This rare tortoise skeleton has been hanging around the downtown Los Angeles museum for over a century.

An academy where anyone can train in the exciting acrobatic sports of parkour and freerunning.

Space program, pneumatics and more, bits and pieces, for movie sets or the common man.

A quirky collection of figurines backdropped by city views is hidden next to a popular restaurant in the Hollywood hills.

The quiet canyon has a tumultuous history involving a doomsday cult.

Secret US military film studio in the Hollywood Hills.

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

The hotel room where Janis Joplin tragically died has now become a makeshift shrine to the singer.

Though tiki culture has gone in and out of fashion, the Tonga Hut has always been flying the flag in Los Angeles.

Come crisp December nights, this fairly plain neighborhood becomes a holiday dream world.

One of the world's largest collections of rare and magnificent bird specimens.

An increasingly eccentric apartment building, topped with winged beasties.

This traditional garden in the San Fernando Valley doubled for Star Fleet Academy, and is irrigated entirely by wastewater.

This hilltop park offers magnificent views and a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece.

The so-called "Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles" is on a one mutant mission to keep L.A. weird.

The L.A. Zoo has a secret garden of rare bootleg cycads, a palm specimen dating back 280 million years.

A "Titanic" superfan changed his name to Jack and set up this strange shrine to the blockbuster, complete with Korean food and Tarot readings.

From pre-war whiskey cocktails to prohibition-era speakeasy secrecy, this bar has seen it all.

The remains of the first punk club in L.A.

This ultra-modern home clings to the slope of the Hollywood Hills on a precarious stilt.

World's oldest operating science fiction and fantasy club, once home to Ray Bradbury and L. Ron Hubbard.

This grand mansion has starred in everything from Bones to Buffy.

The programmatic glory of LA's giant whiskey barrel building has become an upscale reminder of the city's kitschy roadside past.

Most famous work of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's sons.