- [Announcer] Funding for "The Art Show" is made possible by: The Rockwern Charitable Foundation, The L&L Nippert Charitable Foundation, Montgomery County, The Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation.

Additional funding provided by: And viewers like you.

Thank you.

- In this eerie edition of "The Art Show," ghosts in the galleries, (spooky music) a not-so-final curtain, and the history of a cinematic landmark.

It's all ahead on this special Halloween edition of "The Art Show."

(storm thunders) (bell rings) (Rodney laughing) (lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music fades) Hi, I'm Rodney Veal, and welcome to "The Art Show," where each week we provide access to local and regional artists and arts organizations.

Today, we're bringing you a special Halloween episode that uncovers the spookier side of renowned artistic spaces and historic sites across Ohio.

The vast collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum cover thousands of years of human history, so maybe it's no surprise that a few spirits supposedly linger around the halls of the museum.

Join us on a tour of its galleries to explore some of the most striking paranormal encounters had by the museum's staff, if you dare.

(tense music) (tense music continues) (tense music continues) - The Cincinnati Art Museum was founded in 1881 by the Women's Art Museum Association.

This was a group of leading women in the city who felt that the community needed an art museum.

And then the building here was opened in 1886.

Since then, we've added a lot of wings to it, so we kind of joke that it's a bit of a "Franken-building."

My name's Emily Agricola Holtrop.

I'm the director of learning and interpretation here at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

The art museum has over 73,000 objects in our collection, and it spans about 6,000 years of human history.

We asked staff, specifically our night security staff, for any bumps that might go in the middle of the night around the museum, and we got some amazing stories.

(tense music) This tall case clock was made around 1810, 1815.

We're standing in what is the Cincinnati Wing, which opened to the public in May of 2003.

And during the time that we were installing the wing, it was after hours, and the curator and one of our art handlers were standing outside of the gallery, and all of a sudden they heard a... (echoing) bong, bong.

If we had all of our grandfather clocks going off all the time at the museum, it would be pretty noisy.

We take the weights out of our clocks so that it can't chime.

Well, the curator and the art handler looked at each other and said, "That shouldn't be happening."

So the curator sent the art handler into the next gallery to check it out, and the art handler came back not 20 seconds later and said, "We're going home now," and has never spoken of it again.

(clock chiming) The gallery that we're standing in right now is all about Frank Duveneck, and he really was a Cincinnati boy, and he worked here and lived here for most of his life.

For a brief period, he lived overseas in Munich and then in Venice, and this is really where ghost story meets love story.

While he was in Europe, he met Lizzie Boott, and they fell in love.

And shortly after they got married, about a year or so later, she passed away.

He was devastated.

He moved back to Cincinnati, and one of the things he did was he created this beautiful effigy of her.

(lovely music) We have had evening guards or guards that walk the galleries after the museum is closed and have walked through this gallery and heard, just very brief and very faint, "Frank, Frank."

So we like to think that that's Lizzie, and she has come to be with her husband and her husband's artwork at the art museum.

(enchanting music) "Frank, Frank."

We are standing in the San Baudelio Chapel, which is from 1125 to about 1150 from Spain.

One of our night security guards was walking around.

Well, they came into this gallery and saw a figure, a black-shrouded figure kneeling at the altar that's right behind me.

They walked in, saw him, left.

Kind of wondered, "Did I just see that?"

Walked back in.

The figure turned and looked at him, turned back, and then floated out through the ceiling.

We've never seen him again.

(intriguing music) (tense music) We are now in our 18th-century British painting gallery, and this is a story that comes to us from one of our facility support team members.

Ray worked at the museum for a really long time, and he was in this gallery one day dust mopping the floor, and all the lights went off.

(switch flips) What's something that you might not want to do if you're in a gallery and all the lights go off?

You probably don't want to touch and figure out where you are.

Ray hit the deck.

He started crawling out of the space, and all of a sudden he heard in a British accent, "Stop.

It'll be okay."

And he kind of looked around and heard it again, "Stop.

