Places ianrbenjamin Wants to Go

Decades after testing the polio vaccine on unwitting patients, this historic mental hospital sits in ruin.

An abandoned asylum where patients have been forgotten but their possessions remain.

This collection started by a Cornell professor once held more than 600 human brain specimens, including the one that belonged to its founder.

These expertly crafted, scientifically accurate glass sea creatures were once an international phenomenon.

Pluto is still considered a planet in Ithaca, New York.

This art center is way beyond your average pumpkin-carving operation.

The library of every book lover's dreams.

In upstate New York, gorgeous waterfalls and a watermill are slowly being reclaimed by nature.

A peaceful international sculpture garden in upstate New York.

Three acres of mythology-inspired sculptures are visible from the highway.

"Call for the doctor, call for the nurse... Vote!! said the lady with the alligator purse."

The first American home of the isolated, egalitarian religion has a trove of Shaker architecture and artifacts.

A record-size collection of wild-haired troll dolls tells the story of the mythical creature's roots in Scandinavian folklore.

The only Bahá'í house of worship in North America and one of only a handful worldwide.

Two mermen, eternally spitting into each other's mouths.

The site where Poe “in great distress, and ... in need of immediate assistance” likely died.

The man who first patented the Ouija board rests in peace beneath a headstone that playfully reflects that achievement.

A monumental statue of RCA's mascot now sits atop a historical society roof after a life of moving around.

One of the world's oldest and most massive living organisms is a grove of quaking aspens.

A peculiar mansion built by the troubled heir to the Winchester Rifle Company fortune.

The legendary building that needed ghostly approval before being built.

The remains of a failed subway in upstate New York is now an underground graffiti bunker.

These World War I shooting range tunnels are now haunted halls of underground graffiti accessed through the roots of a tree.

Oldest existing church in New York and the inspiration for Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."