CuriosiD: Is the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library haunted?

WDET’s CuriosiD series answers your questions about everything Detroit. Subscribe to CuriosiD on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of CuriosiD, we answer the question:

“Is the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library haunted?”

Even long before “Ghostbusters” first premiered in 1984 with its iconic opening sequence, there’s been a popular perception that libraries are potential hot spots for hauntings. I searched the stacks of the Detroit Public Library’s Main Branch on Woodward Avenue to find the call number for ghost stories.

The short answer

Both long-serving staff members have submitted their own anecdotal evidence of firsthand accounts. True to the nature of librarians, they’ve also recorded reports in history books that suggest a few unique specters shuffle through the stacks of DPL’s Main Branch.

Included in our interview are recountings of a cursed book, a ghost cat, and — potentially — an inconspicuous gateway to hell hidden amid the lower level of the library…

But you’re probably wondering: Did I see any ghosts while I was there? Well, not this time, at least.

What better place to haunt, really?

Local retired librarian Anne Kabel asked this episode’s question. Kabel has worked for public libraries in Birmingham and Southfield and has made many visits to the beautiful Detroit Public Library’s Main Branch on Woodward. When we interviewed her in front of the library, she mentioned seeing yet another sequence involving a library ghost in the most recent “Ghostbusters” film, which partly inspired this question. She also described a phantom feline.

“I saw a video, probably on YouTube, of a ghost cat in the basement of this building! When I saw the video, you could see this almost transparent cat running across the floor and into the stacks…”

“I think spirits like to live on in their favorite places, and the library is one of the favorite places of a lot of people.”

—Anne Kabel retired librarian and WDET listener

Those stories would later be confirmed by some of the staff I met inside the library. But before we headed in, I asked Kabel why she thought a library might be a prime location for a haunting.

“I think spirits like to live on in their favorite places,” she said. “And the library is one of the favorite places of a lot of people.”

Inside, I met reference librarian Cully Sommers, who had some thoughts on why a library like DPL might be haunted.

“I think any old building like this, people tend to see it in that way,” Sommers said. “But also the collection of history, and the arcane knowledge that exists somewhere within the library. Somehow, these things kinda leave the pages and start to inhabit the building itself.”

I also spoke with Katie Dowgiewicz, DPL’s public relations specialist, who quickly identified herself as a “Ghostbusters” fan and was hoping to have an encounter of her own someday. She considered “…the number of people who have come through these doors and the different things they’ve been searching for or needed help with… There’s a lot of energy, and a lot of individuals who are coming through our doors constantly. Maybe that’s being picked up on or left behind.”

A gateway to hell?

Sommers has not only been working at the library for decades, but he also has an interest in the supernatural, so he has quite a few stories to tell. He spoke of a clerk who recently passed away and had worked for years in the Burton Historical Collection on B-level.

“She told me when I started here that there was a gateway to hell on B-level, and that her job was to protect that gateway and to stop everything from coming out into the world.”

This story was chilling enough without Sommers adding, for context, that this late clerk was also a self-described “witch” who once gifted him an evil-eye talisman.

I interviewed both of them on the third level of the library, where Dowgiewicz and Sommers confirmed that several stories and experiences had been reported by staff.

“Footsteps in the stacks, knocking sounds, feeling that someone is behind you…” Dowgiewicz said, listing examples. “Or seeing some figure out of the corner of your eye, and when you look, there isn’t anyone there.”

Naturally, these two librarians referenced a book, “Haunted Detroit” by Nicole Beauchamp, which details accounts of “the shadow of a little girl.” This was a story Sommers had already heard from his own colleagues in person.

“A story of the same kind of thing,” he said, “seeing a little girl with a bow in her hair, saying, ‘Where’s my doll?’… and then she disappears!”

I couldn’t resist asking whether there was possibly a “cursed book” on the shelves of the library, and Dowgiewicz had an answer. She confirmed with a docent from the Historical Collection that Benny Evangelista, a self-proclaimed “divine prophet” who emigrated to the U.S. from Naples in the early 20th century and got into real estate, donated a book to DPL in 1927. The book, ‘The Oldest History of the World Discovered by Occult Science in Detroit, Michigan,” is signed by Evangelista himself. Dowgiewicz said it might not be cursed, but it certainly was “a creepy coincidence.”

Liminal way station

But isn’t a library a sort of liminal space, or maybe even a way station of energies, personalities, and experiences — a corridor that the entire community passes through, sometimes for leisure, sometimes for study, sometimes even with urgency?

Whether you’re a college student cramming for exams or someone in need of a printer — or yes, even a fax machine — libraries are public services, welcoming everyone from all walks of life. Maybe some patrons just haven’t left…

“It could be that people just love the books so much that they want to stay by them,” Kabel said. “I could see myself haunting a library one day!”

It’s nearly Halloween, and as Sheriff Leigh Brackett said in the 1978 John Carpenter film: “Everyone’s entitled to one good scare.”

And remember, if you’re ever looking to learn more about ghosts, you can find it on the shelves of your local library. The Dewey Decimal call number, by the way, is 133.

Or, if you’re like Dowgiewicz, you might just want to hang around with your ears open and your eyes peeled, hoping to give yourself a good scare.

“I tell people when they ask, ‘So why did you want to become a librarian?’ I tell them, because of ‘Ghostbusters,’” she said. “And I’m still waiting for that experience!”

Meet the listener

WDET listener Anne Kabel is not only a Ghostbusters fan but also a retired librarian who, fittingly for the spooky season, wondered whether the Detroit Public Library’s Main Branch on Woodward is haunted.

We want to hear from you!

If there’s a burning question about Detroit you’d like the answer to, let us know here or fill out the form below.

More from CuriosiD:

• Behind the Scenes: Celebrating 10 years of CuriosiD
• Who was Thomas Mollicone? The story behind the naming of an east side Detroit park
• What is the history behind the Belle Isle Boathouse?