5 New York Ghost Towns! Have You Heard of Any of These?

Look around your hometown. Do you have stores, restaurants and gas stations? Are the homes filled with families, friends and pets? Now imagine the same town but the people are gone. Vanished! How can a once thriving town one day become empty, abandoned, a 'ghost town'?

New York State has more than a few of these empty addresses and some of them are said to literally have ghosts. According to Oxford Languages, a ghost town is 'a deserted town with few or no remaining inhabitants'.

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Britannica states that a place that is haunted is thought to be associated by the haunting spirit with some strong emotion of the past—remorse, fear, or the terror of a violent death. It is said that many ghost towns are haunted by those that once lived there.

Most ghost towns still have paved roads and buildings that are still standing but haven't been occupied in some time. Other towns like this do have people that continue to live there but far fewer than in the past. Scroll through the locations below as we explore 5 ghost towns of New York State.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Many of America's ghost towns are located in Nebraska, Montana, North and South Dakota due to the failed rail lines. Parts of Wyoming, California and Arkansas have clusters of ghost towns but what about New York?

Here are 5 New York communities that are either official ghost towns or are close to becoming one. Haunted? You be the judge.

5 Ghost Towns of New York State

Have you been to any of these towns? Have you even heard of them? These once thriving communities have lost much of their population and some say there are more ghosts than people.

Abandoned Grossinger's Catskills Resort Hotel "Before and After"

The one time "Queen of the Catskills" was abandoned from 1986 until 2018, when the remaining structures were demolished. Prior to that video footage was captured by JP Videos and others. Here are some of the before and after pictures of Grossinger's in Liberty, NY.