Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 8, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Richardson greenshields corporate notes Days Over Bob sulkers Arthur Chipman 9345311 subject to Winnipeg free press Tempo Section i Maureen Houston 6977373 c1 August 1995 s ghosts in the phantoms in the dining roof is and a chiller in the basement that goes t i in the night Albo has her own spooky Story to they say the fort Garry hotel is they Tell the ghost stories when new staff arrive at the Majestic gothic style hotel or when they take visitors on guided Tours of the 82yearold cast Elike structures Dusty crevices and dark the Cor ners where Only employees Are supposed to were getting into a service on our Way to the when our tour managing partner Ida Albo and assistant manager Don Start with the Klassen goes he recalls a woman guest from North Western Ontario who was becoming a Reg ular at the fort Klassen remembers her approaching him at the front desk on one of her she can i have this room again i it Doest really have an outside i have a room with a and she i prefer this the spirits visit me spirits i she theres a lady in a Ball gown who hovers at the foot of my and after that she moves out the a Ball gown in the free press another Cor Ner normally reserved for employees there is a spool of microfiche marked december according to the newspaper of the a High society sponsored by the victorian order of was held to open the fort Garry hotel on the gushing that dropped names and dripped appeared on Page 9 of the follow ing Days it included this Para graph it would take hours to describe every Lovely made so much lovelier against the handsome backdrop of the gorgeous rooms and but a few noticed were these the reporter then went on to list 80 women and describe in details each of their the list was so in that it had to be turned to Page among the few so was one lady who was attired in a White laced and brocaded be very careful up the Man Phil Hossack Winnipeg free press Gordon Sinclair from Otis elevator we Are standing on a deck in a Bright rooftop room that houses the gears and mechanisms of the old elevator and the Otis elevator Man is worried that a piece of clothing or a piece of us might get caught if the machinery suddenly All of this is replaced by one computer Klassen there Are dates and names scratched into the weathered Copper sheathing up on the reads there Are three satellite right next to a room on the roof where a printing press still the hotel used to print menus for in rail dining and later used to bring prime ministers and princes and other Rich famous sir Laurence Olivier slept so did Nat King Joan Louis Charles Arthur Basil Charles Nelson Field Marshall Montgomery and Field Marshall Mont Gomegys All dead were still up on the roof when Ida Albo recounts her own spooky she and her husband Rick Bel live in the one night they got into an argument and Ida went to bed without she was face when she was Woken by Rick entering the she didst bother turning she didst want to get into it then she Felt him sit Down on the bed beside she turned Over to but Rick want no one was there Are other beside that haunt the last Ida Albo her Quebe based co owners spent on that because the former owners transformed thei Tel from steam to electric the owners Are switching to natural Klassen sits at the ghosts place in the Gershman behind sub basement then theres the Crystal which the owners have been trying to evict because the hotel could be making More Money through catering than it recovers in rent from the european style gaming the Crystal Casino moved in six years that reminded Klassen of another this was fall of Klassen he was working the graveyard doing the when one of the night workers came looking for he was very Klassen the word he used was freaked Klassen said the night worker and another employee had been doing dishes in the main they went into the Back stairway of what was then the factors table and As he was reaching the top of the stairs he could hear the sounds of a dining seeing As it was four in the morning this was very he walked out the swinging door from the Kitchen to the main dining room and he sees a Man sit Ting at a cutlery in the Man didst look he didst acknowledge his presence at that when the night dishwasher ran for when he and Klassen arrived to the Man was Klassen checked the door to the dining it was locked from the Here is a spiral stairway from the roof to the but we take the we exit the huge clean and Bright Kitchen where banquet meals Are prepared and bread is but in the Catacomb like Halls that once bustled with plumbers and electricians and the basement is a ghost town of empty lock ers and abandoned one of the abandoned rooms might be coming Back to the hotel is thinking about going Back to doing its own it costs them a year to contract somewhere in the sub sub no one seems to know theres an Entrance to a Tunnel that once connected the hotel with the Stream Plant at the there Are a lot of unexplained things the sub sub theres a Hole in the Wall from which an eerie sound Haa aah Haa aah it sounds like the Laboured breath of an old Klassen says the sound comes from an air conditioning its called the Klassen then he pauses and which is maybe an appropriate the Hollywood producers loved this Ida a reference to another tour she spirited through the we often joke theres got to be some one buried Here there Are other ghost stories they Tell late at night at the fort when the staff relaxes around a theres the one about the chef who the Light two Broadway landmarks the old hotel and upper fort Garry the hotels dining room left was visited by a hungry stranger at four in the that moves up and Down the hallways of More accounts of Clatter ing dishes coming from the empty dining there is one ghost that Ida Albo Doest like to talk its the one about the Man found dead in a room and the blood stain Well leave that one to your image Back in the free press Library one of the librarians is fascinated by talk of the haunted the woman in the White the sound of people eating in the empty Dinning and the Story that the hotel Doest like to talk but the librarian was by All the dead and famous who once walked the Halls sir Laurence Oliver slept so did Nat King and Joan Craw Ford Joan the librarian repeat Shes one i would like to have then the free press librarian and maybe i still ;