It'll be okay."

And then the lights came up, and he was facing our painting of Mr.

Sedgwick, who was a 18th-century British Lord, and we think that Mr.

Sedgwick was making sure that Ray was going to be safe in the gallery.

(eerie music) Do I believe that the museum is haunted?

I guess I would say I don't not believe that the museum is haunted.

I've never had any experiences myself.

There's no malicious ghosts.

I'm also really cool with not coming encounter with any of them, but I feel really safe that if they want to come and live here, they are not malicious, and they are more than welcome to hang out in the galleries.

It's because they want to see amazing art as well.

(wondrous music) - For more than a century, Dayton's historic Victoria Theatre has welcomed performers and audiences through its doors, but a few visitors from its past may have never left.

From unexplained footsteps and mysterious sounds to the legendary story of a young woman named Vicky, the Victoria has earned a reputation as one of Dayton's most intriguing haunted landmarks.

Let's head backstage into the balconies and through the hidden corners of this magnificent theater to explore its history and legends, and perhaps meet a resident ghost or two.

(playful music) - It started out in 1866 as the Turner Opera House, and it has gone through quite a few changes since then.

There have been fires.

We've had a few of those over the years, at one point, burning down to the facade, but the original facade was still here and built back up again.

Of course, part of the Great Flood in 1913, you could actually see on the light poles outside how high the levels got.

There's a marker out there to show you that the entire first floor, the first lobby here of the Victoria Theatre was completely underwater.

So we got through that.

We were the Victory Theatre after the war, went through a time as a movie house in different productions throughout the years.

In the 1980s, we were actually saved from the wrecking ball.

This was a big moment for the Victoria Theatre which later became again the Victoria Theatre, but it was a group of citizens that came from across the region to save the Victoria Theatre.

Dayton Live is home of the Schuster Performing Arts Center, the Victoria Theatre, the Metropolitan Arts Center, the PNC Arts Annex, a lot of tours that will come through from across the country.

And we have our education program, which we have performances here for children, school children during the day.

It was the last theater here in downtown Dayton, and the community said, "We're not going to let it happen here."

Organized, came together, even bake sales, you know, different things to make it happen.

It were the citizens that saved it.

So the Victoria Theatre Association was then formed and came together to make sure that this was restored, this beautiful historic building, bringing touring Broadway through here.

And when it opened back again in the early 1990s, it was once again the Victoria Theatre, and then just outgrew from there.

So it's been a long, storied history we're very proud of.

We've had so many throughout a great history from, you know, 1866.

I know Harry Houdini was here several times.

We had Wild Bill Hickok coming through a lot of the Wild West shows.

Katharine Hepburn was here, and Joseph Cotten in, I believe it was the 1940s, just before I think "The Philadelphia Story" was a movie, they were here in the play itself.

Leonard Nimoy was here.

I thought that was kind of cool.

(charming music) (fabric rustling) Miss Vicky, the origin of the stories take you back to the early 1920s.

There was a young touring actress.

She's standing in the wings of the Victoria Theatre and waiting to go on for her cue.

She's standing there in her black taffeta gown, and she realizes she's forgotten something.

She's supposed to have a prop for the scene.

It's a black lace fan.

She thinks, "Okay, think I've got enough time just to run up there to the dressing room to grab it and come back down on stage."

Now her cue comes and goes.

She misses it.

So everyone's looking around for her.

They can't find her, so they hurried to get her understudy out there because the show must go on.

They continued to look for her, and even after the production, they can't find her.

So they looked in the dressing room, and they did find her street clothes, but again, she's nowhere to be found.

And in fact, she was never seen again.

It was just as if she vanished into the night.

We've had performers, I know specifically some ballet dancers, have reported seeing glimpses of Vicky in the dressing room mirrors.

So you might see her just pop up in the mirror really quickly or just a glimpse of her in the corner of your eyes.

So we've heard that from different performers.

We've heard of catching the scent of a rose-scented perfume, just the hint of it, just for a moment, that's been in different areas of the theater.

