The seat of Buffalo government is a gorgeous Art Deco palace.

Buffalo's abandoned concrete grain elevators are getting a second life.

Ruins of a once-prized railroad station in New York.

Toxic waste disaster that founded the Superfund program.

The absurd creation is a compulsory destination for selfies in Buffalo.

Created by four famous men, the beautifully designed Buffalo State Asylum was resurrected as a hotel and art center, but still boasts a ghost story or two.

A forsaken wonder in the middle of the East Side neighborhood.

This two-room factory has been cranking out the musical signifier of zaniness for a century.

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

A model of a dinosaur that was named for Andrew Carnegie stands outside the museum that also bears his name.

The last street in Pittsburgh that's paved with wood.

There aren't too many operational funiculars around, but Pittsburgh has two!

One of the steepest streets in the United States makes an intriguing challenge for cyclists.

The United States’s oldest funicular railway glides up and down a steep Pittsburgh street.

A beautiful oddities shop crammed with strange and morbid curiosities.

A Gothic gym and community space that encourages fitness for misfits.

Cleveland's giant "free" stamp is a nod to the Civil War, but was misinterpreted for years.

The heroic sled dog of the 1925 serum run is preserved in taxidermy.

Funded by John D. Rockefeller, this is one of the earliest, and most beautiful, shopping arcades in America.

Prison made famous by The Shawshank Redemption has been out of commission since 1990.

The inventor of a number of hybrid corn species is immortalized with a field of giant corn.

A herd of 150 bison live on California's Santa Catalina Island and are at the heart of an ongoing debate between environmental protection and economic expansion.

This quirky UFO-shaped curiosity is often mistaken for the airport’s control tower.

Bug-devouring flora are the stars of a special wing of the glass conservatory.