"Spooky score: ???????????? This classic West Village restaurant in an 1840s brownstone draws celebrities like Robert De Niro, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Taylor Swift. But those aren’t the guests we’re most interested in getting to know. A mural of Village personalities by Edward Sorel takes up an entire wall, and combined with all the mirrors in the candlelit, low-ceilinged space, you quickly get the sense that someone’s watching you. There’s always another face just on the edge of your peripheral vision. A former general manager saw a man wearing a waistcoat and a top hat appear in a mirror at the Waverly, and there was a mysterious fire in the ’90s. Another later fire damaged the famous mural. That one started in the basement—where one server told us she never goes after dark. When we asked any ghosts present to order our drink via Ouija board, we received the letter C—and got a nice, stiff Cosmo." - molly fitzpatrick
