Are ghosts still haunting 222 East 6th Street?
222 E 6th St in Downtown Austin Texas has a varied history. Like most of the buildings along that block, it was constructed in the 1870s and served as a business and home.
The period of the 1870s and 1880s was the height of Six Streets development. Multifloor stone buildings replace the one story ramshackle wood framed businesses. There were families from Lebanon, Syria, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and more.
Sometime after the 50s downtown changed dramatically. Ethnic businesses moved out to suburbs and 6th Street became automobile stores, discount stores, furniture stores, and thrift clothing stores. In July of 2001. The owners of a club called The Limelight said that they were selling their building and venue to the Hard Rock Corporation.
Strange things happened as soon as the renovations began.
When the building was first purchased, there seemed to be some disagreement on just how many floors there were. The architectural plans seem to indicate a 3rd floor that no one could locate. Even the fire escape on the east wall only reached the second Store. The weird thing was, the workman kept hearing piano music coming from somewhere. They followed a staircase that led to a wall. Cutting through it, they found a dusty old piano. So broken that the wires inside had long been cut.
Longtime Austin Ghost Tours guide John Maverick, otherwise known as “Madman Maverick”, remembers the club on that 3rd floor that he would visit when he was first old enough to drink called The Inferno. You would climb up through the fire escape to get there. He remembered a piano in the corner of the club, but it was never used.
As renovations were nearing completion, a manager was finally hired to fill the venue with staff, Source Rock and roll memorabilia, finalize the menu and other managerial tasks. Much of his work was done on the first floor. But sometimes he would feel like he was not alone in the building and had the oddest sense of being observed. He was so keenly aware of it that he brought his dog to work with him so that he wouldn’t be alone. He said the dog would sit at the base of the stairs, growling and barking at empty air.
Once the venue opened, most of the stories we heard at Austin Ghost Tours were centered around the woman’s bathroom on the second floor.
Because the three windows overlook 6th Street, naturally part of checking, cleaning and restocking the bathroom, including making certain that the blinds in there were dropped and closed. For obvious reasons.
One staff member who went in to clean the facilities saw that one of the blinds at the far window was opened and raised. She closed and dropped them, and proceeded to check that the stalls were replenished and everything was clean and there was toilet paper and all was taken care of. When she turned back towards the windows, now the center window blind was opened and raised, even though she was the only one in the bathroom and it had previously been closed. She dropped the blinds and closed them. Finishing her job, straightening and cleaning the bathroom. When she glanced toward the windows again when leaving, she found the blind nearest the door was lifted and opened. That was enough. She left the room immediately.
Another time. Someone who was on the staff. Went into one of the stalls. To take care of some business. While she was there, she heard the door to the restroom open and someone go into one of the other stalls. After finishing and washing her hands. She went to pick up the trash to clean up as the bar was about to close. She realized there hadn’t been any sound from the other stall for a few minutes. She gently tapped on each of the closed doors. Everything all right? She asked softly. And there was no one else in the bathroom.
The paranormal activity continued even after the Hard Rock Cafe sold the property just a few years later. It never quite made it, like many haunted buildings. Venue 222 came and went, as did Aces. Then there was Recess Bar and and Arcade which opened in 2012. At that time, the bartenders definitely noticed something strange was happening in their building. They, though, didn’t think that it was scary. The building now had an. Elevator and it would move up and down between floors with no one pressing the buttons or no one anywhere near it. They always thought it could be a faulty switch or something. The Recess predictably only lasted a short time.
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