Nature and beauty amidst pollution and industrial wreckage.

Those belting out show tunes might not realize this piano bar marks the site where Thomas Paine died in 1809.

New York City's only radical feminist independent bookstore.

The first museum in the United States dedicated entirely to posters.

Empty, but not abandoned, this cavernous Brooklyn loading dock was once considered the largest individual building in the world.

Thriving meadows span a rooftop in one of Brooklyn's most heavily industrialized neighborhoods.

Make a tough dinner decision: Octopus wasabi roulette or bull penis?

This wall on a street corner in Lower Manhattan has been a blank canvas for a rotation of renowned artists since the 1980s.

Check out the underground party scene at the "Burning Man of Brooklyn."

An annual extravaganza of Broadway theater memorabilia.

Wine bottle sculpture with a ship's stateroom inside.

A WWI fighter plane and turn-of-the-century penny candy shop are among the unexpected features of this Financial District building.

This futuristic airport terminal was abandoned for decades before reopening as a hotel—with a vintage plane of its own parked out back.

Volunteer-run library dedicated to exploring five decades of activism history.

A living archive of urban activism and space reclaimed.

A collection of fanzines, recordings, and documents detailing the rise and influence of the feminist punk movement.

Named the fifth most beautiful building in America in 1885, this former courthouse boasts the best view in the Village.

New York's oldest and possibly grandest keeper of books.

Detailed facade of a brownstone in Boerum Hill.

Slyly buy a shake in the Parker Meridien lobby.

This enormous Hindu temple in Queens serves incredible dosas in its basement canteen.

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

Abandoned power station once home to a squatter community, now being developed into an arts center.

Hidden in plain sight on a pair of Manhattan subway tunnels are a pair of public instruments that sing to each other.