Rochester's Fringe Festival features some 500 events -- everything from music and art to theater and comedy, and just about everything in between. As Time Warner Cable News reporter Seth Voorhees shows, this weekend will feature one event which might not be of this world.
The Rundel Library, just like any library, is full of stories.
"People love to hear stories. That's just an eternal thing,” says Rebecca Fuss, of Friends and Foundation of RPL.
But some stories live out of sight.
Buried beneath the library is an area known ominously as "the stacks."
"This is where we store our books that are not used regularly,” says Christine Ridarsky, Rochester’s historian.
Ridarsky says it's easy to get lost here, but luckily most people can’t – it’s closed to the public.
But it's not an area without activity.
"We've had elevators that operate on their own that should not that do,” Ridarsky says.
Doors that open and close on their own. Footsteps. And moans, heard by co-workers.
"They've investigated thoroughly, can't find anyone there, and they're convinced there was someone else in the department there with them,” Ridarsky says.
Part of the haunted lore has to do with a story that goes beneath the Rundel Library, and the mysterious death of a young woman in 1902.
"Laura Young was about 26 years old when she lost her life in the Johnson and Seymour raceway,” Ridarsky says.
It’s a waterway that still cools the Rundel. Young died in those waters below, which run beneath the library, built until 30 years later after Young’s death.
"There were several theories about what happened to her. I personally have my own,” Ridarsky says.
Those stories will be shared this Saturday as the library opens the forbidden area for "Spooky Stories in the Stacks" -- an event that's part of this year's Fringe Festival. It's sold out.
"I think because they're true, but they also have a spooky side, I think there's a real attraction about it,” Fuss says.
"For me personally I think it's the connection to the past that's really intriguing and the idea that there might be some sort of physical, spiritual connection to what happened here on the site in the past,” Ridarsky says.
There have been other incidents at the library, like the beloved librarian who suffered a fatal heart attack in the building.
"It's dark, it's spooky, it's large,” Ridarsky says.
And it’s full of stories -- earthly and otherwise.
"They do not believe there's anything menacing in the building. That's important I think,” Ridarsky says. “We don't want anyone scared away. If we do indeed have ghosts, they're friendly ghosts."