Geist Timeline

Founded in 1624 New York City’s colorful past includes its fair share of deadly events. Industrial accidents as the city began to shape itself. Diseases like Yellow Fever and Cholera that took thousands of lives. Deadly stampedes, train crashes, hurricanes. Riots and criminal violence. In more recent times, 50,000 people die in New York City every year. To talk of history among the Sin-Eaters here is to speak of the tides of ghosts that pour through a relatively small area. While not all deaths create ghosts, the resonance left behind is enough to fuel the bond for troves of Sin-Eaters, causing the location to become a sort of ghastly mecca for those ephemerally inclined.

Exposure, natural disasters, drug overdoses, gang violence, traffic incidents, murder, natural deaths, violent crimes, accidents, and suicide all weave together to create the deathly landscape. There is no shortage of shades in need of guidance or retribution. Some notable recent historical events are below.

2018: January 1: New Year is rung in at 10 degrees Fahrenheit, coldest in 100 years and second coldest on record. All over the city, the homeless gave way to exposure and pneumonia.

2017: October 31: Terrorist Truck attack kills eight. Their ghosts linger for months with national media coverage and local fear.

2014: March 12: 8 people are killed and over 70 others are injured when an explosion in Harlem destroyed two five-story buildings. A gas leak is suspected as the likely cause of the explosion. The buildings still stand to this day in Twilight, the memories of the incident not lost among the survivors.

2012: October 29–30: Hurricane Sandy brings flooding and high winds that result in several deaths and widespread power outages.

2008: February 12: Psychologist Kathryn Faughey is brutally murdered in her Manhattan office by a mentally ill man whose intended victim was a psychiatrist in the same practice.

2006: July 10: 66-year-old Romanian immigrant Dr. Nicholas Bartha commits suicide by blowing up his townhouse at 34 East 62nd Street in Manhattan while in the basement of the building. Bartha chose to demolish his home rather than relinquish it to his ex-wife as ordered by the courts.

2003: January 24: Four teenage boys drown in the Long Island Sound near City Island when their overloaded dinghy sinks. A communication misunderstanding between them and the 911 dispatcher contributed to their deaths

2001: September 11: The two World Trade Center twin towers and several surrounding buildings are destroyed by two jetliners in part of a coordinated terrorist attack by radical terrorists, killing 2,606 people who were in the towers and on the ground.