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Paranormal TV show digging into claims Youngstown house haunted
YOUNGSTOWN
A crew from the Travel Channel’s paranormal show “The Dead Files” is in Youngstown filming an episode about a house that may be haunted, city officials say.
The crew arrived a few days ago and will be in the city for about a week filming for the TV show that airs new episodes at 10 p.m. Fridays. The series premiered in September 2011.
Desma Simon, a show producer in Youngstown for this episode, declined Thursday to comment to The Vindicator, saying it is Travel Channel policy not to discuss the show while filming.
The city’s board of control Thursday approved a request from the show to film a segment Saturday outside the former Republic Rubber Co. – later known as Republic Hose Manufacturing Co. – on Albert Street. The business manufactured tires, hoses and other rubber products from 1901 until it closed in 1989. That property is owned by the city, said Anthony Donofrio, deputy law director.
Permission was needed because the property is closed, he said.
“It’s pretty hazardous with a lot of rubble and pits where they had underground tunnels,” Donofrio said.
The episode likely is about a dead former executive at the rubber business who supposedly is haunting a house in the city.
In an email sent to ownership of The Vindicator, Anissa Douglass, a Travel Channel producer, requested the use of 12 of the newspaper’s articles dating back to 1892 for the episode. The request included articles about various members of the Wick family, including Col. George D. Wick, who died on Titanic in 1912. Members of the Wick family were among the founders of the Republic Rubber Co.
The request also included the deaths of several others, including a mobster, a firefighter and a contractor.
“The Dead Files” features Steve DiSchiavi, a retired New York City homicide detective, and Amy Allen, a psychic medium, who investigate places to determine if they’re haunted, according to the show’s website.
“They are a paranormal team like no other, combining their unique, eclectic and often-conflicting skills to solve unexplained paranormal phenomena in haunted locations across America,” the show’s website touts.
The filming of “The Dead Files” comes a few months after Spike’s “Bar Rescue” reality show aired two episodes last month about its overhaul of Youngstown bars: The Royal Oaks and The Federal.
Also Thursday, the board of control approved a deal to accept the former Bottom Dollar Food store property on Glenwood Avenue from ALDI Inc. as a gift.
The city sold the location to Bottom Dollar for $14,000 in 2010. Two years later, the company opened a 17,000-square-foot location, the only full-service grocery store on the city’s South Side. But it closed at the end of 2014 when ALDI bought the chain.
After the sale is finalized in about a week or two, the city will advertise seeking a company interested in the location, said T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s director of community planning and economic development.
“The top priority is to get a grocer,” she said. “We will try to find someone to run a grocery store.”
If that doesn’t happen, Woodberry said, the city would look at other possible businesses.