Join Gregg Seidl for a farewell Drinking with the Dead haunted history tour on Saturday, August 20.

In 2011.

A glance back to mid-May:

Lending a hand to Gregg Seidl: "Moving Toward What I Am Meant to Do."

In a nutshell, Gregg is at gofundme to raise funds for relocation to Savannah. Granted, there are numerous worthy causes in the world, and it is your decision when it comes to prioritizing them.

The effort continues, and Gregg's getting closer to the big move. He provides an update, and a final local opportunity for Drinking with the Dead.

I'll be hosting my last Drinking With the Dead haunted history tour of New Albany on Saturday, August 20, 2016, and like all of my tours this one will begin at Hugh E. Bir's on the corner of East 4th and Market streets. Ticket prices are $15 and tips and/or other donations will be accepted as this will be my last opportunity to raise funds for the move.

Read the update here, and consider attending the tour.

Lending a hand to Gregg Seidl: "Moving Toward What I Am Meant to Do."

Many of you know Gregg Seidl.

Moving Toward What I Am Meant to Do

Thanks for taking the time to read and consider this request.

I was born and raised in the city of New Albany, Indiana, and other than four years I honorably served in the United States Marine Corps, I have lived in or near this city all of my life.

You probably know Gregg from his haunted history tours.

In 2009, I began hosting my own haunted history tours in New Albany, and they have been well received. I have been featured several times in local newspapers and on television, and the tours have always been popular. Here's a link to the FB page I created about my "Nefarious New Albany Haunted History" tours.

Gregg has a life-altering opportunity.

I have been offered a job in Savannah, Georgia that has full benefits, great wages, and, best of all, is a job that will allow me to utilize my talents to their fullest while earning a decent living.

In a nutshell, Gregg is at gofundme to raise funds for relocation to Savannah. Granted, there are numerous worthy causes in the world, and it is your decision when it comes to prioritizing them. '

My only comment is that during times when apathy is so pervasive, Gregg has been a tireless advocate of New Albany. It doesn't mean I agree with his stance on every issue, and I'm sure the same is true of him. It means that history and teaching matter.

We've helped, and I urge you to consider doing so.

Drinking with the Dead Haunted History Tour and the ghosts of Crutchfields past.

Gregg Seidl's next Drinking with the Dead walking tour will be held the evening of Saturday, July 19, and this provides us with the opportunity to remind you that even though the "official" observance of New Albany's bicentennial is finished, decisions made by the Bicentennial Junta will continue to haunt us.

Specifically: It is rumored that among the dead objects to be reviewed on Gregg's tour are sales figures for the bicentennial commission's Crutchfield coffee table book. Hopefully Redevelopment didn't really need that seed money for anything important. Anyone know how many branded doorstops have been sold to date?

Stacks will remain when we commence the People’s Bicentennial Renewal (PBR) celebration in 2017, which is the 200th anniversary of the city’s actual incorporation. At pennies on the dollar, we should be able to stage one helluva bonfire by then -- or build a mausoleum.

Drinking with the Dead Haunted History Tour

Join me for a stroll as we explore downtown New Albany's nefarious past and explore the spirits in several of the city's drinking establishments. This is a 21 and up only tour, so please don't ask to bring anyone under that age. Tickets are $15 per person. The tour takes approximately 3 to 3-1/2 hours and is a walking tour held rain or shine, so come prepared. High heels are not recommended.

Your chance to Drink with the Dead next Saturday night.

It's warmer weather, and Gregg Seidl's first Drinking with the Dead walking tour of 2013 will be held the evening of Saturday, April 27.

It is rumored that among the dead objects to be reviewed on the tour are sales figures for the bicentennial commission's Crutchfield coffee table book. Hopefully Redevelopment didn't really need that seed money for anything important. Anyone know how many doorstops have been sold to date?

Go to Facebook and read about it.

Drinking With the Dead Haunted History Tour

Looking for something to do on the Saturday between Thunder Over Louisville and the Derby? Then look no further. Come and join me and my guests as we enjoy the spirits in downtown New Albany.

This Saturday: Drinking with the Dead.

Gregg Seidl's at it again, and better yet, you are invited to join in the stroll.

Join me for some "spiritual" fun on Saturday, August 4, 2012. The guided walking tour begins at Hugh E. Birs at 7 p.m., and before the night is through, we'll visit several downtown New Albany establishments where you'll enjoy a cool drink of your choice while hearing of some of the bizarre and ghastly events that took place within thier walls, as well as learning of other gruesome events that happened in the places we'll pass along our way.

