According to legend, the gothic building of TAO Chicago which located at 632 N Dearbon St., was used as a makeshift morgue for the victims of the eastland disaster in 1915. As the bodies were brought in, they were laid out on the floor as they awaited identification by friends and family. Although this has been a long-held belief about the building, this story has been refuted. Chicago historians have declared that no bodies from the disaster were ever stored in the building.
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| TAO Chicago Nightclub (Image credit: Urban Matter) |
The building has a reputation for being haunted. Prior to the current building, a different building occupied the property, the original historical society.
This building was originally the home of Walter Loomis Newberry, the founder of the Newberry Library. Then the building is registered on the national register of Historic Places in 1978, under the name Old Chicago Historical Society. From the 1980s to the mid-2010s the building became home to a series of nightclubs including Limelight, Excalibur, Vision and Castle Chicago (of which there are three nightclubs housed under one roof), this was always the place where the trendy socialite danced, drank and climbed the social ladder.
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| Excalibur Nightclub (Image credit: Thrillist) |
After the Castle Chicago nightclub closed in 2014. Several years ago until recently, the building became the TAO Chicago nightclub. TAO’s interiors take inspiration from East Asia.
In the 19th century, when the Chicago fire turned much of the city to ash, the original historical society burned to the ground. Several people who sought refuge in the building perished when the inferno engulfed the building. The tragedy didn’t end there.
In 1985, Peter Gatien bought the old building, converted it into a nightclub, and called it The Limelight. It wasn’t long before staff and patrons became aware of ghostly presences lurking in the darkened corners of the nightspot. And not all were friendly.
For decades, employees of the nightclub claimed to have witnessed a wide variety of supernatural activity. Some of them reported there's the one lit candle mysteriously appearing on a ledge in the Dome Room--70 feet above the floor. Wine taps turning on by themselves, bottles suddenly breaking, and even ghastly sightings of a man in a tuxedo, a woman in red, and a little girl.
Perhaps the most common phantom encountered in the nightclub is the ghost of a little girl. The spectral child has been described as wearing clothes common for girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She has been witnessed skipping around the building while giggling eerily. Others have seen her peering down at them from the railings on the upper floors. It has been offered that she was one of the victims that perished in the building when the great Chicago fire reduced the original building to ashes.
Another ghost sightings of people in old-fashioned clothes have been seen throughout the building. Usually these mysterious figures didn't interact with the living. However, when they do, the interaction is
by no means pleasant.
Employees and guests have reported being yelled at by the angry ghosts that populate the club. While others pitifully beg for help, one of these angry spirits is said to haunt the stairs and takes a twisted delight in pushing people as they walk up and down the stairs.
According to Neil Tobin, a paranormal who perform at the nightclub in the mid-2000s, one of those apparitions happens to be Mary, a girl from the Southside of Chicago who dances with people and then suddenly disappears upon catching a ride.
One night when Tobin perform, he asked a volunteer to sit with her eyes closed within the circle of people. Tobin had the woman listen for a voice that would tell her the first name of a little girl. The name the woman heard was "Mary." Tobin then told her that same voice would give her a number. The number was "8."
Then Tobin handed an envelope to someone in the crowd. The woman opened it to find a note that Tobin allegedly wrote the night before. The note said he would be contacted by the spirit of a little girl named Mary who had died eight years before.
The woman sitting in the circle also was convinced that at some point, she felt something touch her shoulder. She was convinced it was the hands of a little girl named "Mary".
Several club goers have reported the feeling of a rough, calloused invisible hand seizing them by the shoulder and shoving them. Fortunately, no one has ever been seriously harmed.
References:
Paranormal Underground Magazine Volume 12, Issue 10, October 2019: "Dancing With The Dead At TAO Chicago" by Rick Hale
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