The last used bookstore in Downtown San Francisco is one of the smallest bookstores just about anywhere.

A pair of mutilated bronze octopuses slump at the base of the monument honoring California's admission to the U.S.

The second building of its name to occupy this location might be the finest flatiron building in San Francisco.

For roadside fast food, pull over at the giant orange.

The world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory continues to report on the stars.

A 19th-century California philanthropist is entombed beneath the telescope he funded.

At night, this glittering musical tunnel draws skaters and photographers.

This memorial plaque remembers a strangely shallow maritime disaster known as "Chicago's Titanic."

Illegal drag racing two stories beneath Chicago’s streets.

Fragments of architectural wonders from around the globe are embedded in the newspaper building's walls.

This alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after the fateful Iroquois Theatre fire.

This massive stained-glass masterpiece is thought to be the largest Tiffany dome in existence.

The last remaining vestige of a popular 1999 public art display.

A giant silver apple a day keeps the perils of capitalism away.

The water-powered carriages are long gone, but for over a century this funicular railway has been the fastest route to the highest point in Paris.

A 16th-century fountain marks the site of a lost medieval cemetery once filled with mass graves.

The video game-themed street art first popped up in the French city.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.

If you look closely at the oldest bridge in Paris, you might notice hundreds of ugly faces leering from its sides.

The approximate spot where the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar was put to death.

The tradition of open-air secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris dates back to the Renaissance.

This demon atop the Notre-Dame de Paris looks utterly bored.

This modest marker near Notre Dame identifies the very center of Paris.

A secret hatch containing two parchments was discovered in this statue over 40 years after its installation.