It's there and then it's gone, but that's happened in the time since Vicky.

So we attribute all this to maybe Miss Vicky, but especially... And there's a lot of reports here of people just as they're on the stairs, hearing the sound of footsteps rushing past them and rustling fabric, almost maybe the rustling of a taffeta gown.

But that's been reported on the stairways in different areas, so... I've had a couple of moments with Vicky.

I feel like what describes her pretty well, I think, is having a sense of humor.

If you've ever worked here very late at night, you know you're the last one here.

Everyone has signed out of the building, and you're finishing up, and then all of a sudden you hear the elevator start, and you know what's going to happen next.

It's going to go all the way to the fourth floor.

The doors will open, and it will just sit there, and you just say, "Oh, Miss Vicky."

It's just her saying hello, I feel.

My favorite though, I will say, was probably the time I was giving a tour, and I had just given a tour to some new team members.

We'd gone through the orchestra, looked at the different seating areas, and we're making our way up to the balcony.

And on the way to the balcony, I'm telling them the story about Miss Vicky, I was asked, and I had just finished talking about her black lace fan, her going back to get it.

And when you walk into the balcony, to the right is the loge, and to the left is the rest of the balcony, and there's a walkway and there's a ledge.

And as I'm looking about halfway down the walkway, I see a dark shape on the ledge, and I start to walk toward it, and as I get closer, I see it's a... There's a piece of cloth there sitting there.

So I pick it up, and 100% serious, this was a small jacket, like a little bolero, the perfect thing to go with a black taffeta gown and a black lace fan.

So I laugh because I know that's just Miss Vicky going, "Hello."

Just kind of her just fun sense of humor.

Maybe not everyone thought it was funny as I did, but I just, you know, it was just her being Vicky.

(playful music) - In 1896, the Ohio State Reformatory opened its prison cells for the very first time in Mansfield.

You might recognize the striking building from the 1994 film, "The Shawshank Redemption," based on a tale by the master of horror, Stephen King.

While the prison closed decades ago, today it's a museum you can tour.

Some come for the architecture, some come for the history, and some come for the ghosts.

Let's visit Mansfield to hear just a few of the fascinating stories surrounding this historic site.

(gentle music) - The building has its own kind of essence.

It has this aura and this feeling about it.

It kind of breathes.

You drive up and you just get this feeling, and it's what Levi Scofield was intending.

You just get this awe-inspired feeling where you were just swept away by the building itself.

Levi Scofield was a Cleveland architect, born in Cleveland, did a lot of work around the state of Ohio, including the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Cleveland.

So the building relied pretty heavily on three different architectural styles: Richardsonian Romanesque, Gothic, and Queen Anne.

Richardsonian Romanesque uses rough-hewn stone work.

Queen Anne has the deeply pitched roofs and the wraparound porches.

And then Gothic has the curved arches and the stained glass windows.

We have gorgeous stained glass windows here at the Reformatory, and they actually are the originals.

Levi Scofield designed this prison to be something that was awe-inspiring.

He wanted to give the gentlemen who were sent here a feeling of hope and inspiration.

The West Cell Block was our first cell block completed.

It is made primarily of stone and mortar, so it's easier to heat, easier to cool.

And then the East Cell Block is all steel construction.

The inmates actually worked on that after the first 150 inmates were moved in.

It is the tallest standing steel cell block in the world at six tiers high.

- I just love the building, and it like called me.

Outside, it's all about the architecture.

When I came into the building, it was all about the paranormal.

(eerie music) When you're working with the paranormal, you're coming in to see the history behind it.

- Arthur Glattke was our longest-serving warden.

He actually had no background in corrections.

He was an educator, which considering we were trying to reform these inmates was actually a great background to come from.

He actually met his wife while he was working here.

They got married, lived here, raised their children here.

They had two young sons that grew up in the prison as well.

- Now, there's tragedy that did follow this family, and the tragedy first started with Helen.

- [Ashleigh] In the 1950s, Helen was getting ready for, we think, church, and she reached up into the closet to find her hat box.

