LOCATED IN ALPINE, NJ, IS A LOCAL LEGEND known as The Devil’s Tower. On a recent drive-by, the stone clock tower looked to be unassuming enough to us, but the Devil does work in mysterious ways. There seem to be several different, yet similar, tales of the evil edifice, and just how to conjure up its spirits. Here are just a few of the dozens of stories that our readers have told us about this unholy place:

The big stone tower at one time housed evil rituals by Satanists early in the century. Some evil tragedy happened, and after the group’s demise, there have been several attempts to tear it down, but to no avail. Some say work crews have died in the attempt.

As with most sites like this, it became a popular destination for teens in the ’70s and friends of mine who have been inside reported encountering mysterious gusts of cold wind that sent them screaming for their cars.

Another reader e-mailed us a slightly different version of the tower’s legend:

As you approach it, you can almost see people in the windows of the tower. When you get there, according to what I have heard, witnessed and attempted myself, you are to drive your car around the tower in reverse three times. After the third, when you come to a full circle, turn off your car and headlights and the ghost of a woman should approach you. This hasn't happened yet, but I and others have seen a mist start to form. After that, I don't know what is supposed to happen, and what isn't.

Still others say six times around the tower is the magic number which will raise the dead:

The Devil’s Tower was owned by a rich married man. He built the tower so his wife could see New York without really going to New York. One night, his wife was looking out of the top of the tower and she saw her husband with another woman, so she jumped right down the center of the tower. The husband was so upset that he stopped all the work on the tower because it was for his wife and now his wife was dead. There was once an underground tunnel that led to the tower, and he closed it off because of stories of his wife's ghost. Now if you drive around the tower backwards six times, the ghost of the wife is supposed to control your car and drive it straight in to a tree. This happened to a group of teens. They were drinking all night and when they went around it the sixth time, something controlled their car and drove it into a tree, killing a girl.
– Nick Grillo

One person told us that if you walk around it backwards six times at midnight, the Devil himself will appear. There is satanic graffiti on the inside walls, but the tower is now gated and locked. The doors and windows have also been sealed, leaving no entrance to the tower.

According to the Alpine Historical Society, the "Devil’s Tower" was the centerpiece of an estate called "Rio Vista," which was owned by Manuel Rionda in the first half of the 1900s. Rionda was a Spaniard who made his fortune from sugar cane plantations in Cuba. His mansion was on the cliffs where the present day Alpine Lookout is located. His property was the largest estate owner on the Palisades. Rionda used to delight in taking guests up to the top for the view (there was an elevator). It was built some time around WWI.

Just off to one side of the tower was a chapel and ornately decorated mausoleum. Rionda’s wife and sister were both interred there at one time, though their bodies were removed when Rionda died in 1943.

The entire estate was subdivided years ago, and was mostly just woodlands through the 1970s. The name "Devil’s Tower" probably came about around that time, and kids used to break into it and party and leave graffiti, sometimes of a "Satanic" nature. Eventually the tower was sealed up, and large houses were built on Rionda’s former property (the development is called "Rio Vista"). The tower is on a public road called The Esplanade, which is accessible from Route 9W, maybe a mile north of the Tenafly-Alpine border.


You can read more tales from The Devil's Tower in issues #10, #11, #12 and #13 of Weird NJ.