English has 728, in case you're wondering irregular verbs.

Courtney: 42:12

Yes, oh, he published his language under the pseudonym dr esperanto, which translates as one who hopes. It may sound like a great idea, but after more than a century of lobbying, the language of peace has failed to take hold. The dream isn't dead, though. Even today, there are thousands of esperanto speakers organized into clubs in more than 100 countries around the world. In 1966, a low-budget horror movie called incubus was filmed entirely in esperanto oh wait, okay, yes, yes, no, please, I'll me wait, just keep going directed by the outer limits creator, leslie stevens.

Courtney: 42:51

The movie was a weird cross between a gothic melodrama and an art film. But stevens didn't use esperanto to promote the language of peace. He thought it would give the film an eerie atmosphere. It bombed. Final note Incubus starred 33-year-old William Shatner. He didn't speak Esperanto, though the cast learned their lines phonetically. Shatner's next role Captain James T Kirk.

Hannah: 43:13

Wow, okay, sorry, I guess I was thinking about the band, not the.

Courtney: 43:17

Yeah, that's 100% what you were thinking about.

Jonathan: 43:19

Okay.

Hannah: 43:22

I thought I knew the movie.

Courtney: 43:23

Wow. So, that was interesting. That one wasn't as interesting as the other ones. I'm still really taken back by the fact that Abe Lincoln was almost assassinated.

Jonathan: 43:34

I know, and that you know, kind of fell over the cliff because he was Right.

Courtney: 43:38

It really blows a hole in my story about well, if you haven't been struck by lightning, you know you can't be struck in the same place twice. It really kind of ruins that theory I had. Going on Like with Benjamin Franklin, Just in general I always like to say well, you know, things don't strike twice, but maybe they do. This is back to that third time's a charm situation, I guess, Maybe. Okay, Well, that was fun, Weirdo that was so much fun.

Jonathan: 44:01

Thank you both.

Courtney: 44:02

Thank you for coming again, tolerating us having a beverage while we read some interesting things, yes, and get off on tangent discussions.

Hannah: 44:13

Yeah, that's the part I love about podcasting is the off kilter, don't know where it's going.

Courtney: 44:20

Conversations and then Rob hates them, so he has to cut them all out.

Jonathan: 44:26

Well, good night Wanderers. Good night Wanderers.

Hannah: 44:28

Bye, bye. Thanks for listening today. Wicked Wanderings is hosted by me Hannah and co-hosted by me Courtney.

Jonathan: 44:36

And it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick.

Hannah: 44:38

Music by Sasha M. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to leave a rating and review and be sure to follow on all socials. You can find the links down in the show notes. If you're looking for some really cozy t-shirts or hoodies, head over to the merch store. Thank you for being a part of the Wicked Wanderings community. We appreciate every one of you. Stay curious, keep exploring and always remember to keep on wandering. Thank you.