The official NACC website says the building was built in 1924 by a William Ittner using a classical revival style. I don’t know much about architecture but I’m guessing “classical revival” means forbidding and scary with lots of hidden halls and cathedral ceilings that make you feel insignificant. Yes this former high school, now home to artist’s studios, ballet troupes, and theatre groups, is quite forbidding, and most certainly, haunted.

On a recent tour of the labyrinthine 501c3 facility our tour guide, NAICA’s current Artist In Residence Jay Carrier, told us about a crew of ghost hunters who investigated the joint a few years prior; they certified that at least 129 ghosts haunt the school-not all of them erstwhile students either. He told us this as we passed through a darkened side hallway that had what looked like blood splatters on the floors and walls. As it turns out it was blood-fake blood. It seems some kids from an after school program hosted a ‘haunted house” some Halloween past. If that’s not irony I don’t know what is. Chills crept over me as I imagined the unsuspecting teens running wild through those concealing halls pretending to be ghosts not realizing ghosts are following them-the real ones.

A walk into the cavernous and shadowy basketball gymnasium would have anyone believing they were being watched by anonymous spirits-well, only if you were the type to let yourself believe spirits were watching you-I am, so I did. Jay pointed out a light emanating from an announcer’s booth overlooking the floor below where we were standing. He said a ghost who presides over the long abandoned court resided in there, which was why the light never went out. I found this notion quaint thinking of some poor schlub from long ago that can’t get over his former glory as a high school basketball announcer so he returned to forever preside over his court; I imagined him as a swarthier version of Howard Cossel. As long as we were in that gymnasium the light never went out. It flickered a little, but….

The high school was slated for demolition when a new “modern” school was built in 2000-for the record; the new “modern school” looks like a “modernized” prison. Before the bulldozers could get dozing the ghost filled building was saved by a grass roots organization that got it registered as a historic site. Today it houses studios and performance spaces for all sorts of visual artists, community groups, and musicians, and the rent fees are cheap! I can’t deny I’d like to have a big ole studio for myself, but wandering the halls, even with our guide, who also has a studio in the building, made my skin crawl at times. I swear I felt something or someone watching us.

Don’t believe me?

See for yourself.