Canada’s infamous maximum-security prison, now open for guided tours with former guards.

The last remaining 19th-century tenement from Boston's old West End neighborhood.

A luxury hotel constructed out of a former jail.

The legendary building that needed ghostly approval before being built.

Historic funicular railway, believed to be the shortest railroad in the world.

This iconic L.A. bookshop is housed in an abandoned bank—both symbolic and chic.

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

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

Home to secret Eastern Bloc spy equipment and the largest stretch of the original Berlin Wall outside of Germany.

The blinking light atop the iconic landmark has been sending secret messages for decades.

This bank is widely believed to be the inspiration for the offices of Philip Marlowe, the hardboiled detective featured in a number of Raymond Chandler's stories.

Hollywood's most famous landmark, the "temporary" sign that has stood for decades longer than intended.

Portlandia is the second-largest copper repoussé statue in the United States.

The headquarters of the famous Yale society.

An artist of the American Revolution is entombed beneath the Yale art gallery he founded.

Once the future of underwater combat, this old sub is now open for visitors to muck around in.

Enormous crabs, bioluminescent jellies, and other amazing creatures from the ocean’s depths—some of which are in an aquarium for the first time ever.

This lonesome Monterey cypress has survived centuries of wind, salt, and at least one attempt at arson.

A massive Montreal stadium that has seen nothing but trouble since its inception.

This public art pays homage to the baseball legend and civil rights icon and his time in Montreal.

Site of a famous 19th-century transcendentalist utopian community, now abandoned.

P-town goes wild for the malassadas at this 87-year-old institution.

This giant roadside fruit is home to an array of apple-based treats.

This observation tower is a longstanding, 1960s landmark in the Thousand Islands region of Canada.