In the upstairs office of Crescent General Manager Bret Klun, the ageless eyes of former owner Thomas B. Alexander watch his every move. Alexander, a noted stage actor and owner of the Alexander House and the Crescent Hotel, has been dead for more than half a century.
   “It can get creepy sometimes,” said Klun, who has worked in the restaurant for the past 10 years. “But for the most part I’ve learned to ignore the slamming doors and footsteps and T.B.’s constant stare.”
   Alexander had two life-size posters of himself pasted to the wall of the upstairs room that is now Klun’s office. The posters were discovered about ten years ago when the upstairs was being renovated. Workers stripped away several layers of the wall and there they were: Alexander standing straight and tall in a poster promoting his stage play Zenda and another of him posed in a chair and looking as if he’s about to speak.
   “The staff claims the TV has come on by itself and some have said they’ve seen things,” said Klun. “I’ve never seen T.B. myself, but I have been here in the spring and fall when there are just a few of us and the noises start.”
Like tapping on the window, Klun said. There are no trees and no logical way someone could tap on the second floor window of his office.
   “We’ve had many people say they went past the building late and saw someone in a second floor window,” he said. “I think it’s probably just a trick of the light and shadows.”
   Klun said his favorite story about T.B. came from a maintenance employee who cleaned the restaurant at night. He had cleaned most of the building and was finishing up mopping behind the bar in the Crescent’s Tap Room when he looked up in the back bar mirror and spotted a man sitting at the bar.
“He said the guy looked all dusty and was dressed in old fashioned clothes,” Klun said. “He told me he just got a glimpse of him and said he told him he couldn’t be in the building since the restaurant was closed. He turned to him as he was saying this and there was no one there.”
   Klun gives a little chuckle. “Funny thing is it was the guy’s first night and no one had even had a chance to tell him any ghost stories.”
T.B’s life, the Crescent and his documented haunting were the subject of an article written for a paranormal magazine “Over Your Back” by Douglas Dziama in early 2004 after he visited the Put-in-Bay restaurant.
   He recounts that T.B. met his wife Edith Brown during his acting days and they fell in love and were married on the island in 1890. They retired to the island in 1908 and that June purchased the Detroit House and T.B. renamed it the Crescent Tavern.
   He was also elected to a four-year term as mayor that year and was reelected again in 1919 and served until 1936. T.B. was very active in many aspects of island life and furthering the tourism industry, but the main focus of his life was his wife, Edith.
   Sadly, Edith passed away near in the end of T.B.’s second term as mayor in 1935. To fill the void he returned to acting in nearby Port Clinton where he directed and starred in Washington Irving’s tale of Rip Van Winkle. Just about two weeks after the final curtain, T.B. himself fell into a deep sleep.
   The Crescent changed hands and names many times over the next 34 years and eventually was abandoned, sitting empty through most of the 1970’s. Locals, however, began reporting seeing strange blue lights illuminating the structure’s second floor and shadowy forms peering from darkened windows.
In 1982 the building was purchased by the current owner and renovated and renamed, once again, The Crescent Tavern.
   T.B. seemingly has never been shy about sharing the space with others and in the past has been most active in the spring as the building is cleaned and workers get the restaurant ready to open Victoria Day weekend.
   But on December 31, 2003, the Town Hall Opera House was given a gift of a reproduction of one of the posters T.B. left behind in his upstairs living quarters that is now the general manager’s office. It was T.B.’s wish as mayor that the old Opera House be preserved for future generations to enjoy.
   The unveiling of his poster on New Year’s Eve celebrated the end of a renovation of the theater that had been underway for several years.
   Hanging T.B.’s old theater poster at the old Opera Hall where he at one time dominated the stage, may have eternally linked the Crescent and the island theater. It may have also quieted down a man so passionate about his work and his life that even in death he forgot he was not Rip Van Winkle.
Bret says T.B. has already let his presence known on several occasions in 2004.