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Profile image for Michael J Bielawa

Michael J Bielawa

Joined Atlas Obscura in 2018

Michael Bielawa’s explorations take him to northeast America's most mysterious, and abandoned, sites. He’s shared his findings on TV, radio and in print: including reanimating the dead in New England with NPR, long-lost 19th century baseball fields with Major League Baseball, Men In Black and the Lake Champlain Creature with the Connecticut Post and attempts to pilfer P.T. Barnum's corpse with London’s Fortean Times. Bielawa lectures throughout Connecticut and his Wicked Walks, each October for The Barnum Museum (and in 2018 co-sponsored by Atlas Obscura), documents Bridgeport, Connecticut as one of America’s most paranormal downtowns. He is the author of Wicked Bridgeport and Wicked New Haven.
Michael J. Bielawa, Author

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405

Places I've been

Places this traveler has marked as been there.

Abandoned fort ruins

Queens, New York

Fort Totten

Read between the lines of the subway map to find the hidden abandoned Civil War fort.

Boon Island Light

York, Maine

Boon Island Light

New England's tallest light house stands on an island with a history of cannibalism and death.

Bubble Rock

Mount Desert, Maine

Bubble Rock

A precariously balanced rock perches on the edge of a cliff created tens of thousands of years ago by glacial erosion.

Fort Knox State Historic Site

Prospect, Maine

Fort Knox State Historic Site

This 19th century granite fortification is one of the most well preserved forts in New England.

One of the many appearances of Champ throughout Burlington

Burlington, Vermont

Lake Champlain Monster Monument

Cryptid lake monster honored with its own monument.

The baby flying monkeys at the back of One Main

Burlington, Vermont

Flying Monkey Sculptures

Scary metal statues adorn some of the signature buildings of Burlington, Vermont.

The Cardiff Giant

Cooperstown, New York

The Cardiff Giant

A gigantic 10-foot tall stone man.

Howe Caverns

Howes Cave, New York

Howe Caverns

Why have you never heard of the second most popular tourist site in New York?

Volkswagen Bug On A Smokestack

Amsterdam, New York

Volkswagen on a Smokestack

An upstate New York garage advertises its services by literally putting the automobile above all else.

Names etched in marble

North Adams, Massachusetts

Natural Bridge State Park

Naturally formed white marble arch housed in an abandoned marble quarry from the 1800s.

Olana

Hudson, New York

Olana

The Hudson River School comes alive at this palatial estate.

Original bridge across the southern end of Lake Champlain, demolished in 2009

Addison, Vermont

Crown Point Bridge

Lake Champlain Bridge, the recently demolished and rebuilt bridge where they filmed "What Lies Beneath".

Kaaterskill Falls and the Bayard of Dogs

Haines Falls, New York

Kaaterskill Falls and the Bayard of Dogs

A stunning, two-tiered waterfall made famous by poets, artists and the legend of a ghost dog.

The Stone Church

Dover Plains, New York

Dover Plains Stone Church

This natural rock "church" might not be a proper chapel but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful.

The site of the old Post Office as it is today

Keeseville, New York

Ausable Chasm

This sandstone gorge in New York State's Adirondack Mountains is home to waterfalls, flumes, and more.

Palace of Fine Arts

San Francisco, California

Palace of Fine Arts

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

Alcatraz from the Bay 2012

San Francisco, California

Alcatraz Island

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

The Churchill War Rooms

London, England

The Churchill War Rooms

The perfectly preserved underground rooms where Churchill plotted the war against Germany.

Dennis Severs' House

England

Dennis Severs' House

A historic house left in "dramatic still life."

Water still flows through

London, England

Traitors' Gate

The watery entrance for condemned prisoners heading to the Tower of London is still visible along the Thames.

Stones and Henge, respectively.

Amesbury, England

Stonehenge

Famously misunderstood wonder of the ancient world

The Old Dutch Church overlooks an old cemetery (the Sleepy Hollow cemetery is nearby).

Sleepy Hollow, New York

The Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow

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

The fully functional replica of the Turtle Submarine in CT

Essex, Connecticut

'Turtle' Submarine at Connecticut River Museum

This museum holds a fully-functional replica of the "Turtle," the first American submarine ever built.

Welcome to Moodus

East Haddam, Connecticut

Moodus Noises

The Connecticut village named for its subterranean thunder.

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