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Ken writes: In
1872, a 13 yr old Irish girl , Jane Mullaney, immigrated to New York
City from Mohill, County Leitrim, Ireland, with her recently widowed
mother, Mary. As was common at the time, they settled in a
predominantly Irish section of Manhattan known as "Hell's Kitchen". It
was a working class neighbourhood, and as such, the men would dress
accordingly as they left for work in the morning.
When she would return home from school in the afternoon, my
grandmother would often run into the "rich man" who lived down the
hall from their apartment, as he was taking his small white dog for a
walk.
Unlike most of the men of the area, he was always dressed in a tuxedo
and was home when others were at their jobs. He was of a refined
manner, and always tipped his hat and smiled as he passed her in the
hall.
One day, when her mother was speaking with some of the other tenants,
she asked about the nice man with the little dog. Their faces
blanched, and the shocked tenants asked her to describe the man in
greater detail. The man, as it turns out, was a waiter who worked the
night shift in an exclusive restaurant (hence the tuxedo). He would
walk his dog every afternoon before going to work and was a quiet and
cordial neighbour.
One night, a year earlier, he had quietly committed suicide in his
bedroom. I think that , maybe, many decades later, he might have
stopped by to pay a visit to the pretty little Irish girl who had
lived down the hall.
(some people claim to see a second face, which appears to be a woman.
If you look closely at the image of the man, you can notice a noose
around his neck. Also, in the left of the photo is what appears to be
the head of a small dog). |
