Down a stairway in the East Village, you could once read a plaque describing an alternate history of a fictional version of Manhattan.

A reminder to choose water over wine since 1888.

Monument to a forgotten NYC disaster that claimed the lives of 1,000.

One of the few remaining American elm trees in New York’s Tompkins Square Park was the birthplace of a new religion.

Salute the leader of the proletariat.

A mass grave for victims of one of the city’s worst fires.

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.

The smallest island in Manhattan is a manmade landfill dominated by a Buddhist peace arch.

The site of the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

A dilapidated dock tells the story of Titanic's missed arrival.

Self-sufficient greenhouse floating on the Hudson River.

America's greatest forgotten garden and the former stomping grounds of Son of Sam.

A 9-story, poured concrete structure which was used as a glue factory with an indelible smell.

Two monstrous warehouses. One now holds priceless works of art, the other stands abandoned and dilapidated.

A working monastery hidden away in Brooklyn once abutted the location of a former inebriate's home.

The humble fort that saved Washington.

What’s a sure fire way to end up in jail in New York in the 1920s? Peddling bad moonshine.

Leaf through over 30,000 artists' sketchbooks in what may be the world's largest collection of doodles

Where there’s manufacturing, there’s fire!

The factory that helped produce a dominant form of lighting before Thomas Edison.

A strip of modern stores in historic buildings.

New York's oldest concrete structure is being preserved thanks to the gentrification of Whole Foods.

Headquarters of the world's fourth largest Hasidic sect and the first of many "770s" around the world.

A pedestrian island in the middle of world-famous Times Square emits a strange (and purposeful) humming noise.