"No writer ever gave more to a city and got back less.”

Former bath house turns gastropub.

Once called the "Polish Gold Coast" it is an icon of the neighborhood that bears its same name.

These mansions date back to Chicago's days as a brewer's paradise.

Built to house a chapter of the Knights Templar, this grandiose building is a relic of Freemasonry in Chicago a century ago.

A decommissioned Naval base now rents itself out for people who want to blow stuff up.

This (occupied) house is 10 feet wide and full of spite.

A whimsical antique shop with a strong air of mystery, filled with items from ages, and what feels like worlds, past.

This giant head is all that remains of a once proud statue that survived an earthquake but not a fall off of a wagon.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

Floating man-made island and upscale restaurant.

This old mining town, deep in the California desert, has a year-round population of one.

A Mysterious Masonic tomb in San Luis Obispo.

A hotel and restaurant serving as the mecca of kitsch.

An alley covered with 20 years of bubble gum.

Machinery left over from California's once thriving mercury industry now attracts artists and explorers.

In the country around Buttonwillow, California, a marker commemorates a revealing moment in the story of a water colony from the fictional Kcymaerxthaere that sought independence.

The remnants of a failed socialist commune can still be found just off a California highway.

A dry lake is what remains of a community founded on a real estate scam.

A newspaper building that made radio history.

Originally the home of chewing gum mogul William Wrigely Jr, it is now the official offices of the Tournament of Roses.

The site of a classic series of Laurel and Hardy pratfalls.

Church and home-museum of a 1920s female revivalist preacher with a very sordid past.

A cult following celebrates the legend that belies this curious podiatrists' office sign which has worked its way into song, literature, animation, and the visual arts.