- And as she reached up for it, Art's pistol was on top of it and it fell, discharged, and struck her in the lung.

- She was taken to Mansfield Hospital where she died three days later.

- Helen died in 1950.

Art continued as the warden here.

There was a lot of stress involved with the families living here on property, and as a result of the stress, had a massive heart attack in his office that did end his life.

We have experienced their energy here in this building.

Helen used to make a rose water perfume.

The very first time that I was here, I was taking a tour and I smelled roses coming down the second floor to where her bedroom was.

Now, Art, he used to smoke a cherry pipe tobacco, and there are occasions when you're walking around, you make a dead stop because you smell cherry pipe tobacco.

(eerie music) (suspenseful music) - We have some paranormal hotspots within the building that are actually well known for being active.

- Hey, guys.

Hope you're doing good today.

Coming for a little visit.

We are in the West Attic, one of the most haunted spots in the prison.

The West Attic was actually used to house inmates back in 1930.

There was a huge fire that took place at the Ohio Penitentiary, and they needed to house 250-plus inmates in a different location, and the Mansfield Reformatory was the location that they chose.

Now, the story goes that they were placed up here.

Now, keeping in mind, the inmates that were coming from the Ohio Penitentiary were the worst of the worst.

This area was used to house those inmates, and as you see, it's completely open.

There's no windows.

I'm sure they locked the door, and what happened, I guess it's inside these walls and behind those doors, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty.

One of the things that I can say as far as hauntings that take place here in the attic is the smell of smoke.

I attribute that to when the inmates came from the Ohio Penitentiary and their clothing had smoke smells on them and any bedding or anything that they brought with them.

I don't smell the smoke as strong as it was earlier today either.

(suspenseful music) So this is The Chair Room, and this chair does move by itself on occasion.

It will also, when you're sitting in it in the dark, it may vibrate, you might hear voices, you might see lights.

There's all kinds of things that can happen.

So the challenge is, you come in here with no lights, you sit in the chair with the lights off for 15 minutes, and you just wait and see what happens.

- By 1930, things had really changed here at the Reformatory, starting with some overcrowding that was a result of the Great Depression and Prohibition, as well as the Ohio Pen Fire down in Columbus.

We were never supposed to house more than 1,900 inmates.

At our worst, we were closer to 3,500.

By the 1960s, things had gotten so bad here that it was starting to turn into a maximum security prison.

By 1978, a lawsuit was brought against us by 1,200 inmates who were kept here, that we were keeping them in cruel, inhumane, and brutalizing conditions, and we certainly were.

So by 1990, the Reformatory was closed to operations.

Eve Lapolla was a member of the Ohio Film Commission.

She played a vital role in getting "The Shawshank Redemption" to the Reformatory, and she really championed getting Frank Darabont and his production crew here to check out the location.

He climbed all over this place like it was playground equipment.

A direct quote from him was that, "The building is going to be the biggest character in the movie, so it has to be perfect."

And when Castle Rock showed up to film the first morning, the wrecking ball was actually standing outside of the prison.

There is a very good chance that if they had not selected the Ohio State Reformatory as their filming location, that the building would not be here today.

(wondrous music) The building itself is a very unique architectural marvel.

You're not going to see a lot of castles in the state of Ohio or even the United States for that matter.

The architecture is something that deserves to remain standing.

- When I became the Paranormal Program Manager three years ago, it was one of the best moves that I made.

I'm going to be here until they kick me out.

Or who knows?

I might be here after I go.

(laughs) (light music) (dramatic music) - And that wraps it up for the special Halloween edition of "The Art Show."

Until next time, I'm Rodney Veal.

Thanks for watching.

(lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) - [Announcer] Funding for "The Art Show" is made possible by: The Rockwern Charitable Foundation, The L&L Nippert Charitable Foundation, Montgomery County, The Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation.

Additional funding provided by: And viewers like you.

Closed captioning in part has been made possible through a grant from The Bahmann Foundation.

Thank you.