Step inside Bradley's, or just press your nose to the window, and you'll see why ghost hunters think of it as a natural haunt. More than a century of tools, keys, locks and oddities fill the aisles. One popular theory about ghosts holds that spirits attach themselves to objects that meant a great deal to someone, and Ghost City Tours calls the shop a perfect case study in 'object attachment.' Hauntings of that kind, it says, tend to be 'residual,' with no intelligence behind them, the same moments replaying over and over.

The company admits it hasn't experienced anything itself, but says others have. Shadowy figures are reported moving through the aisles of old tools at night. People who have lived in the apartment above have described objects moving on their own, strange smells and sounds, and figures that shouldn't be there. Then there is the shop's most famous rumor, that the ghost of Harry Houdini himself drops in. Ghost City Tours calls this 'far fetched,' since the family's Houdini connection has been exaggerated in the retelling. But the real link, a father who toured with the great escape artist and a son named for him, makes it a favorite story on Wright Square.