THE STORY
Reported Haunting
West Hall at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is associated with campus legends involving apparitions and unexplained activity. Students have reported phantom footsteps, mysterious voices, and shadowy figures in the historic building after dark. Some accounts connect the activity to people associated with the property before it became part of the university.
West Hall at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute currently houses the Arts Department, but was once the historic Old Troy Hospital. As legend has it, ghostly Nurse Betsy of the psych ward sometimes plays the piano, as she used to do to calm her patients. Her footsteps and her patients’ screaming and whining also have been reported, as well as thumping sounds and slamming doors. According to Betsy’s story, a fire broke out in the psych ward, and she died a hero while trying to save the lives of her patients.