Places Gray Wants to Go

The very first subway station in New York City is beautiful, decked out in chandeliers, and ... abandoned?

A tiny museum housed in a New York freight elevator specializes in the "overlooked, dismissed, or ignored."

Despite not growing anywhere near New York City, bananas are ripened in a pressurized room in the Bronx using precise banana science.

Obscure and obsolete publications are given new life as works of art.

The world's largest collection of materials relating to lesbian history is housed in a Brooklyn townhouse.

One of the last full-orchestra recording studios in New York City and an acoustical marvel.

The crown jewel of the Queens Museum is a nearly 10,000-square-foot architectural model of the city originally built for the 1964 World's Fair.

Hordes of precariously balanced stone figures crowd the shores of the Hudson River.

A band of aerialists and circus performers putting on incredible shows in East Williamsburg.

Neon signs that grace the windows of Bergdorf Goodman's and Tiffany & Co. come from this studio in Brooklyn.

Nondescript elevator doors open to reveal a stunning, surreal world.

Abandoned power station once home to a squatter community, now being developed into an arts center.

A terrific purveyor of natural history objects and curios.

Whisper secrets in a busy station only to be heard on the other side of this acoustic arch.

The site of one of history's most indelible and horrific tragedies.

Beautiful stained glass depictions of the history of human flight fill this surprising chapel.

A unique sculpture park that specializes in the huge and bizarre.

Hidden behind West Philadelphia rowhomes is a haven for migratory and local bird species both ordinary and rare.

An abandoned cemetery lies in ruins as the surrounding forest swallows it whole.

The origin of this mechanical boy was a mystery until he revealed his maker by writing it in perfect cursive.

The first American department store, and home to the largest operating musical instrument in the world.

How this Pine Barrens hill got its name is uncertain, but on a good day the view from the fire tower is crystal clear.

In the woods of New Jersey lie the ruins of a munitions village abandoned after World War I and the remnants of a 1920s wooden racetrack.

Philadelphia boasts one of the best — and most often overlooked — traditional Japanese gardens in North America.