Customer Reviews

Chicago's Street Guide to the Supernatural: A Guide to Haunted and Legendary Places In and Near the Windy City

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The person who buys this book should be someone who has been on one of Richard Crowe's ghost tours and is purchasing the book as a kind of souvenir. Crowe isn't much of a writer: the text of "Chicago Street Guide to the Supernatural" is mostly a word-by-word duplication of the speeches he gives on his tours. That being said, Crowe really knows his stuff. He's been giving ghost tours in Chicago for years and could talk to you for hours about any of the haunted locations mentioned in his book. He's not a scientist and not exactly a historian, but Crowe specializes in legends, and that's what ghost stories are made of. This book contains summaries of Chicago's most famous ghost stories, including Resurrection Mary and John Dillinger. Crowe includes information that he obtained from interviews as well as many interesting photographs. It's an interesting and entertaining read, and anyone interested in learning more about Supernatural Chicago will enjoy it immensely.

This book is written in a concise and easy to read format. As a chicago suburb native, I enjoyed reading tales about places and areas that I am familiar with and have been to. AS FOR THE TOUR, I was completely disappointed. Imagine sitting on a bus for four hours listening to the "micro-machine guy" rattle through places where people have seen ghosts. Very little story telling actually took place on the tour. Basically, we'd drive past a store stuck between a subway and dunkin donuts and he'd say, "so and so died here...now it's haunted," and that would be it. He even had to nerve to tell us that his last bus driver quit because he saw a ghost, and that was the end of that story. Instead of hearing stories about China Town we stopped at a chinese grocery store and he tried to get us to buy knock-off Guchi bags. Anyways, get the book if you are local to Chicago, forget the tour.

This book presents an uninspired retread of the same stories you can get from any book on Chicago ghosts. There is really nothing new here; I would like to have seen a little more depth and research and not so much of the same tired tales I have heard since I was 8. As for the tour, my friend (almost former friend after this debacle) signed a bunch of us up. It was unequivocally the most boring, overpriced piece of tourist claptrap I have ever come across. It started out promising enough with a visit to the Biograph Theater and the death site of John Dillinger. I should have quit while I was ahead. The tour then spiraled downhill from there, eventually becoming almost comically bad (I say almost because of its ridiculously steep price). It was all over for me when we stopped at a Chinese grocery store where our "guide" obviously got some sort of kickback for parading a bunch of clueless tourists through the place. His monologue on Chinatown, which we were in for 45 minutes, was "Chinatown has a lot of ghost stories. Here is our next stop where you can buy candy and handbags." The tour was 4+ hours and, I kid you not, we heard at most 20 minutes of stories. That man should be ashamed of himself, I wish I had been mugged on the way there....I still would have lost my
money but at least I would have saved a few hours of time. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!

This book does nothing more than reprint most common "folklore" of the Chicago area. With the exception of a handful of comments in the book, it sounds the same as any other books out there on Chicago haunted sites. After attending one or two tours on Chicago's haunted sites, you would have the same information as this book offers. This book is nothing special. The Author's Chicago Ghost tours are nothing more than a shopping trip with stops at stores, pubs and resturants to spend money. No information about hauntings is give off the bus only shopping. I would recommend Dale Kacmarek's books on Chicago Ghosts because he is a noted researcher and investigator and not a "folklorist" who collects stories to retell. In fact most of the stories have already appeared in local newspapers for decades, and the folklore is famous before the author began his tours--example is Resurrection Mary. We went on his tours back in the 1990's through a Community College and it was the same then as it is now. The author is rude on his tours to people who pay high prices. We saw him get the kickback too at the Chinatown store and the free drinks at the bars as well. Rather read Windy City Ghosts by Dale Kaczmarek, he is president of the Ghost Research Society and has visited every site and interviewed people. Considering the author tells people on his tour that he has a Masters Degree in English, I am surprised he didn't write the book alone.

I have been on numerous tours with Richard and have always tried to remember everything that he covers within the 5 hours. And now with the book it greatly helps out with the smaller details muched overlooked by some. Keep up the good work.

In his book, Richard Crowe attempts to provide the reader with a compilation of "ghost stories," associated with the greater Chicagoland area. What he accomplishes, however, is a fantastic guide to many supernatural sites (not limited to hauntings, but also to curses, hexes, and other superstitions and otherworldly phenomena). He is a superb story teller, and many of the passages in the book will give you "the willies." One reviewer commented that much of the book is "folklore" and this is true. However, I have not seen too many tales of hauntings published in scientific journals. Our source, as a society, of supernatural stories is folklore and people like Richard Crowe, who keep these stories alive. I recently was a guest on one of his tours, and it is far from a "party bus." It is a great, fun time, but it is a tour, not a ghost hunt or research expedition. I never knew so many places that people walk through (such as the alley near the biograph theatre where Dillinger died) are haunted places. I would recommend this book and his tour to anyone with even a passing interest in the supernatural history of Chicago. The book also features great pictures of almost every site, and is very well written. It is one of my favorite ghost books.

I went on the tour and had a great time. Mr. Crowe is very knowledgeable about Chicago and history. He is the real deal. He has been doing this forever. The book is also very informative about Chicago area history. You can go on your own tour with this book. This is the best Chicago ghost book out there. It is amazing to find out that somewhere close to your home is so scary.

I'm sorry, but listening to Richard Crowe is about as dull as a slug. I heard him "spin" his tales at a local community college and at $19.00 a head for 1 hour, all we got was mumble jumble (he is a terrible public speaker), exhaustion, sleep deprevation and thought he was going to drop dead and turn into a ghost. The man is obese and spending way to much time eating at his "haunts" instead of doing legitimate research or giving his audiences there money's worth telling his "tales of folklore in the spiritual world." He is rude, has an ego the size of his waistline, drops a bunch of names and has no slides after 1976 on his projector presentation. My 4 friends and I knew more about ghost "facts, fiction and tales of the supernatural" than he did, he presented nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing spine tingling and nothing worth spending $19.00 on. Skip this guy, research on your own or find someone who is at least 1% interested in what they are doing, it would be 1% more than Richard Crowe cares about his career!

I have been on NUMEROUS tours with the famed Richard T Crowe and have been interested in Chicagos vast supernatural history since a young age. The book is a great fountain of information of folk lore stories, locations, and even it you don't believe good information on the windy city. Keep up the good work,Richard.Check out his tours when in Chicago

This book comes from a person who is into legends and lore. I'll give him credit for that much of his book. The information he talks about is not 100% accurate, the dates are wrong as one example. For someone who is suppose to be an expert in the field, only makes you wonder where he got the information. To my knowledge its all legneds & lore in the book and no actual research. The tours he gives is basically a bar hopping event, makes you wonder why they see spirits. I couldn't find him to ask a question at one of the off the bus stops, maybe he is also a ghost. The tour was more of a party bus and its goes so quick by some of the locations you barely see anything. If your looking for a party take his tour.