Intriguing Environs

One-time largest man-made structure in the world will be a park in 30 years.

Africa's Venice on stilts.

Roam the cradle of the Cuban Revolution with life-sized dinosaurs.

A nude beach alongside a washed-out road.

Houses are tucked between, on, and underneath giant boulders.

An Italian hillside ghost town.

This micro-industry of Latino cuisine along Red Hook's Ball Fields represents a victory in a food fight with the city.

The site where Joe Gallo kept his guns, pet lion, and launched an all out mob war in 1960s Brooklyn.

An experimental, community court opened in 2000 takes a new approach to youth offenders in south Brooklyn.

Red Hook's massive public pool, built by Robert Moses.

One of the largest public housing complexes in New York once visited by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Ethiopia's "smoking mountain" is in one of the hottest regions on the planet and is home to two lava lakes.

After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

A playing field for a popular French past time can be found tucked away in a quiet corner of Golden Gate Park.

San Francisco Bay's ghost town.

This former mining town was named the most toxic town in America.

Prehistoric animals decorate this popular outdoor park.

Joe Minter is only doing the work of God in his yard, he says.