Is That A Roosevelt Island Ghost Serenading Riverwalk Residents With It's Cries In The Early Morning? Maybe Not This Time...

Residents of Roosevelt Island Riverwalk Buildings in Southtown have been asking for a while what is that early morning wailing or crying sound heard coming from outside their windows? Could it be one of the ghosts or spirits

  Image From Tatiana Muzica

from Roosevelt Island's haunted past as reported in previous posts?

...the island was also the site of a Smallbox Hospital, which housed small pox patients from 1856 until 1886. The intense suffering that went on in this building added to it's ruined state have built numerous rumors about it's ghostly activity. The ruined hospital is now known as the Renwick Ruin and is brightly lit at night giving it a ghostly glow that only adds to stories....

The Wall Street Journal investigated and found out that the sound came not from a ghost or spirit but from  Opera Singer Sue Hassel's daily vocal practice as she walked to work each morning over Roosevelt Island on the Queensboro Bridge.

 Image From Rob Bennett for The Wall Street Journal

According to the Wall Street Journal:

..."The beauty of the bridge is there is no expectation of quietude because of the traffic noise, and I am out in the open air," she said. "Every 20 minutes on my way to work, I would vocalize very carefully. And it just slowly started coming back."

Her voice—usually singing in the baroque coloratur a style—carries at least as far as Roosevelt Island, where building concierge Mary Middleton said tenants at first wondered if they were hearing a ghost from a historic island home.

"At first, the sound was kind of scary," Ms. Middleton said. "Everyone thought the sound was coming from Blackwell House before learning it was actually the bridge."

She said she and the building's tenants soon grew accustomed to the morning serenade.

Tenant Chris Vail first heard Ms. Hassel while eating breakfast in his dining room. "It's interesting how quickly you develop a relationship with the sound," he said. "I look forward to it and it becomes part of your daily routine."

He said the singing "is an early-morning reminder of why [the city is] special."...

Here's the whole Wall Street Journal article and listen to the Ms. Hassel's singing on the Queensboro Bridge.

More on Roosevelt Island's ghosts and spirits here.