An eerie diorama that captures the majestic nature of a few prehistoric-looking beasts.

This taxidermy scene brings the struggle for survival in the Indian jungle to a quiet corner of a Manhattan museum.

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

One of the most dazzling dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History is also one of the oldest.

This morbid scene depicts the Darwinian drama of death on the African savannah.

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

Creating this diorama spurred naturalist Carl Akeley to begin advocating to protect the apes.

This impressive scene portrays the elusive forest giraffe of Central Africa.

A controversial magical figure is hidden within a diorama of the city.

The competition: breathe deeply as long as you can.

One of the only single-person private gravesites in New York City.

An exhibition space dedicated to American outsider art created between the 18th and 21st centuries.

Obscure and obsolete publications are given new life as works of art.

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

A no-frills cinephile haven known for showing offbeat, underseen films.

This interactive gallery makes you feel like you've stepped into a fantasy world filled with whimsical monsters.

Avoid gangster interaction while window-shopping.

An arcade packed with a rotating collection of unique independent video games.

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.

A DIY art gallery/music venue/lecture hall dedicated to video game culture.

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

A New York garbage depot holds a secret collection of weird and wonderful refuse.

The feral felines of Roosevelt Island have a small army of allies and an abandoned hospital all to themselves.

A tiny museum housed in a New York freight elevator specializes in the "overlooked, dismissed, or ignored."