Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
By June 2021, Ray was still running the store alone, seated at the register most nights after closing. The store had expanded somewhat over the decades: Ray branched out into crystals and incense, and leased space in the back to a palm reader to keep the lights on. The Ghostbusters' original phone number now routed to Ray's Occult register rather than the old Firehouse line.
When Phoebe Spengler called from a jail cell in Summerville, Oklahoma, she reached Ray at the store. Their conversation that night, about the dissolution of the Ghostbusters and the rift with Egon Spengler, is the most detailed account of the team's decline told in the primary canon. Ray described how hauntings grew thin, calls dropped to one a week, the mortgage became impossible, and Egon's increasingly alarming warnings about a coming catastrophe pushed everyone away. The loss of the Firehouse was the final blow. ("It's a Starbucks now.")
After the battle in Summerville, Janine asked Winston whether he was still covering the rent at Ray's Occult. Winston expressed quiet hope it would turn a profit one day.
Ghostbusters: Back in Town (2022)
In June 2022, Ray was keeping some Mini-Pufts he had smuggled back from Summerville in the store's basement. The basement had become a fully inhabited space: Podcast, who had secretly left home claiming to be going to space camp, rented the basement via Booking.com and moved in as Ray's producer and intern. Podcast was already up to 14 subscribers on his podcast "Mystical Tales of the Unknown Universe" by this point.
Phoebe visited the store after a ghost attacked the Firehouse, bringing a jar of glowing green ectoplasm. Ray identified it as not the Psychomagnotheric Slime from 1989 (which was neon pink) but offered to run tests. He told Phoebe the original slime stream had begun in the abandoned Beach pneumatic transit tunnels under First Avenue but had flowed across the whole city. He then stressed very clearly that he was not suggesting she go into the sewers, and that school came first.
Ghostbusters: Dead Man's Chest (2022-2023)
Six months later the store continued to function as an informal research hub. Ray and Phoebe analyzed photographs of a Poltergeist sighting in Hell's Kitchen at the store before school. The store's basement also served as the recording location for episodes of "Mystical Tales of the Unknown Universe," where Ray and Phoebe were regular guests discussing topics ranging from the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man's origins to the history of Captain William Kidd. A shipment of Tibetan spirit stones arrived by internet coupon, which Ray later regretted (they turned out to be grocery store bath salts).
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
By summer 2024, Podcast had turned the store's basement into a recording studio and living space, and he and Ray were producing "Repossessed," an online show where everyday objects are evaluated for haunting and, if found mundane, destroyed by Podcast's Hammer of Truth. The store's shelves at this point held an eclectic mix: occult texts, a Crystal Head Vodka bottle, a miniature Statue of Liberty torch, a copy of "A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Seances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters" by Peter Aykroyd (Dan Aykroyd's father), and a front-of-counter copy of "Man Myth & Magic" issue #7 (1974). Many books were from director Gil Kenan's personal collection, which he brought to set.
When Nadeem Razmaadi arrived with a box of items from his recently deceased grandmother, Ray immediately keyed in on the Orb of Garraka: a brass object covered in glyphs. Brass objects, Ray explained, have historically been used to trap evil spirits. When Ray used a PKE Meter on the orb, the store shook, the meter broke, the counter froze, and the display glass shattered. Ray described it as off-the-chart telekinetic activity with full board convective spatter, and immediately offered cash.
The Mini-Pufts Ray smuggled back from Summerville were still living in the basement. Phoebe encountered them during this period engaged in self-destructive and chaotic activities: one had its arm in a pencil sharpener, others operated the sharpener's crank, one was on fire, one was chewing a Duracell 9V battery, two were playing with a digital camera, and one was throwing M&Ms into another's mouth. They stopped and hid when noticed.
IDW Comics (Secondary Canon)
The store's founding is foreshadowed in "Ghostbusters Year One" Issue #2, where Ray told Rebecca Morales that Roger Delacorte had been so pleased with the Library Ghost capture that he was willing to sell Ray a portion of the New York City Public Library's occult collection at a discount. Ray admitted he had been thinking about opening an occult reference library. Rebecca suggested a bookstore instead, and Ray liked the idea.
In the IDW ongoing continuity, Ray eventually hired Kylie Griffin as store manager. She initially took the job to help pay for college and used it as her primary income while working as a Ghostbuster. Kylie helped reorganize the store and increased its profits. She later hired Eduardo Rivera, described in the comics as an "alleged functional illiterate," to run the store when she was on active duty.
The store's inventory at this point included "The Jones Manual on New Orleans Voodoo" for $17.95. It also became a repository for several artifacts collected during the Shandor Incident at Thanksgiving 1991. The store stayed solvent through a combination of modern new age self-help books, special orders, and a book-of-the-month club.
In December of one year in this continuity, Ray and Kylie closed up to research recurrent child hauntings and supernatural abductions, combing through a Tobin's Spirit Guide, the latest Spates Catalog, a Spectral Almanac, a Moreci Bestiary, McGee's Co-opted Paganism, and the New England Grimoire. An unusual package later arrived addressed to the store, and while inspecting it, Eduardo had an out-of-body experience and met Tiamat. Ray and Kylie found him on the floor and called for an ambulance.
The store was briefly featured in a commercial for "Ghostbusters 101," Peter's fantasy camp concept for paying customers who want to learn ghost-catching. Later, when Kylie returned from a ghost encounter at Grand Central Station and began experiencing precognitive flashes, she used the store's extensive research library to identify the ghost as Connla, based on his name sensitivity, combat tendencies, and the ring he wore.
Set Design and Filming Locations
The real-world exterior of Ray's Occult Books across both films is 33 St. Mark's Place in the East Village, Manhattan, with St. Mark's Deli visible next door. The in-universe address matches the real address.
For Ghostbusters II, the interior was a purpose-built set on Stage 15 at Burbank Studios in California, built next to the World of the Psychic set.
For Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the store interior was faithfully rebuilt at the Calgary Film Centre on a sound stage that also housed the Temple of Gozer set. Production designer Francois Audouy, who is friends with Tom Duffield (a Ghostbusters II crew member), grilled Duffield on the original set's details during the reconstruction process. After the set was dressed, Audouy ran an old Hollywood dust machine over the entire set and burned incense and patchouli to achieve the look and smell of a long-established used bookstore.
For Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the set moved to Shinfield Studios in the United Kingdom. The back area where "Repossessed" was recorded was widened by four to six feet compared to the original set. A 1971 Sony TC-12 Tapecorder appears on the table behind the recording area. The mannequins dressed throughout the set wear hats and glasses based on those used in "The Blues Brothers." Merchandise and candles on the spinner racks within the fictional store carry the address "201 St. Mark's Place" rather than the real-world "33 St. Mark's Place."
The composite shot in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire where Ecto-1 passes by the store's exterior combines footage of the UK set with a background plate shot in New York, specifically of Reiwatakiya at 37 St. Mark's Place, which is on the same side of the street as the real 33 St. Mark's Place address.
References
- Ghostbusters II (1989)
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
- Ghostbusters: Back in Town #1-2 (Dark Horse Comics, 2022)
- Ghostbusters: Dead Man's Chest #1-4 (Dark Horse Comics, 2022-2023)
- Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
- IDW Publishing Ghostbusters ongoing series (2011-2018)
- Ghostbusters Year One #2 (IDW Publishing, 2020)
