Places Edited by Megan Roberts

An oasis of calm amid the chaos of the boardwalk, the museum traces the heritage of this beloved beachside amusement park.

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

This wooden recreation of a 9th century lake village looks as though it was built yesterday (which it relatively was).

This museum devoted to the gothic author holds such interesting ephemera as his socks and walking stick.

This "common-as-dirt" museum celebrates the glory of normalcy.

This hidden library of physiological ephemera contains centuries worth of knowledge on the vim and viscera of the human body.

This former Norwegian sailor's church is slowly being taken over by ramshackle robot musicians.

Crammed into a Baltimore row house is an oddities shop that sells everything from skulls to dead insects.

The elaborate clockwork contraptions in this Scottish gallery create small worlds of whimsy and horror.

An open-air sewer system that was covered piece-by-piece over 300 years.

This famous bridge twisted itself into oblivion, but not for the reason you might think.

A 14th-century fortified keep showcases the masterpieces of an ingenious 20th-century clockmaker.

The seamy, underground secrets of Portland's criminal past.

A natural history museum with an extensive collection of bird dioramas.

An art collective teaching the more fiery, metal-y art forms.

The world's largest collection of witchcraft regalia.

World's only nuclear reactor operated by liberal arts undergraduates.

One artist's yard is full of shining, whirling kinetic sculptures that look like pure steel psychedelia.

Video games, body language, and postal history are all on display in this Swiss museum.

A living archive of urban activism and space reclaimed.

An ice cream parlor chain that caters to vegans and pinball fans equally.

A Victorian park cemetery, standing on the site of what was once the Great North Wood.

A Barbary Coast watering hole built into a Gold Rush shipwreck.

A surreal museum of extraordinary industrial objects.