Small and slightly hidden, the American Writers Museum is preserving the legacy of America's finest authors.

This alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after the fateful Iroquois Theatre fire.

Over 1,000 pieces of one of the most niche art objects imaginable: the glass paperweight.

This memorial plaque remembers a strangely shallow maritime disaster known as "Chicago's Titanic."

The palatial McDonald's that inspired Wesley Willis.

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

Fragments of architectural wonders from around the globe are embedded in the newspaper building's walls.

Rochester's signature culinary delicacy.

A beautiful final resting place with some surprising residents.

The floor-to-ceiling collection in an old factory is a unique alternative to stuffy galleries.

A room hidden behind a swinging shelf in the children's section.

An antique cemetery in New York, this land is home to any number of famed corpses.

An old dining hall now serves up ghost stories for lusty locals.

A six-story treehouse offers spectacular views of New York's Finger Lakes region.

This collection started by a Cornell professor once held more than 600 human brain specimens, including the one that belonged to its founder.

The library of every book lover's dreams.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

A psychedelic labyrinth on the San Francisco bay.

A nondescript building that's been functioning as a speakeasy for nearly a century and a half.

Barely visible foundations remain where Stow Lake’s “observatory” once welcomed visitors.

San Francisco's oldest operating hotel, with a Victorian atmosphere and a "haunted" fourth floor.

A still functioning vaudeville carousel that has operated for over a century boasts a colorful menagerie and past.

The oldest burial ground in the city, final resting place of city founders, Ohlone natives and murderers alike.

A 300-ship graveyard, with a few still visible at low tide.