The palatial McDonald's that inspired Wesley Willis.

This monument owes its name to a quote by the famous civil rights activist and journalist.

Chicago's museum dedicated to the history of bondage and fetishism is more textbook than titillation.

The bank that helped fund the Mexican-American War and the purchase of Alaska met its downfall after helping Augusto Pinochet launder money.

Before Metro, Washington had a robust streetcar network—and you see the remains of this infrastructure if you know where to look.

A line of blue paint marks the route of the inaugural parade.

The 5.5-mile ring of steel posts around the Capitol Building is one of the largest (and most uniform) of its kind in the world.

This sandwich shop has a century-old elevator behind a sheet of plexiglass.

An echo chamber with a waterfall wrapped around its base at the Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C.

The word "Watergate" will forever be associated with the infamous scandal in 1972, but this fountain is famous in its own right.

A muscular Art Deco monument represents the struggle between regulators and unbridled markets.

One critic described it as "middle Mussolini, early Ramses, and late Neiman-Marcus." Another called it an architectural "natural disaster."

The grand marble structure next to the White House is Andrew Carnegie's temple to Pan-American diplomacy.

This mysterious structure by the Washington Monument is a flood barrier designed to protect the White House against rising waters.

While most wind tunnels test scale models, the "Cave of Winds" was large enough for actual airplanes.

A tiny monument to the unsuccessful attempt by Thomas Jefferson to place the prime meridian in Washington.

Outside the Department of Transportation, a collection of artifacts honors the history of how we get around.

Decades before the scandal, this staircase on the river was a literal "water gate."

This statue of one of baseball’s greatest pitchers looks like something out of a sci-fi horror movie.

The rogue roots are gradually consuming some of the historic marble grave markers.

Taste the white whiskey that the United States' first president once distilled and enjoyed.

Long buried under the 20th-century landscape, this lift lock of the Alexandria Canal is the lone remnant of an ambitious early American transportation project.

This small pedestal marks the spot of the first lot of land sold in Alexandria, Virginia in 1749.

A massive, majestic mammal watches over pedestrians from his perch atop a former B.P.O.E. lodge.