Appy H’ween! Tales of old NY true-crime gore
It’s an app to die for! Rolled out in time for Halloween, the “Gruesome Gotham” app transports users to the grisly crime scenes of six salacious slayings committed on the streets of Victorian-era New York City.
Getting in on the gore-fest is easy. After you download the free app, a map with murder-weapon icons appears.
When you get close to the crime scene, the bloody fun begins.
“You see the actual murder scene, with a spooky voiceover narrator, explaining the act of the crime,” said Emily Hom, spokeswoman for Tribeca-based developer Firstborn, which created the augmented-reality app.
“We chose real crimes that pop visually.”
The company selected crimes that took place near the Firstborn office and “around” the route of Tuesday’s annual Village Halloween Parade, Hom said, adding, “We figured if people are cheering the parade, they can download the app.” The dirty deeds include:
The 1895 demise of Domenico Cataldo, whose throat was slit by a scorned lover at the Little Italy Saloon at Mulberry and Broome.
The doomed Cataldo, unable to scream for help, staggered down the street, choking on his own blood.
Greenwich Village chap Michael Healy perished by parasol on Nov. 9, 1895, after a sicko stranger stabbed him in the eye with an umbrella.
The sharp end pushed through the socket and punctured his brain.
Healy bled to death at the corner of Bleecker and Grove streets. The canopied killer was never caught.
In 1856, Bartholomew Burke was found dead inside 378 Broadway.
The deranged killer slashed him, stabbed him repeatedly in the torso and smashed his forehead.
The murderer used sheers, a hammer and a sword.
The app is a nod to the “sensationalistic, pulp-noir tabloid headlines” of yesteryear, Hom said.
“The New York Post was an inspiration,” she added.
The app, which uses a camera phone to “see the experience,” was created with the help of Apple’s ARKit and is free to download for iPhones 6S or above, Hom said.
The location-based adventure is shot “very much in the old ‘Jack the Ripper’ style crime-genre aesthetic,” company literature trumpets.
The company calls the app an “AR scavenger hunt of sorts ... think Pokémon GO, but having nothing to do with little anime characters and everything to do with historic 19th century New York-based fatal bar fights, umbrellas to the eyeball and scorned throat-slitting lovers.”
Said Hom: “If there’s a thirst for more blood, we may add more murders to the app.”