Places Edited by Allison Meier

The clients of these mysterious hand-crafted funeral cars took their last ride in style.

Skeletons dressed in extravagant 18th century royal costumes cavort in the aisles of this German basilica.

A perfectly running 230-year-old silver automaton and music box.

America's greatest forgotten garden and the former stomping grounds of Son of Sam.

The maritime museum that boasts the largest nautical library in the western hemisphere.

Giant marble phalluses on the sacred island of antiquity.

The hallucinogenic center of the ancient world.

This former rail stop in Utah was abandoned, repopulated by some nostalgic friends, and now is home to a single DIY aviator who lives in a hangar.

New York's unstoppable progress turned this cemetery into the smallest burial ground in the city.

Thailand's tribute to the original "Siamese Twins" Chang and Eng, in the town the famous pair was born in.

Tropical paradise strewn with hundreds of World War II wrecks.

An abandoned Gold Coast-era mansion once intended for the exiled ruler of Albania, who never arrived.

A WWI fighter plane and turn-of-the-century penny candy shop are among the unexpected features of this Financial District building.

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A working metal shop and venue for outrageous art and music shows in a former cannonball factory.

This dilapidated castle-like structure overlooks the Hudson River at one of its widest points and was once home to nuns.

An abandoned horticulture institute gloomily presides over rows of derelict and vine-wrought greenhouses.

Bohol's unusually shaped hills turn brown in the summer months.

A fine, large-aperture telescope available for public use.

This impressively complicated radioastronomy research center was once a tool of Soviet spies.

A cave network located at the southernmost tip of mainland Greece was once believed to be an entrance to Hades.

Hellam Township is reputed to feature seven remote gates, which when passed through in the right order, open an entrance to hell.

What was once supposed to be the symbol of a shining Afghan future is now a bombed-out ruin.

They squeal, they nosh, they look like predators.