Standing on a random sidewalk in Williamsburg on a Saturday evening, the hustle and bustle of a weekend night in Brooklyn can be distracting. But nothing quite catches your eye like a 20th century trolley rolling down a busy street.
After coming to a full stop, the vehicle opens its bus-like paneled doors to welcome guests. On certain roads, the trolley’s robust size may cause visitors to stay alert as they must cut through a bike lane to enter or exit.
Once inside, riders settle into leather seats embroidered with golden buttons. Mini chandeliers hang above the red carpeted aisle, while smoke envelops the wooden interior from the back, setting the stage for a ghoulish journey through New York’s second-largest borough.
Madame Morbid’s Trolley Tours have been guiding guests through the most haunted and possessed plots of the borough since 2017. And starting this month, they’re back on the road as spooky season inches closer.
Allison Chase, a tour guide and one of the founders, was inspired to enter this line of work by her father, who ran a seasonal haunted house when she was a child. After trying desk jobs, she discovered that leading haunted tours is her true calling.
“I can’t do anything else,” Chase said. “Literally, this is my only option.”
When you’re settled into those leather cushions, looking up to the front of the car as she speaks into a mic, it becomes clear why this is her calling. Chase seamlessly weaves between gruesome facts, pop quiz questions, and individual stories of Brooklyn’s haunted past, all while maintaining her balance. Her ability to stay upright is impressive, especially considering what she’s dealing with.
Chase originally searched for a short bus on eBay for her tours, but a friend inspired her to think bigger. “My friend was like, ‘Well, if you’re gonna do it, go bigger,’” she said. So instead, she found someone who made trolley frames and custom-designed the rest of the vehicle.
The sheer size and design of the car make it quite a spectacle as driver Laurentiu Oirca navigates the cobblestone roads near the Brooklyn Bridge. He’s been driving the trolley for a few years now and says that staying attentive is what allows him and the other drivers to do their jobs amidst the regular New York City traffic nightmares.
“I also say to the drivers, our main thing here is to stay focused and stay calm,” he said. “We have our tour guides on the stage, there’s no reason to disturb our guests with anything that’s outside.”
Sometimes, the distractions outside can be intense. Late last year, during a protest, one of the trolley’s windows was shot with a BB gun.
Chase and the other tour guides have such faith in Oirca that they don’t worry as he navigates tight squeezes and fends off pesky drivers. Jaywalkers and people on the sidewalk often look on in amazement as the monolith soars down streets and avenues.
But it’s not just the public that’s captivated — the audience members on the bus are, too. A television at the front of the car plays informational videos featuring pictures, celebrity cameos and narration about some of the sights and stories highlighted on the tour.
These videos were updated earlier this year to enhance the experience for new audiences, as Chase realized the business is starting to attract customers who return annually.
“We just want to improve, like to us the product is everything,” she said. “All the tour guides, drivers, they like get so immersed in the history and really love it that they go home and research.”
Whether it’s the videos, new costumes, or a new route that Laurentiu helped create, the team at Madame Morbid is keen on keeping something that could become stale a fresh product.
One of the cooler aspects of the tour is when the sun begins to dip below the skyline, and the candles on the side of the trolley flicker on, adding an extra layer of eeriness to the next stops, including the site of the 1960 plane crash over Park Slope.
As the tour wraps up on the same street in Williamsburg where it began, riders hop off into the Brooklyn night, having learned some of the spookiest facts about the neighborhood many of them call home.
When Chase originally pitched the haunted concept to her friends in the mid-2010s, they weren’t exactly supportive.
“I was always talking to my friends all the time about how I was going to open a ghost tour, and everyone was laughing at me,” she said.
Now, almost a decade later, Madame Morbid is creatively doing something unique that’s attracting attention and interest — something she’s quite proud of.
“I feel like this company, people want to be a part of it,” she said.
