More Like... SOUR Hollow. Or Something.
Last night, in a spooky kind of mood, I decided to take Joe on a ride down Sweet Hollow Road in Melville.
The road itself is exceedingly narrow and winding, and largely without any lights. It's not entirely undeveloped: there's a library, school, riding center, and perfectly normal houses belonging to moderately affluent people lining the street. Many busy, modern L.I. roads-- Old Country Road, Jericho Turnpike, Northern State Parkway-- cross Sweet Hollow. It might seem a little idiosyncratic to have an old-fashioned, bucolic kind of road like that in the middle of so much pavement and strip malls, but it's really not all that unusual on Long Island. After all, I live on Long Island, and I'm pretty much surrounded by this:
Shades of my prom. Orange, orange shades of my prom.
Once upon a time, the area known as Sweet Hollow/Mt. Misery was a crossroads between farming communities. It gained the Mt. Misery name because it was useless as farmland and particularly difficult to get wagons across. A few hundred years later, not much has changed. In any case, during the day, this is what Sweet Hollow Road looks like:
Not too ominous, right? Maybe a little woodsy, a little claustrophobic if you're used to having more than two inches between your car and the one passing it, sure, but also kind of pretty. This is what Sweet Hollow Road looks like at night:
Artist's extremely accurate rendition.
I'm sure you want to know what, exactly, makes Sweet Hollow so scary? Well, one of the most persistent and popular legends surrounding the area is that of an eerie lady in white who can be seen wandering the side of the road, or even jumping in front of your car.
Terrifying.
There are also tales ranging from Black Shucks, to mysterious men in impeccable black suits who come to question residents about their lives, then disappear, to ghostly cops who pull you over even though they have no backs to their heads, to the phantom bodies of three teenagers who purportedly hung themselves from the Northern Parkway overpass.
The real tragedy is that it wasn't any of these teenagers.
Basically, if even half the stories that have been told about Sweet Hollow Road are true, it's like the second most haunted place in America.
Right after Lady Gaga's brain.
As we made our way to Sweet Hollow, under the nebulous orange light of the Harvest Moon, we noted that the GPS satellite wasn't connecting. Was this a sign warning us not to venture too close to the haunted road?
Or merely a sign I should upgrade my GPS?
Things got extra creepy when, the virtual instant we turned onto Sweet Hollow, dry lightning lit up the skies and continued as we made our way down the road. It kind of made it look like this, only more purple:
WoooOOOOooo, foreboding trees! Like in The Happening! You saw that, right? ...No? GOOD.
Then there was a car tailgating us, and the headlights kept flashing between yellow and white, which probably has something to do with physics or something.
Physics: even weirder and more arcane than ghosts.
But, aside from the creeped-out feeling I had until I was back on good old Jericho Turnpike, which is mostly due to me being a giant fraidy cat who enjoys scaring herself too much for her own good, nothing happened. Not a single weird mist, no fleeting figures in the dark, no apparitions, no unexplainable noises, NOTHING.
What the CRAP, Sweet Hollow Road? All that build-up, throwing the light show at us and everything, for jack. I was more frightened by that sandwich I got from the cafeteria last week. You are the lamest road ever and I'm here to tell everyone I know. Don't bother with Sweet Hollow. It's a shit hole. The people who drive on it are douchenozzles. Save your adventures in Long Island paranormal investigations for really weird places. Like Sunrise Mall.
WeeeOOOOooOOOOO!
The road itself is exceedingly narrow and winding, and largely without any lights. It's not entirely undeveloped: there's a library, school, riding center, and perfectly normal houses belonging to moderately affluent people lining the street. Many busy, modern L.I. roads-- Old Country Road, Jericho Turnpike, Northern State Parkway-- cross Sweet Hollow. It might seem a little idiosyncratic to have an old-fashioned, bucolic kind of road like that in the middle of so much pavement and strip malls, but it's really not all that unusual on Long Island. After all, I live on Long Island, and I'm pretty much surrounded by this:
Shades of my prom. Orange, orange shades of my prom.
Once upon a time, the area known as Sweet Hollow/Mt. Misery was a crossroads between farming communities. It gained the Mt. Misery name because it was useless as farmland and particularly difficult to get wagons across. A few hundred years later, not much has changed. In any case, during the day, this is what Sweet Hollow Road looks like:
Not too ominous, right? Maybe a little woodsy, a little claustrophobic if you're used to having more than two inches between your car and the one passing it, sure, but also kind of pretty. This is what Sweet Hollow Road looks like at night:
Artist's extremely accurate rendition.
I'm sure you want to know what, exactly, makes Sweet Hollow so scary? Well, one of the most persistent and popular legends surrounding the area is that of an eerie lady in white who can be seen wandering the side of the road, or even jumping in front of your car.
Terrifying.
There are also tales ranging from Black Shucks, to mysterious men in impeccable black suits who come to question residents about their lives, then disappear, to ghostly cops who pull you over even though they have no backs to their heads, to the phantom bodies of three teenagers who purportedly hung themselves from the Northern Parkway overpass.
The real tragedy is that it wasn't any of these teenagers.
Basically, if even half the stories that have been told about Sweet Hollow Road are true, it's like the second most haunted place in America.
Right after Lady Gaga's brain.
As we made our way to Sweet Hollow, under the nebulous orange light of the Harvest Moon, we noted that the GPS satellite wasn't connecting. Was this a sign warning us not to venture too close to the haunted road?
Or merely a sign I should upgrade my GPS?
Things got extra creepy when, the virtual instant we turned onto Sweet Hollow, dry lightning lit up the skies and continued as we made our way down the road. It kind of made it look like this, only more purple:
WoooOOOOooo, foreboding trees! Like in The Happening! You saw that, right? ...No? GOOD.
Then there was a car tailgating us, and the headlights kept flashing between yellow and white, which probably has something to do with physics or something.
Physics: even weirder and more arcane than ghosts.
But, aside from the creeped-out feeling I had until I was back on good old Jericho Turnpike, which is mostly due to me being a giant fraidy cat who enjoys scaring herself too much for her own good, nothing happened. Not a single weird mist, no fleeting figures in the dark, no apparitions, no unexplainable noises, NOTHING.
What the CRAP, Sweet Hollow Road? All that build-up, throwing the light show at us and everything, for jack. I was more frightened by that sandwich I got from the cafeteria last week. You are the lamest road ever and I'm here to tell everyone I know. Don't bother with Sweet Hollow. It's a shit hole. The people who drive on it are douchenozzles. Save your adventures in Long Island paranormal investigations for really weird places. Like Sunrise Mall.
WeeeOOOOooOOOOO!