Berkley High School is a building with a lot of history behind it. Established in 1922, this school has aged through almost a full 100 years of wear and tear. Considering its historical background, I’ve noticed many unused rooms throughout my years here that have a mysterious aura about them. Since the spookiest day of the year is rounding the corner on October 31st, I’ve decided to tour the school in all its hidden glory, finding the creepy hidden places that I think may have had a pretty petrifying past.

Now, you’ve probably never noticed this location at school, have you? Rumor has it that this black moss covered cement pit was, and may still be, used to temporarily imprison the anguished students who have reached the wretched five tardy’s, after their phones have been confiscated for the day, of course. Imagine the torture of being without your phone and being thrown in a cinder block pit with only the lost spirits of the little theatre for company. Covered in rough mysterious black drips, worn to the ground with the pain and agony of these late students, this dungeon awaits the kids that just couldn’t make it two minutes earlier to their first hour class on time. Being sent to this underground dungeon not only entails an unknown release time, but the adventure of discovering your own way out–since there are only windows at its ground level.

Beware dear reader, the story behind this space is not for the faint of heart. Even I could not linger long in this eerie tunnel while taking these photographs, for fear of running into something paranormal. I’m almost positive you’ve never seen this one before. Believe it or not, this debris filled dungeon you see before you actually lies beneath your feet. These are the basement level tunnels beneath the school.

BHS lore tells us that these tunnels are the final resting place for the students that just couldn’t manage to get that one class book back to their teacher in time. Right beside Mr. Cierpials room, the threshold to these hidden corridors lies hidden. They reside in what you would assume is just a simple storage room,but one that really entails much more beneath the ground level. These cobwebbed, dark and spooky tunnels beneath the school grounds are a great place for English teachers to punish their students for failure to return books.

Bolted shut with years of vegetation and growth, you can tell this steel trap gateway has been brutally weathered down for decades. Located just across the courtyard, lies this haunted cell. It’s surrounded by the stains of former valiant students who dared to explore it in all of its mystique. These daunting trap doors have a potent past that, as impossible as it may seem, was once an ineffable reality…

English teacher Paul Cierpiał states, “I’ve heard that sometime in the early 2000’s, these doors were actually being used by a homeless man. He would enter at night, making his way to the same tunnels from above, and sleep inside of the school every night. Eventually, Mr. Marc Cooper, a custodian at BHS to this day, found him in the school in the morning and learned about his stay right about our very own school.”This biographical narrative is a piece of evidence of Berkley’s prehistoric history that will forever accentuate what can happen if we don’t pay a little more attention to these secluded locations.

Now that we’ve got a few realistic ideas of what Berkley High School’s traumas can truly behold, I would think a little more about where you go in the school, for you never know what spirits from the past you could encounter, especially in the spookiest month of the year.