A Natural History and Science Emporium.

The boulder on which Alexander Hamilton laid his head as he died can still be visited on the New Jersey coast.

The oldest pastificio in Queens offers visitors fresh noodles and a peek inside the macaroni-making magic.

This poignant display is now a memorial to these regionally extinct species.

One of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the city, it is now overgrown with an urban forest.

Serving Central Asian breads that range from cracker-crisp to warm and fluffy, this bakery brings Bukhara to Queens.

This nostalgic blast from the grooming past is also a working barbershop.

Even for Egyptian royalty, the afterlife was bring-your-own-beef.

A once crucial portion of the Long Island railroad still lays abandoned, waiting to be turned into an urban park.

Shop while you wait for a table in this tiny Indonesian eatery within a mini-mart.

The oldest family-run luncheonette in New York, last renovated in 1948, still serves food and drinks the old-fashioned way.

Hidden in Central Park's Ramble is a troublesome cave buried just beneath the surface.

Chefs from Tibet's Kham region offer steaming meat pies and noodle soups in this nook behind a jewelry store.

This lavish room at NYC's French Embassy is a rare relic from the end of the Gilded Age.

Though its celestial ceiling is impressive, the true star is the vast collection of French books.

A hidey-hole sandwiched between cellphone, DVD, and jewelry stores features Tibetan delights.

Bowl in splendor, if you're lucky.

Residents of this Brooklyn neighborhood may be unaware their houses sit atop a buried trolley graveyard.

One of the last full-orchestra recording studios in New York City and an acoustical marvel.

This small New York museum examines Chinese history from its origins right up to its arrival in the city.

One kilometer of thick brass rod laid out before your eyes.

This elaborate tunnel is the first structure composed of cast concrete in the United States.

A tree that grows parallel to the ground was declared Brooklyn's "crowning curio" by the poet who saved it.

Tucked in a nondescript downtown Brooklyn mall is a bar containing a remarkable turn of the century anatomical wax collection last seen in 1920s Berlin.