Places Edited by Ian Hall

A little marble compass above George Washington's (empty) tomb in the Capitol marks where D.C.'s four quadrants intersect.

The U.S. Navy’s preposterously detailed mini battleship took 77,000 hours to complete.

The sounds of the world's largest fully functioning pipe organ dazzle shoppers at a Philadelphia Macy's.

The dramatic upward-curving roof is one of the most iconic examples of Googie architecture that still stands today.

Franciscan monks created a facsimile of the Holy Land for North Americans who couldn’t afford the trip overseas.

Those with a sharp eye can find the hidden image of a German Shepherd on the memorial's Mural Wall.

The Virginia farm where John Wilkes Booth met his grisly end is now largely forgotten.

This forgotten boat elevator was an engineering marvel in its heyday.

The antique hotel still has a jail in the basement, though the cockfighting ring is long gone.

Perhaps the most scandalous statue of America's first president.

Under a playground is a little-known sealed train tunnel that likely contains the bodies of workers trapped by cave-ins.

Dogs, cats, horses, monkeys, frogs, and fish are laid to rest at the second-oldest pet cemetery in the U.S.

The Virginia home of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence is being preserved with a unique glass facade.

A diminutive plaque recalls the treetop sniper who almost killed Abe Lincoln.

A desiccated merman and a walrus penis bone are among the oddities in this eclectic collection of shipwreck treasures.

A home built with marble tombstones from the graves of 2,200 Union soldiers buried in a Virginia cemetery.

Cold War intelligence agents monitored communist embassies from an attic in a former pigeon coop.

An unusual assortment of steerable wooden sleds is on display in a library in New Jersey where they were first invented.

A rotating cast of guys and dolls in front of a Washington, D.C. building.

A faded sign from the 1920s remembers Baltimore's resistance toward banning alcohol.

A haunting exhibit in a wildlife refuge center highlights threatened species and the conservation efforts needed to save them.

The humble field where the first Major League Baseball game was played.

The controversial urban planner who designed Washington, D.C., was buried in Maryland, and can presently be found in Virginia.

The rogue roots are gradually consuming some of the historic marble grave markers.