Places aestheticsnafu Wants to Go

A beautiful 62-acre Catholic shrine and botanical garden.

One of Chicago's last seafood smokehouses perfects a dying breed of fishcraft.

How did a 2,000-year-old Roman column find its way to a Chicago park?

Kwanu'sila the Thunderbird has been silently watching over Chicago for more than 100 years (kind of).

The site of one of the strangest disasters in history—a wave of deadly molasses traveling at 35 mph.

The last remaining 19th-century tenement from Boston's old West End neighborhood.

This ambitious father and son team reigned supreme over the North End, and witches, for many years.

A former zoo turned public park, where visitors can hang out in the old animal cages.

The often-overlooked ruins of one of the first buildings designed by famous landscape architect Frederick Olmsted.

The oldest Italian café in Boston, this spot also serves as a veritable museum of vintage coffee ephemera.

A world of craftwork elegantly curated in a historic brick warehouse.

Get your cosplay on at Milwaukie’s only Medieval fantasy-themed mead hall.

On East Burnside, a 24-hour vending machine distributes world-class pastries.

A home covered with elaborate mosaic and other pieces of art.

Fans of vintage Vegas, kitsch, and toy pony-based gambling now flock to a casino called The D.

Nevada's largest cactus collection stands outside a candy mogul's small factory.

A new kind of theme park for adults off the Las Vegas Strip.

These banned cigarette vending machines now sell little pieces of pocket-sized art.

The best Tiki bar in Las Vegas.

James Turrell's total color immersion art installation, hidden on the top floor of a luxury handbag shop.

The remains of a Rockefeller's lush Italianate estate hidden in the underbrush on the coast of Lake Michigan.

Urban explorers embraced America's now demolished first suburban mall, south of Chicago.

In the middle of Calvary Cemetery stands this singular memorial to a small boy who died too young.

In a historic steel foundry east of the Mississippi River, thousands of wooden crates hold the architectural remnants of buildings long gone but not forgotten.