Will Trader Joe's Be Haunted by the Spirits of Bankers Past?

There are stories -- perhaps tongue-in-cheek -- of a spirit that inhabits the underground vault of what was once the palatial Independence Community Bank building, on Atlantic Avenue at Court Street.

According to an old story in the Brooklyn Eagle, "Some say the phantasm is one of the tortured souls who perished on the site when it held a fort during the Revolutionary war. Others claim it is the demented spirit of the sister of a bank teller who was executed more than a century ago for forgery..."

The dark doorway, seen on the back wall, left, of the photo above, leads down several flights of stairs to chambers far below the ground, where the air is cold and there's no one to hear you.

When Trader Joe's finally arrives, will "frantic banging sounds" still be heard from deep inside the walk-in-vault?

Happy Halloween...

Previous Trader Joe's posts here.
Photo by MK Metz