Yinz wanna hear about a haunted hotel?

Yinzers and anyone who has ever been to Pittsburgh will appreciate this blog.

I go to Pittsburgh often. It’s less than two hours from my home and it is my back-up airport for commuting to work when flights out of Cleveland are full. I also happen to love the picturesque downtown area with bridges, beautiful architecture, and so many good places to eat. I also plan to visit the People’s Gas sponsored Christmas Market in just a couple short months. This past summer I went with a friend who owns a Food Tour business in North Carolina to try a different food tour in Pittsburgh. The Strip District tour did not disappoint. What a great area with an array of ethnic food choices that have been in “the ‘burgh” for generations, passed down from families to their children. We tried the freshest-baked melt-in-your mouth pepperoni rolls at Sunseri’s to the creamiest and most flavorful hummus at Labad’s, to Greek cheese from Stamulis, to Parma’s meats, to Sweet Lilly’s cookies to Mancini’s cinnamon bread, and beyond.

But I’m not here to talk about food. (Well, maybe I am, because I love food.) I am primarily here to talk about ghosts. So let’s cut to the chase. The Omni William Penn. Yinz, it’s HaUnTeD……not only that, but it is absolutely beautiful. I found it to be quiet and peaceful, but other airline crew members have reported to feel uncomfortable there, or like they are being watched. And it has had over a hundred years of history. Constructed for $6 million, the Omni William Penn Hotel, with its 1,000 rooms, first opened in 1916. By 1919, a new addition had been built, making the elegant hotel the largest in the region. I have also heard that at one point it was the second largest in the world. Throughout its storied past, The Omni William Penn has hosted some of 20th-century America’s most noteworthy celebrities. A young bandleader named Lawrence Welk—who would later gain fame for his eponymous television show—performed in the hotel’s various ballrooms. The Omni William Penn’s engineers even helped produce Welk’s iconic bubble machine. The Omni William Penn has also received every seated president since Theodore Roosevelt. 

So the first ghost story I heard is that there was a traveling lingerie salesman who was murdered here on one of the two upper floors, which are both now closed to the public. Not much substance with that story; it prompted some digging on my end.

In 1922 the salesman, Michael York did indeed stay at the William Penn. He died from an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound. His death became even more strange when police recovered telegrams from within the hotel room that portrayed a series of bad whiskey deals that led to York’s life being threatened. Police questioned York’s taxicab driver who claimed that York had been out late at a party on the evening of his death and had revealed that he was carrying a handgun. York reportedly told the driver that he planned to “end it all” unless his circumstances changed dramatically that night. Even more weird is that a woman had feverishly been trying to contact his room that night and the hotel operator’s report and the investigation determined that she was trying to reach him MINUTES after his death occurred. Could her urgency have been because she knew information that might have prevented his death? Although we aren’t sure exactly which floor or room where this happened, guests have reported strange noises, smells, and apparitions in several places in the hotel.

There is also a story of two men in 1976 who worked at the hotel as dishwashers. They got into an argument one night that ended with a shooting. Guests of the hotel often report hearing a loud drunken argument in the hotel, but Security staff can never find anyone responsible for the voices.

Oh yeah, speaking of voices, if you still are not sure what “yinz” means or who a “yinzer” is: Yinz is Western Pennsylvania’s answer to the South’s “y’all”. The term Yinzer has taken on a connotation to identify someone who, for better or worse, is either a lifelong Pittsburgher, or says a phrase or commits an act that could be identified as something a stereotypical Pittsburgher might do. “Yinzer” was historically used to identify the typical Blue-collar worker who spoke with a Pittsburgh accent. I seriously love social linguistics and learning why people speak the way that they do. Have you ever been to the “Nationality Rooms” on the Pitt campus? I have not yet, but this is on my short list of places in Pittsburgh to visit. And of course I am hoping to learn about some of the storied spooky history on the Pitt campus. Stay tuned.