Hello my name is Nick, I’m a 43 year old male from Cincinnati, Ohio. I do security work for the Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati which now is the tallest and one of the oldest buildings here. I’m going to tell you a story here that’s made me a believer of ghosts, before I didn’t believe in that junk mostly Hollywood, smoke and mirrors I use to think until I worked the Carew Tower.
It all started when I started working here six months ago, while being trained by a fellow guard we will call “Ed” he told me that the building is haunted on some of its floors and he added that the 15th floor is where most of its encounters happen. The Carew Tower, if you Google it, is 46 stories and it has a jagged climb up. Well the Carew Tower is famous for suicides dating back to the 1920s, back then the windows opened like they do on your house unlike most high-rise buildings. Now, to try and prevent people from jumping to their deaths, the windows are solid double pained windows. The Carew Tower just recently, in 2005, replaced most of those windows to the modern ones.
So story has it that the 15th is haunted because back in the 1940s a man jumped from the 32nd floor and landed on the 15th floor where the building extends near the bottom. Ed told me while doing your rounds (rounds being we check every floor top to bottom once every shift to check for lights being left on, coffee pots, safety hazards etc etc.) that I could avoid 15 if I wanted too. I laughed and told him I’ve guarded empty warehouses and tree houses more scary than this. Ed chuckled and said. in time Nick. So with that constantly replaying in my head I kept doing my building rounds with that eerie feeling until I’d say a month ago when I started experiencing things… On 15.
While one night, comfortable doing my rounds, I walked on to the 15th floor with my mind on getting my car fixed when I noticed that a window was opened, hmm being that this was an empty floor and this window isn’t an ordinary window you need a special kind of key to open it with, a key that only the engineering staff would have nor guard or anyone else would have. Hmmm, I thought not thinking a ghost had anything to do with it, “maybe an engineer left it open,” so I closed it and finished my rounds up and went back to the security desk. About an hour later at about 10 pm I keep trying to figure out why that window was open. Could it have been a ghost? I thought. Hmm, no Nick there are no such things as ghosts. I’m going back up to look around to prove that there’s nothing to be scared of and I’m not going to let this silly story keep me from doing my job.
So I take the elevator to 15… “ding” the elevator arrives on the dark quiet floor, only the light from inside the elevator lights up the floor. I walk out and around the corner to go to that window. As soon as I turn that corner, wow that window was open! I stop in frozen cold sweats as I looked at it saying, I know I closed that thing tight. I take a closer look and I see a wet spot near the open window and hand to the all mighty I turn to just get a look behind me I see, about twenty feet away, a figure of a body and light image of what I can remember of an older mans face. I bolt to the stairwell leaving my keys and radio and run down 15 flights of stairs.
The next day I called Ed from home and told him I’m transferring to another building and never been back in there.
Sent in by Nick B., Copyright 2009 TrueGhostTales.com
dude that’s scary.. .lol you transferrred fast huh
well ed tried to tell you sounds like a intelligent and residule haunting! you were seeing what happen all those years ago. the window must have had alot of energy around it. look up the date of when the guy jumped and see if it might have happened around the time you found the window open. has the window been replaced yet? good ghost story thanks!
Hi Nick,
I don’t blame you one little bit.. for transferring to another building! I wouldn’t of stayed there either..
Thanks for sharing your story with us!
Mama’s chick
That is really freaky! I live in the Cincy area, but have never been in there. I wonder if things happen during the day also?
long time since i had been on this site….now is the 7th month in singapore and… thats when the hell gates open to let the ghosts out to roam!! scary… o Nick nice story its scary do not b a skeptic as ghosts want to prove that they exist…
yeah im even freaked at home! Lol but it took a slap in the face to show me that hey ghost are real! And to sara if you live in cincy dont go to that building lol
oooh scary!!! thx for the story nick!
maybe it’s only the wind or sumthing or maybe there was a person in the floor not ghost! maybe it’s just the janitor whose cleaning the floor in the dark! DUH?!
Nick,
I wouldnt have finished my shift lol. I dont blame you for transfering at all. But maybe the ghost was saying do you belive in me now. Funny how things work sometimes.
Nick,
That was a great story. I live in the Cincinnati area, and I’ve been to the Carew Tower a few times. I didn’t know it was haunted. What surprises me nearly as much as the ghost is you running down 15 flights of stairs. I might have a heart attack if I tried that. If you ever change your mind and decide to check out the Tower again, let us know what happens.
Does anyone know how many people have jumped to their death at Carew? Names and dates would be helpful as well. Thanks.