This Bronx apartment building is officially recognized as the birthplace of hip-hop.

Legendary private island in the Bronx...devoid of rats.

A basement pool hall is the front for some of the best Dominican food in New York City.

Despite not growing anywhere near New York City, bananas are ripened in a pressurized room in the Bronx using precise banana science.

Seriously good slices of Sicilian pizza lurk at the back of the Bronx's oldest enclosed market.

Rare moles meet activism at this Oaxacan eatery.

The mosaic Star of David at the front of this store hints that it's no ordinary Italian grocer.

A former connection to City Island, it has been abandoned since the 1930s.

Every year model trains zip through a miniature New York City that's now 150 landmarks strong.

This plot of old-growth forest is the largest surviving remnant of New York City's original woodland.

Home to the infamous "Typhoid Mary" and the worst loss of life in New York's history prior to September 11, 2001.

The first and only carousel with a lineup entirely of insects.

The loneliest island in New York.

The famous author's cottage hideaway.

One-time largest man-made structure in the world will be a park in 30 years.

Staten Island's original central park is the former home of the city water supply as well as thousands of immigrant graves.

Devotional offerings and pleas for intercession are left at this Depression-era shrine inside a nature preserve.

The final resting place of some of Staten Island's earliest settlers and their descendants.

Crammed into several rooms of a Staten Island home, this museum is a vodka-soaked paean to the pleasures of drinking.

A town trapped in time - 1958 to be exact.

This empty Victorian manse on Staten Island is said to be haunted but is actually a real life crime scene.

A restaurant on Staten Island showcases a different grandmother’s cooking every night.

Once America's longest-manned military fort, now an abandoned hulk.

This small and serene place for quiet reflection on Staten Island was built in China based on the gardens of the Ming Dynasty.