Union Depot Ghost Stories

The first Union Depot opened in 1881 on the spot of the current station. With 140 years of history that include fires, accidents and gangsters, ghosts are sure to appear!

Interview and story written by Cynthia Smith with CynCity tours

Ghosts do not like change, they want everything to stay the way it was when they were still
alive. So if you start doing some significant renovations, they may literally crawl out of the
woodwork to haunt you! This certainly seems to be the case with Union Depot. The
following stories were collected from a gentleman named Josh who was a security guard at the
Union Depot when it was going through a big restoration and renovation in 2005-2006. He
worked the overnight shift from 7pm to 7am and was often alone all night. Josh and his family
had a long connection with the building. His father was a long time maintenance worker there
and his aunt was a ticket seller back in the day.

Most of the ghost encounters took place in the main area where Christos restaurant used to be
located and on the mezzanine above it. All of the stories took place at night when the building
was locked and no one else could have gotten inside. By the time Josh told me these stories in
2009, he said the ghostly activity had all but stopped. Seems the ghosts calmed down once
the renovations were completed.

Sometimes he would hear the sound of glasses clinking at Christos. Other times there would
also be the faint murmuring of voices as if a crowd were dining in the restaurant.

One time Josh was walking through the main room when he looked up to see someone on the
mezzanine keeping pace with him. He stopped and the shadowy figure stopped. Josh started
walking again and so did the mysterious figure. Josh kept speeding up, slowing down,
stopping and starting and whoever it was continued to mirror his pace. At times the figure
seemed to turn to look at Josh. Finally the shadowy figure bent over and disappeared as Josh
stood watching. Now he knew it could not have been his own shadow as he was standing
straight when the figure bent over. He ran to stairs that lead up to the mezzanine and charged
up but could find no evidence of anyone having been there.

One night he looked up to see a head floating over the Christos sign. It disappeared after a few
seconds.

Christos would stack their chairs on the tables overnight to make it easier for cleaners to mop
the floor. More than once, Josh would see chairs fly off the table when no one was there. And
he did not mean that the chair just shifted and tipped off the table. They would fly as if an
unseen hand picked it up off the table and threw it several feet away. Child booster seats that
were stacked up would also fall over as if they were pushed. One time the child seats were
pushed so hard that they flew into a stack of glasses and broke many of them.

Glasses behind the bar in Christos would sometime shatter or fall off the shelf for no reason.
Josh would be at his security desk and hear breaking glass. He would then walk over to find
broken glassware on the floor by the bar. A few times he actually happened to be looking in the
direction of the bar and witnessed the glasses breaking or falling.

Josh’s father the maintenance man also experienced a few strange things. One time he was
cleaning near the coffee shop when he clearly heard someone whisper his name into his ear. It
sounded as if their mouth was right at his ear. He jerked his head up and looked around but no
one was there. Josh was standing far away on the other side of the large room. His father
asked Josh if he had called his name and Josh insisted he had not said a word.

On another night, Josh’s father was waxing the floor with an electric floor polishing machine.
Josh was several feet away, sitting behind the security desk. His father shut off the polisher
because he thought he heard something strange. He called for Josh to listen. They both heard
what sounded like women’s heels on the marble floor coming from the concourse. Whoever it
was appeared to be running. Then they both began to hear a squeaking sound as she
continued to run. Suddenly the unseen woman screamed and the squeaking and footsteps
sounds stopped. Josh and his father ran over to investigate but no one was there. An older
security guard later told them that three years earlier, he had been there alone at night and had
also heard the strange squeaking and women’s heels on the marble floor, however, she was
merely walking at that time, not running. When the old guard went to investigate, he clearly saw
the silhouette of a woman pushing an old fashioned baby carriage through the concourse. She
faded away before he could get closer.

One night Josh went downstairs to the basement on his rounds. At the bottom of the stairs, he
bent down to tie his boot. As he sat crouched, he suddenly became aware of faint voices
coming down the stairwell. He then heard the foot steps of several people at the top of the
stairs. He could not see around the bend in the stairs to see who was coming but he knew he
should be alone as the building was locked. The voices of what seemed to be a crowd got
louder and their footsteps got closer. The unseen crowd kept getting closer and louder as Josh
still crouched down on the floor, looking up. By then, Josh was sure he should have been able
to see who it was as the sounds now seemed to have come around the bend in the stairs. The
voices and footsteps of the crowd were now quite loud and growing louder as they drew closer
and closer. The din was almost on top of him! Terrified, Josh instinctively shut his eyes and
threw his arms over his head to protect himself from whatever unseen herd of people were
about to run him over. Just as the stampeding, invisible crowd came right up to where he
crouched – it suddenly stopped. All was silent. Josh slowly lowered his arms and opened his
eyes just enough to take peek. He looked around but saw or heard nothing. Shaken, Josh went
back to his security desk and stayed there all night. He did not wish to venture out and run into
that crowd again!