Hurricane Ida Haunted House Coming To Closed Manayunk Club Location

MANAYUNK, PHILADELPHIA — Hurricane Ida was a harrowing experience for Philadelphia and the region.

Now, just over a year later, a former Manayunk club is transforming into a Hurricane Ida-themed haunted house.

The former Mad River location, 4100 Main St. in Manayunk, will host Lincoln Mill Haunted House from early October to early November.

This attraction promises to be Philadelphia's scariest and largest new haunted house.

Lincoln Mill will feature more than 40 live scare-actors, production quality sets, props, animatronics, and special effects such as fog, strobes, and flashing lights.

The attraction is intended to be quite scary, and its backstory emerged from the tragic event that occurred in 2021 and will take guests on a journey through an interactive living story.

On Sept. 2, 2021, Hurricane Ida struck Philadelphia and flooded the mill to historic water levels.

Check out the backstory for the haunted house below:

The flood significantly damaged the mill’s interior and revealed a hidden chamber located below the basement level. Countless bodies were found and a dark truth was discovered about the mill’s past. Local authorities determined that during the 1930’s, Viktor Kane, the mill owner, tormented and experimented on his workers. Countless workers lost their lives and their spirits continue to haunt the mill. Construction has since been halted and the mill will open up for guests to experience its dark past for themselves. Explore the Chamber, if you dare.

The main haunted house event will run at night Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Oct. 6 through Nov. 5.

Tickets are sold in hour time slots starting from 6:45 p.m. to 11:45 p.m.

For those that aren’t into very scary attractions, there will be a more family-oriented event every Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. with no scare actors.

During this time, there will be an integrated scavenger hunt that will find all of your accomplices of haunted house villain Viktor Kane throughout.

Tickets are on sale now, and one dollar from each ticket will be donated to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Saturday daytime tickets are $24 each from noon to 4 p.m., and general admission for other times is $29.

VIP tickets start at $55 each and up and allow line skipping and access to the deck

Look for news of food trucks, local breweries and more to be announced in coming weeks.

Go online here for tickets and more information.

Check out photos from the haunted house on Instagram here.

Lincoln Mill Haunted House is a partnership between owners Brian Corcodilos, who owns the building, and Jared Bilsak who is the creative mastermind behind the design and storyline.

The two met in 2009, at Philadelphia University (now Jefferson University) when Corcodilos was a sophomore at the time while Bilsak was a Freshman via Alpha Chi Rho fraternity where Corcodilos was Bilsak’s "Big Brother."

In 2012, the fraternity was seeking new ideas for charitable events on campus.

Bilsak had a background in creating haunted houses at his childhood home each October season.

He floated the idea out to Corcodilos about doing a haunted house on campus in the historic Ravenhill Mansion.

They successfully ran the haunted house called "Ravenkill Mansion" during the last weekend in October for the remainder of their time in college.

They divided up the mansion into smaller rooms and introduced many special effects and characters throughout.

The haunted house attracted hundreds of college students and members of the community, and all proceeds were raised towards the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

After they both graduated, they returned each October season and led the fraternity to continue carrying out the event until about 2018.

During these college years of running "Ravenkill Mansion," they thought it would be fun to one day open up their own professional haunted house.

They will realize this dream with the opening of Lincoln Mill Haunted House.

When asked how the idea came together, they said to flash forward ten years when Corcodilos purchased the old Mad River in Manayunk during the COVID-19 pandemic and was seeking a tenant for the first floor.

It wasn’t long after when Hurricane Ida struck Philadelphia and flooded the Lincoln Mill to historic water levels.

The building suffered significant water damage and he was concerned about finding the right tenant for the space.

Somewhere along the line, he had a flashback to their old college days of operating Ravenkill Mansion and saw a new business opportunity.

He reached out to Bilsak about the idea.

Bilsak had been running a haunted house at his residential home in Bethlehem at the time and had been content with his home haunt operation.

After seeing the photos from the flood on facebook specifically of the Lincoln Mill under water, Bilsak saw high risk in the venture and was not interested.

They met several months later and after a few drinks, discussed the idea again.

They analyzed the flood maps over the course of 200 hundred years and discovered that the latest flood was one of the worst in history and after weighing the odds, they decided to give it a go!

They decided to use their biggest fear, the potential of another flood, to their advantage.

The flood became the premise to the backstory.

"We knew we needed a strong story, a hook that gave a meaning to the design and attraction. Before putting pen to paper or touching our design software, we spent weeks brainstorming and writing," Bilsak said. "Three variables rose to the surface which would become the key ingredients to our backstory."

A majority of haunted houses do not seem to have a backstory and characters that audiences know prior to arriving.

The cofounders are completely story driven and have designed this attraction, pulling from both fact and fiction to blur the boundaries between the local history and our attraction’s folklore.

They used their greatest fear, the potential of another flood, as the premise for their own story.

The intent is that audiences will learn about the story and characters prior to arriving via social media pages, so when they encounter the iconic characters inside the attraction, it sends shivers down their spines!

"We understand that not everyone likes to be scared but may be interested in the story," Bilsak said. "On Saturdays during the day, we will be offering an experience through the attraction with no scare-actors. The focus will be a scavenger hunt inside, where guests have to journey through and find totems to detect the ghosts that haunt the mill. If they find all of the ghosts in a limited amount of time, they get entered into a raffle to win prizes!"