Inaugural New Albany Bicentennial Writers' Project meeting on Thursday, 4 p.m., at BSB.

Back in December, after we learned that a prolific for-hire author from faraway Tennessee had been engaged by the New Albany Bicentennial Commission to “write the book” on New Albany, eyes rolled and streams of spittle were directed into nearby gutters.

Civic embarrassment: Bicentennial Commission goes mercenary, disses localism. (December 27, 2011)

 ... If the “official” bicentennial celebration is going to be the same old white-bread-and-Budweiser karaoke show, it’s time for the creative class to get to work on the underground version.

The workaday world invariably interferes with good ideas, but tomorrow afternoon (Thursday, March 29) at 4:00 p.m., we hope to get started on this task, which I think of as providing the people's corrective to the usual institutionalized banality. I'll be meeting Gregg Seidl at Bank Street Brewhouse to discuss the New Albany Bicentennial Writers' Project, which began percolating on December 30 with a posting at NAC, as reprinted below. I suspect we'll be looking at a very low cost model of an on-line format to begin gathering material. Where it goes after that is anyone's guess; all I promise is to refrain from burdening Southern Indiana's tourism authority by extending a tin cup in their general direction.

You are welcome to attend. Please do.

What we need: The New Albany Bicentennial Writers' Project.

Books don’t seem to matter as much as they used to, and so it was instructive to witness a generally annoyed reaction to the Bicentennial commission’s non-transparent decision (itself so indicative of the city’s generational tendencies) to ingloriously import a freelancer from Tennessee to “write the book” on New Albany.

Both here, at the newspaper and on Facebook, savvy readers immediately grasped the obvious: It makes no sense to employ a freelancer from afar when the writers we already have can do the job.

New Albany’s history reads like any other city’s record, in the sense that it boasts the sublime and the ridiculous in roughly equal measure. The commission’s aim in producing a coffee table book for fund-raising purposes undoubtedly is to render the standard, glowing and heroic account of numerous bearded white folks defying the odds to raise a city from the flood plain – when, of course, it would have been far more sensible of them to leave the bottomland be and place it on the non-tubercular hillside.

Respectable history is one thing, and daily life something else entirely. To me, the ideal Bicentennial book would be a written snapshot of New Albany at 200, looking back and ahead, inclusive of a number of perspectives, and unafraid both to celebrate the victories and to dissect the warts.

What is needed is a New Albany Bicentennial Writers' Project (BWP), with a goal of producing “The People’s History of New Albany”, nodding toward historians like the late Howard Zinn, and his life’s work of balancing the talking points of officialdom. New Albany is a place filled with numerous instructive and entertaining stories, most of which would have no place in the Babbitt History of New Albany (thank you, Sinclair Lewis). That’s all the more reason to pursue them.

Know from the very start that this is going to be hard, hard work. First, what are the major themes in the New Albany historical narrative worthy of examination? Who’ll be doing the writing, and when is the work due? How do we pay for it, with local government already stating its inexplicable preference for the “infallible fatherland version” of the past?

Well, I’m willing to put in the time, and as for the money ... we'll figure it out.

Let them have their “official” volume. Conversely, let’s aim to create a thought-provoking counterweight. Who knows? It might turn into a permanent feature of the New Albanian landscape.

Seidl: The nefariousness of it all.

I certainly hope Gregg ran all this past the Bicentennial Production Code's Hail Caesar Office before publishing this scandalous tome.

Local author uncovers New Albany’s ‘Wicked’ history, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Murder, suicide and untimely deaths — some of the city’s most sinister acts have been unveiled by local author and historian Gregg Seidl in his latest book titled “Wicked New Albany.”

Civic embarrassment: Bicentennial Commission goes mercenary, disses localism.

So much for localism.

Bicentennial commission continues fundraising push; Book celebrating 200 years of New Albany due out in September

NEW ALBANY — The New Albany Bicentennial Commission isn’t waiting until 2013 to roll out historic memorabilia.

As the city prepares for its 200th birthday in 2013, the commission has been finalizing plans for a limited-edition book that will detail New Albany’s past in a way that officials said will hardly be dry and boring.

“It’s going to be a fascinating book,” said Bob Caesar, who is a New Albany City Councilman and a member of the committee.

