Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Creation >

Looking for Long Island's Ledbelly

20:06 / 15.08.07

First a bit of background...

I was born and raised in Amityville. (Yes, THAT Amityville). My father stores his boat next door to the "horror house" off-season, I've heard all the stories, been inside the house, etc. It really is nothing more than a true story of one guy who went crazy and killed his entire family that just refuses to die because people need their horror fix.

Growing up here, I've always wanted to write something that illustrated the difference between supernatural myth and the awful consequences when ordinary people try to achieve that same infamy. We have plenty of interesting little tales with mystery and magic attached to them, but most of the outside world seems more concerned with the Long Island Lolita, the Gotti's (both of which lived in the next town over from mine), and even more horrible acts like those documented in "Capturing the Friedmans."

To remedy this, I've been trying to collect as many local stories as I can and string them together with an immortal protagonist who has seen it all. (Long Island's resident demon has been all I've been able to come up with so far as a protagonist)

Basically if anyone has heard any legends they think would apply, would like to hear what I've come up with, or can offer advice on how to tie together a couple hundred years of history into a tight narrative, I'd appreciate it greatly.

**FUN FACT** My member name here on Barb is the earliest name given to Long Island by the Shinnecock tribes that settled here. The name apparently translates into "The Island that Pays Tribute," referring to our land's peaceful descendants who, wishing to remove themselves from the surrounding Indians fighting, simply paid them off to be left alone. ...So even back then, all our money was being tossed across the water to Manhattan. (sorry, did that come off as bitter?)

20:54 / 15.08.07

I've been trying to collect as many local stories as I can and string them together with an immortal protagonist who has seen it all.

Jodie, surely?

You'll have considered this. All the same, I would advise against summoning him up, in whatever form; that red-eyed devil pig, staring out of a top floor window (who I'm not convinced isn't real - that book terrified me as a youngster) perhaps understood more about recent US history than most, and I'd guess you'd have to watch out.

The Amityville Horror, for a work of supposed fiction, does seem to have this awful power.

Perhaps some on ths board read that book without having nightmares for years afterwards, but I'm not one of them.

But perhaps Jodie was misunderstood - he would, in some ways, be your ideal narrator.

Well, you pays your money, you take your chances, etc.

Good luck!

21:11 / 15.08.07

Check out the legends around Lake Ronkonkoma, I've always been partial to them.

21:11 / 15.08.07

I had actually never considered Jodie, but as I'm thinking about it he would make a fine protagonist. As an unspoken rule, locals very rarely have information on the otherworldly aspects of the case. I remember a while back checking on a newly-made "Amityville Message Board" that an out-of-state student was doing a report on the incident and wanted more information. He wasn't exactly well-met, so information on Jodie is pretty slim around these parts.

I'm intrigued though, do you have any more info?

01:47 / 16.08.07

I read a book a while back (The Amityville Horror Conspiracy) that made a strong argument that the horror house was a hoax that the Lutz's perpetuated because they couldn't pay off their mortgage (I think), so they exploited the murders that happened there.

And then there's the Montauk Project stuff. I read most of those books a while back. They're insane, highly entertaining, and poorly written.

And then there's all the rumored weirdness of Mount Misery. I've heard tales of the spirits of long-dead Native Americans reenacting battles to the death, a ghostly asylum that burnt down (some people have claimed to have seen it and the spirits of people jumping out of the windows to save themselves from the flames), ominous figures in black hoods surrounding someone in a parked car, men in black visiting people who live nearby, and that bridge on Sweet Hollow road where you're supposed to see three bodies hanging from. And then there's the demon dog and all the other typical ghost stuff.

I lived in Syosset. Can't recall any supernatural stuff, but we had some weirdness. Like when a couple of kids from my grade robbed a convenience store and one of them killed the clerk. The thing that stands out about it was that the convenience store was supposed to be across the street from a house belonging to one of the robbers. Guess they thought the getaway would be a breeze.

Then there was that night that the captain of our football team got drunk and decided to mimic the scene in the football movie, The Program, where the members of the film's football team lay down in the middle of a busy road with cars whizzing by in order to get an adrenaline rush. So our captain ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and that scene ended up being cut from the movie. There may have been other copycat incidents like that.

That's all that I can think of for now. You should check out this site: http://www.lioddities.com

02:27 / 16.08.07

Oh yeah, and then there was Massapequa's "Devil House." My driver's ed teacher used to take me there. It's a house in the middle of a typical suburban neighborhood that really stands out because it looks like it would be the sort of place that Anton Lavey would would have lived in - painted black, maybe six stories tall, a hearse parked in the driveway, and surrounded by a black, wrought iron fence. I liked to imagine that the leftover members of the Process Church lived there since they were rumored to live on L.I. The place looked spectacular and these pictures don't do it justice: http://www.lioddities.com/Roadside/satan.htm

Actually, I just found a great pic and my memory must be bad because it doesn't seem to be black (it's a few posts down in this forum): http://www.lifamilies.com/chat/topic-49495-3.html

This is the house that's next door (I love the contrast): http://links.mlslirealtor.com/mlsphotos/full/1/638/1821638.jpg

15:47 / 16.08.07

Thanks for all the stories. I love the Massapequa Devil House, used to ride our bikes over there as kids.

I found another interesting little fact I figured I'd bring up because it sounds like it would really give the story a creepy atmosphere: The Mosquito Men.

Long Island's always had a huge bug problem, and apparently in the 50's it was mosquitos. The solution at the time was to spray fumes out of the backs of Ice Cream trucks every evening. So several of the Ice Cream men would don those crazy Hazmat suits and drive up and down the streets spewing green smoke out of the backs of the ice cream trucks. The kids all loved it, because it was straight out of a Sci-Fi comic, and used to all ride their bikes behind the trucks, because the layer of smoke made it look like their bikes were floating.

...Just a really crazy image.

21:43 / 13.09.07

I grew up in Brentwood. The town started as an Artist Colony and later became the home of the Pilgrim State Mental Institute. There, Electro Shock Therapy was pioneered and a handful of "Insane Killers" were housed and in some notable cases escaped. Local urban legends include the presence of some of those "killers" still camped out in the surrounding woods. More ominous was the haunted wing where all the doors & first floor windows where bricked closed but the lights of the Electro Shock could still be seen and howling patents could still be heard.

Also in Brentwood was the St. Anne Convent where a mysterious graveyard of baby sized tombstones could be found deep in the woods of the convent grounds.