Ghosts of Albany walking tours are back for sixth year

They’re baaaaaaack. The ghosts of gangsters, a Capitol Building night watchman, bawdy women and doomed lovers are among of the spirits who legendarily haunt Albany’s downtown. Philip Schoenberg tells their stories during his Ghosts of Albany walking tour, in its sixth year, through early November.

Gangster Legs Diamond was rubbed out downtown and is one of the Albany ghosts Schoenberg can discuss in detail. The ruthless yet supposedly charming bootlegger was pumped full of bullets in his downtown rooming house while sleeping off a drunken bender. Schoenberg describes another far more sympathetic ghost as an Italian stone mason who fell through a collapsing floor and then the construction crew poured concrete on him. He sounds like the hero from the novel “Christ in Concrete,” a tragic classic.

“Happy ghosts don’t come back to Earth to haunt places they love,” commented Schoenberg, a professor of government and global civilization at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens. “But maybe the happy ones are out there somewhere for us to find.”

The tour is less than a mile of easy walking. It starts at the Hilton Albany, 40 Lodge St. Tours are scheduled Fridays through Sundays, with additional days Halloween week. For more information, visit the website at www. ghostsofalbany.com, call 718591-4741 or email drphil@ nycwalks.com