Noted history author James A. Crutchfield was hired to write the book, though the narratives are only slated to comprise about one-third of the work. Color photographs will occupy most of the remaining space.

Why on earth would the New Albany Bicentennial Commission select a hired-hack author from Tennessee to “write the book” on New Albany?

Crutchfield is presently working with Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Robin Hood in producing a collection of top quality, four-color, coffee table books. Crutchfield does the research and writes the historical treatises for the books. He and Hood have produced books on Nashville’s Opryland Hotel, the Tennessee Walking Horse, the University of the South at Sewanee, historic sites and buildings in Tennessee, and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. Works in progress are a book on the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

This decision runs counter to every imaginable precept of localism, but "respectable" elements approve, so ... this is what we get.

The very first name that comes to my mind is not James A. Crutchfield, but New Albany native Gregg Seidl. He’s a local historian and a published author, who leads tours of haunted and nefarious NA, and also writes “straight” when the occasion merits.

After I read the article linked here, I messaged Gregg and asked if anyone serving on the Commission had approached him about the book idea. He replied that no one had mentioned it to him, and he’d read about it in the newspaper just like the rest of us.

Jeff Gahan, are you or your advisors reading?

Yet again, the institutionalized banality of the departing England administration’s “same few people on all committees” results in divergent voices going unheard, and an opportunity utterly wasted, except this one quite literally is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. If the “official” bicentennial celebration is going to be the same old white-bread-and-Budweiser karaoke show, it’s time for the creative class to get to work on the underground version.

James A. Crutchfield?

Really?

Drinking and dining with the dead, courtesy of Gregg Seidl.

On Saturday night, we signed on with the nefarious local historian Gregg Seidl for his Drinking With the Dead Haunted History Tour. It was three and a half hours of great stories and Open Air fun, as accompanied by adult beverages at five downtown establishments. Gregg also offers Dining With the Dead Haunted History Tour, with the emphasis on a meal at Habana Blues. The two tours alternate on Saturdays through September 24, and complete details about each can be gleaned by following the highlighted links to Facebook.

Gregg Seidl's "Drinking With the Dead" Haunted History Tours are coming.

Gregg Seidl is gearing up his fun, informative and libational "Drinking With the Dead" Haunted History Tours.

The first date is this weekend (Saturday, July 23) from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., with additional dates of August 6 & 20, and September 3 & 17. Check out the additional details below, and visit the FB page.

Spirits, fun, and ghastly tales with local author and historian Gregg Seidl.

Location: Tours start at Hugh E. Birs, corner of East 4th and Market streets in downtown New Albany. 21 and over only.

Tours start at 7:00 p.m. at Hugh E. Bir’s on the corner of East 4th and Market streets in New Albany.

Tour stops include The River City Winery, Habana Blues, The Irish Exit, and The New Albanian Brewing Company.

Tickets: $10

Tour Dates: July 23th Aug. 6th Aug. 20th Sept. 3rd Sept. 17th

Tour ticket does not include the price of food or drinks.

For tour information and tickets: Call (812) 948-1195 or contact gsei691@aol.com or Gregg Seidl on Facebook

Tour Size is limited. Call now!

NA Event Watch: Spirits and Spirits Tour on Wednesday, October 21.

(submitted)

Spirits and Spirits, a ghost walk and eerie tales tour, will be held at 7 p.m. on Oct. 21, as a benefit for Develop New Albany.

The walk begins at Destinations Booksellers, 604 E. Spring St. Tickets are $10 and available online. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Develop New Albany, a non-profit organization composed of businesses and community volunteers committed to the economic revitalization and historic preservation of Downtown New Albany.

Thrill seekers, ghost enthusiasts, history geeks and the like will all be interested in this unique event. Walkers on the guided tour will be treated to stories of the city’s past inhabitants who still linger as well as tales of people settling their differences the only way they knew how: In the middle of the street. Stories may not be suitable for young children.

Along the tour, guests are invited to take a break at local establishments offering “distilled” spirits, some of which share space with the spirits of the past. Stops include the Windsor, Studio’s Grille and Pub, River City Winery, Bank Street Brew House and Hugh E. Birs.

The tour will be guided by Gregg Seidl, a New Albany native who also wrote “New Albany,” published in 2006, a collection of vintage images portraying the triumphs and tragedies of the residents of New Albany.

More information is available on the Web.