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Sandi Hemmerlein

Joined Atlas Obscura in 2012

Sandi Hemmerlein, Atlas Obscura Los Angeles Field Agent 2013-2019 http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sandi-hemmerlein-avoiding-regret Writer, Photographer, Traveler, Romantic, Naturalist, Urbanist. Brunette living in a blonde city. Specialties include incredible ruins, beautiful decay, disaster sites, cemeteries, ghost towns, fascinating fauna, outsider art, architecture, natural wonders, movie palaces, stained glass, factory tours, and the creepy and macabre - Two-time ScareLA panelist & Midsummer Scream panel producer / moderator - Contributing writer for KCET, Discover Los Angeles - Current member of The Los Angeles Breakfast Club, Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation, Friends of Rockhaven (lifetime), Historical Society of Crescenta Valley, Rim of the World Historical Society - Former Los Angeles City Historical Society Board Member, Events Committee & Social Media Chair - Former member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, LA Conservancy, Art Deco Society, San Fernando Valley Historical Society FB/IG @avoidingregret
avoidingregret.com

2 Followers · 0 Following

Follow travelers to discover remarkable places through their journeys.

My Travel Interests

  • Abandoned & Ruined
  • Architecture & Design
  • Art & Creativity
  • Death & the Dark
  • Food & Drink
  • Infrastructure & Industry
  • Museums & Collections
  • Nature & Outdoors
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Science & Technology

My Travel Badges

  • Badge Earned!

    Route 66 Exploration Challenge

    Ford's Route 66 Exploration Challenge

    You explored one of America's most iconic highways by marking at least three remarkable places along historic Route 66.

  • Badge Earned!

    First Contribution

    First Contribution

    This badge celebrates your first contribution to the Atlas Obscura community and the role you play in helping others discover wonder.

    25 Contributions
    Next Badge: 25 Contributions Make 25 total contributions to earn your next badge.
  • Badge Earned!

    25 Contributions

    25 Contributions

    This badge celebrates your first 25 contributions to the Atlas Obscura community and the role you play in helping others discover wonder.

    100 Contributions
    Next Badge: 100 Contributions Make 100 total contributions to earn your next badge.
  • Badge Earned!

    100 Contributions

    100 Contributions

    This badge celebrates your first 100 contributions to the Atlas Obscura community and the lasting impact you've made by helping others discover wonder.

    500 Contributions
    Next Badge: 500 Contributions Make 500 total contributions to earn your next badge.
  • Badge Earned!

    500 Contributions

    500 Contributions

    This badge celebrates 500 contributions to the Atlas Obscura community and your extraordinary commitment to helping others discover wonder.

    1,000 Contributions
    Next Badge: 1,000 Contributions Make 1,000 total contributions to earn your next badge.
  • Badge Earned!

    1,000 Contributions

    1,000 Contributions

    This badge celebrates 1,000 contributions to the Atlas Obscura community. Your generosity and dedication have helped countless people discover more wonder around the world.

    Thank you for helping make Atlas Obscura an even richer place for curious explorers.

  • Been
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943

Places I've been

Places this traveler has marked as been there.

The lamps come from the 1920s and 1930s.

Los Angeles, California

‘Urban Light’

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

Cacao Prieto's Red Hook factory
Permanently Closed

Brooklyn, New York

Cacao Prieto

Come for the sustainable organic chocolate, stay for the sustainable organic booze.

Van Brunt Stillhouse

Brooklyn, New York

Van Brunt Stillhouse

Micro-distillery in Brooklyn produces New York’s first homemade rum since Prohibition.

5 Beekman Street

New York, New York

5 Beekman Street

This beautiful building in the heart of Manhattan's Financial District was empty for decades.

The carousel - minus the usual middle pole

New York, New York

The SeaGlass Carousel

Manhattan’s Battery Park has a whimsical carousel full of spinning, glowing fish.

New Yorker Hotel

New York, New York

New Yorker Hotel

The New York hotel where tragic visionary Nikola Tesla spent his final hours, destitute and alone but for the pigeons.

The beautifully tiled Art Deco tunnel hidden underneath 34th street.

New York, New York

The Hidden Art Deco Tunnel Underneath the New Yorker Hotel

The beautiful tunnel that ran from the lobby to Penn Station is still hidden underneath 34th Street.

Lobby of the TWA Flight Center

Queens, New York

TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport

This futuristic airport terminal was abandoned for decades before reopening as a hotel—with a vintage plane of its own parked out back.

The original water tower and oil supply

Bishop, California

Laws Railroad Museum

The echoes of a railroad town that solemnly mark the end of the line.

Erick Schat's Bakkerÿ

Bishop, California

Erick Schat's Bakkerÿ

A charming desert roadside bakery that produces 10 times more bread daily than it has residents in its town.

San Nicolas Island

Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California

San Nicolas Island

A stranded woman lived alone on this remote island for 18 years, inspiring the great children's novel "Island of the Blue Dolphins."

You'll never unsee it now.

Washington, D.C.

Washington Monument Marble Stripe

Look closely and you’ll notice that the color changes a third of the way up the tower.

The Penny Bar
Permanently Closed

McKittrick, California

Penny Bar

Hidden in the back of a disused small town hotel is a dive bar shellacked with over a million pennies.

Abandoned Neverland Ranch

Santa Ynez, California

Neverland Ranch

The abandoned personal amusement park of the King of Pop.

Townhouse Bar and Speakeasy

Los Angeles, California

Townhouse Bar and Speakeasy

From pre-war whiskey cocktails to prohibition-era speakeasy secrecy, this bar has seen it all.

A panoramic view of the stage from the back of the balcony.

New York, New York

United Palace Theatre

One of the last Jazz Age "Wonder Theaters" in New York City.

La Brea Tar Pits

Los Angeles, California

La Brea Tar Pits Dragonfly Fossils

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

Pinball into infinity.
Permanently Closed

Banning, California

The Museum of Pinball

The biggest pinball arcade in the world has over 600 pinball machines, and 300 arcade machines.

William Randolph Hearst's private castle.

San Simeon, California

Hearst Castle

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

The Nostalgia Train.

New York, New York

Holiday Nostalgia Train

During the holidays, a vintage subway train whisks New Yorkers back in time.

The Orange Balloon at the Orange County Great Park at night.

Irvine, California

Orange Balloon

One of the largest helium balloons in the U.S. is a 112-foot ginormous orange.

Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery

San Simeon, California

Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery

This stretch of beach along California's central coast is a busy highway for the largest seal in the northern hemisphere.

The garden and Administration building (a/k/a Star Fleet Academy)

Los Angeles, California

Japanese Garden at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant

This traditional garden in the San Fernando Valley doubled for Star Fleet Academy, and is irrigated entirely by wastewater.

Al fresco dining on St. Vincent Court.

Los Angeles, California

St. Vincent Court

A faux European lane smack dab in downtown L.A.

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