The Real 100 Steps of Doom LbNA #73799

“When I was about 14, I lived a few blocks away from the ‘100 Steps of W_____’. I had a friend that lived on Ogden Avenue. I used to like to explore places that most people don’t go to. I had seen the cliff behind that road and wondered how to get down there. I don’t recall who was with me, but I was told that there were a ‘hundred steps’ to go down. I was beginning to go when I was told that someone had fallen down them, and now the stairs were haunted. To think that at any moment I could end up at the bottom (without having been pushed by human hands) was not for me. I liked taking risks, but that wasn‘t one of them. On one of [my other] adventures, I found the ‘Hundred Stairs’ from a different direction—the bottom looking up. From Dickinson HS just across the viaduct there is a cobblestone walkway. After passing the apartment houses, you can walk behind them (and under the concrete trestles of the highway above). Follow that as long as you can and eventually you can look up and see those stairs. They looked scary from the top, but from the bottom I just stood and thought ‘How in the world are they there at all?’ They looked to me like they were very ominous and mysterious AND dangerous. Looking up, I was glad I had not tried going down them. The Hundred Stairs just sent totally strange ‘doom’ kinda fears through me. I never did try to go down OR up them. Looking at them from a distance was quite enough for me.” -- Mary (Weird NJ magazine)

Uphill, a short distance away, locate the 27 Steps of Mild Unease. Climb to the top and turn to your left. Follow the cobblestone roadway downhill to the south. From the northern end of the stone wall, take 16 paces (footfalls) and look to your right. In the space to the left of the large black stone block, and above the whitish block on the bottom, you will find the box at the back of the cavity behind a few smaller rocks.

• No ink included; bring your own. Black is recommended.
• Please rehide well.