Have you ever sat in your dorm room and thought about who else might have been in that same exact spot at some point in time? At Boston University you could be in a spot once occupied by a Pulitzer Prize Winner, governor, civil rights leader, writer, baseball player or even the notorious Howard Stern.

In the university’s 137-year history, countless people have entered BU dorms, and consequently, there are countless stories about what happened in the residences.

Howard Stern came to BU in 1972. It was at BU that Stern got his start with radio, although as he notes in his autobiography Private Parts, during his first experience he lacked the cool persona he is known for today.

“I tried to cue up a Santana record, and I was so nervous my hand was shaking,” he says in the book. “Finally, I got it playing, I was on the radio, and I was thinking ‘This is going out to millions of people’- but probably three people in the dorms were listening.”

Nervousness is understandable for a first-time broadcaster, but as the story continues, a shaky hand was only the beginning.

“So the record was playing and I reached up for a pencil,” he says, “knocked all of them over, bumped the rack that the station kept their carts in and the cart rack came crashing down onto the turntable.”

As Stern states in his autobiography, he was just as much of a dork on the radio as he was walking down Commonwealth Avenue.

“I was a long-haired freak,” he says, “which put me in the minority because Boston University was filled with [Jewish-American Princesses] and ‘beautiful people.'”

Just because Stern says he was a “social misfit” does not mean he did not do his share of partying at BU. In Private Parts, he reveals a night filled with mischief at a dorm he refers to as “the zoo,” known more commonly as Warren Towers.

“There were literally thousands of students there … so we went upstairs. Finally, I had a social life. I had two girls with me, even if one looked like a troll. We were going from floor to floor, no parties. When we got to my floor, I said, ‘I have some outrageous pot. You want to get high?’ They said sure.”

According to legend and one current Boston University student, Eugene O’Neill left his ghost in Shelton Hall, in room 401.

O’Neill was a prize-winning author. His obituary, which appeared in the New York Times on November 27, 1953, he was the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes and was only the second American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

O’Neill, a Harvard University graduate, came to live at BU in 1951, although he did not come for any educational purpose. In fact, when he lived in Shelton Hall, it was not part of BU, but rather was the Sheraton Hotel. BU purchased the hotel in 1954 and converted it into a dormitory.

According to the New York Times obituary, O’Neill did not do much writing while at the Sheraton. He was sick the last years of his life and spent the majority of his time checking in and out of hospitals. He died in 1953 from bronchial pneumonia at the age of 65 with his wife, Carlotta Monterey, in what is now room 401.

Metropolitan College sophomore Daniel Coelho, who currently lives in Shelton Hall 401, claims O’Neill did not entirely leave the room that fateful day in 1953, and said he actually encountered O’Neill’s ghost.

“So it was the first week of school,” Coelho said. “It’s about midnight. My roommates aren’t in the room. They are next door. I close the door, turn off the lights and get ready for bed. The bathroom door is closed and the windows are closed.

“As I’m lying down, I hear a wind blow through and the curtain shakes,” he continued. “But the worst part is that the noise the curtain made was a really scratchy whisper that was still pretty loud and sharp sounding … and it said ‘Danny.'”

Of course, Coelho handled the situation with poise.

“I ran out the room and freaked out,” he said. “There was no way wind could get in, so how could the curtain have been blown? Ask anyone on this floor how freaked out I was.”

Shelton Hall 401 is not the only BU residence that is supposedly haunted. Myles Standish Hall room 818 was home to famed baseball player Babe Ruth on several occasions when the visiting New York Yankees came to town to play the Boston Red Sox.

According to an article written by Jonathan Lemire for the Daily News in October 2003, Ruth favored room 818 because of its spectacular view of the Charles River and beautiful Back Bay homes.

The rumor is that Ruth hosted several women in room 818 – and they were more than likely not doing much studying.

Today, current 818 occupant Kate Birmingham said if the Babe had his choice, he would probably not opt to stay in 818 – or even Myles at all.

“The rooms are small, there’s a mold problem and years of nasty college kids have brought centipedes and mice,” the College of Arts and Sciences sophomore said. “It’s a dorm now, so it’s not all that desirable.”

As for Ruth’s presence still being in the dorm, Birmingham said she has not seen any evidence of this.

“It’s not like we see his ghost or anything,” she said, “although people do say this building is haunted.”