Creepy Crescent City: 5 Spooky Places in NOLA

Abandoned rides at the Six Flags New Orleans amusement park in Eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, has remained closed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The remains of the park are on low lying land, owned by the city of New Orleans, and have not be redeveloped since Katrina. (Photo by Julie Dermansky/Corbis via Getty Images)

Creepy Crescent City: 5 Spooky Places in NOLA

Halloween? New Orleans doesn't need a special day to be any creepier. We've got all the makings of a horror story right in town.

by Mary Staes | October 18, 2018

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When you cross homes for sale in our city and they realtor puts up a “haunted” or “not haunted” sign on the sign, you just know we have become accustomed to being a supernatural haven. One can pass a building and just feel it exuding something not of this earth. Let’s take a look at some of the creepy places of the Crescent City.

Lalaurie Mansion

The LaLaurie Mansion has one of the most horrifying backstories around. It’s considered the most haunted house in the Vieux Carré. It has such a haunted history and it continues to this day – Sorry, Nic Cage. As shown in “American Horror Story: Coven,” Madame LaLaurie allegedly had a craving for the macabre. Slaves were said to be gruesomely tortured in the attic – bones broken and reset to look like animals, lips of slaves sewn shut with animal feces stuffed in them, and some slaves left hanging. It all came to an end in 1834 when a fire broke out in the kitchen. The fire was said to have been started by the cook, who was supposedly chained to the oven. The cook said they would rather burn and die than endure. When all came public, Madame LaLaurie fled to Europe and was never seen again.

circa 1955: Voodoo remedies, or ‘gris gris’, on display at the historical Pharmacy Museum on Charles Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)

The Pharmacy Museum

Located in the 500 block of Chartres Street, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum has reportedly been a haunt for years. Opened in 1823, by America’s first licensed pharmacist Louis Defilho. Later, Dr. Joseph Dupas moved in, and legend has it that he performed experiments on pregnant slaves in an upstairs location.

Broken clown head next to abandoned buildings at the Six Flags New Orleans amusement park in Eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, has remained closed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The remains of the park are on low lying land, owned by the city of New Orleans, and have not be redeveloped since Katrina. (Photo by Julie Dermansky/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Six Flags New Orleans amusement park in Eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, has remained closed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The remains of the park are on low lying land, owned by the city of New Orleans, and have not be redeveloped since Katrina. (Photo by Julie Dermansky/Corbis via Getty Images)

Six Flags Theme Park

The old abandoned theme park has remained closed since Hurricane Katrina. The site is occasionally used for movie sets today. The space is overgrown and looks like a scene out of “The Walking Dead.” To see the ferris wheel lit up after knowing it’s been closed for 13 years can be an eerie sight.

So the Ferris wheel was lit up at Jazzland last night and no lie it was creepy pic.twitter.com/5I9jBHrBPK

— April O’Neal (@MStaes) October 12, 2018

UNITED STATES – SEPTEMBER 03: Ursuline Convent, New Orleans, Louisiana (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

The Ursuline Convent

Move over Lestat, here where the vampires allegedly lie in New Orleans. Legend has it that the caskets of some of the convents original caskets (which initially held personal belongings) are locked up on the third floor of the convent. The windows to the third floor are always closed, shut by nails supposedly blessed by the Pope himself.

Charity Hospital

At one time, beloved “Big Charity” was the one of the oldest operating hospital in the United States. It was built in 1736 so that the city’s poor would have a place to go for health care. Abandoned since Hurricane Katrina, those who’ve gotten the chance to go inside of the building say it looks as if people and patients were still there, with much of the equipment still in the hospital.

In 2015, a local nurse who works across the street saw lights coming from the inside of the shuttered hospital, setting off a social media firestorm and confirming the creepiness of the building.

Officials said the pictures really showed two-by-fours wrapped with lights.

Honorable mention

So we know this is a list about places, but let’s be honest, the Pelicans’ King Cake Baby is completely terrifying. The demonic-looking infant mascot revels in the fear.

Being around all these TV people all day reminded me how much I miss @Rachel__Nichols 💔

So…hi Rachel!! pic.twitter.com/AEZ99ITtrp

— King Cake Baby (@KingCakeBaby) February 6, 2018

Mary Staes

Mary Staes is Digital Content Lead for Very Local. She works with our freelancers and crafts content for our social media platforms and website. Before Very Local, she worked with CBS affiliate WWL-TV as a web producer and weekend assignment editor for about 4 years. She has also handled broadcast coverage for 160 Marine Reserve training facilities while she served as an active duty Marine. As a native New Orleanian, she takes being "very local" to heart. She loves being intertwined with the culture and figuring out how there are less than two degrees of separation between us all, whether we're natives or not.