To kick off the Halloween weekend, junior, political science major and Dow Hall RA Patrick Dooley hosted an event about the building’s haunting history and test residents’ spiritual bravery with a Ouija board.

The event began with an introduction to the legend with a bit of back story of the building.

According to Dooley, Briarcliff College was founded in 1903 and was originally called Mrs. Dow’s School for Girls. Mary Elizabeth Dow owned the school until 1919 before giving the building to a woman named Edith Cooper Hartmann. Hartmann added a post-graduate program and in 1933 renamed the school, Briarcliff Junior College.

The Briarcliff Lodge, a “luxury resort” had experienced actual incidents of residents dying in fires and other accidents. It was used as a sanitarium and later a dormitory for The Kings College.

After 1994, the lodge was no longer being used for residency and was abandoned. In 2003, it was set to be demolished because of the lack of maintenance, but the building burned to the ground not long before the set demolition date.

Since Pace University has utilized the building as a residence hall, there have been several reports of suspicious noises and markings throughout the building. Lightheadedness and nausea are some of the symptoms residence have complained of in certain rooms in the building.

Dooley addressed the rumors of the restrictions of the fourth floor and why residents aren’t allowed to go up there. Many people believe that the fourth floor is off-limits because it’s haunted or that terrible incidents have occurred there. The RA stated that in fact, the fourth floor is “condemned” because it hadn’t been maintained properly and was deemed “unfit” to live in.

Residents later took part in Ouija board sessions in which they summoned the spirit of Mrs. Dow.

Participants generally considered the event to be a positive experience.

Education major Ashley Edwards said that she enjoyed the event, and that she believes people enjoy testing the waters and opening up channels with spirits because, “interacting with the unknown is fun.”

Edwards, among many other students attribute the odd happenings in Dow such as water shutting off and weird noises, to the age of the building and faulty maintenance upkeep.