Slyly buy a shake in the Parker Meridien lobby.

Read a book next to a Midtown waterfall.

Order scoops of pandan, lychee, and black sesame at this family-run institution.

A good place to research the Freemasons, esoterica, occultism, and hermeticism.

This San Diego museum, housed in a former Navy training facility, is dedicated to preserving women’s historic achievements.

The only museum of sake in the United States is nestled in an unlikely California college town.

The crown jewel of the Queens Museum is a nearly 10,000-square-foot architectural model of the city originally built for the 1964 World's Fair.

Townhouse facade doubles as an RMS Titanic Memorial.

A former insane asylum despised by Nelly Bly and Charles Dickens is now fashionable apartments.

A self-made museum in Queens, New York continues to display the work of a sculptor known for paving his own way.

A posh members-only club with a literally dramatic history.

Commemorating the spot where the famous scientist fed his pigeons.

Try not to get slimed in Tribeca.

One of the last few places in Manhattan that employed a pneumatic systemic keeps it on display.

Hidden in an ordinary Midtown building is a one-room museum dedicated to the greatest escape artist.

The name of this famed hospital was once a byword for the horrors of medical and psychiatric care.

Touching mementoes from those who didn't make it back from World War I still hang in one of New York's oldest bars.

In its day this historic fort held 100 cannons pointed in almost every direction to protect New York.

Behind a bodega is a small museum of relics and ephemera showcasing the history of New York.

One of only two commuter aerial tramways in the United States.

Whisper secrets in a busy station only to be heard on the other side of this acoustic arch.

A Pythagorean funhouse that tries, successfully, to prove that math is the coolest thing ever.

Elevated freight railway turned wildly successful urban park.

A terrific purveyor of natural history objects and curios.