An avant garde art museum at the University of Chicago.

A beloved Chicago music venue offering cold beer and lots of “Friendly."

Combination beer garden and music venue in the heart of Wicker Park.

Cemetery featuring rare glass-fronted columbarium.

Nonprofit art center that promotes outsider, intuitive, and self-taught art.

Chicago's largest cemetery is full of beautiful Victorian monuments and more than a few ghost stories.

A century-old hotspot for jazz, frequented by everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone.

A speakeasy takes on Chicago's drinking culture.

A lush green oasis in the middle of Chicago.

This whimsical Oz-themed park had a wonderful impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

This small, but long-running hobby club has built one of the largest model rail lines in the US.

Each of these gorgeous, intricately decorated rooms is painstakingly crafted to the scale of 1 inch: 1 foot.

Beloved bar home to musicians of all eras and reputations.

This $3 million model train takes you through Chicago, Seattle, and the thousands of miles in between.

Sunset Park's Guatemalan community knows to head to the back of this bodega for a taste of home.

One of the deadliest American air disasters is nearly forgotten in Brooklyn.

This secluded ruin was once a home for exotic plants.

The cuisine at this Sheepshead Bay spot tells the story of a displaced Muslim Chinese community.

A Jewish deli run by Yemeni Muslims in an Afro-Caribbean neighborhood is quintessential Brooklyn.

A burial ground of rusting metal grave markers.

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

Once a popular watering hole among longshoremen and shipyard workers, this neighborhood treasure spans more than 100 years of Red Hook history.

A modern zoetrope on the New York City subway.

In the middle of downtown Brooklyn lies a 165 year old secret hidden right below the surface (closed to the public indefinitely).