beardbrooklym's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Bumblebee Beach

A private residence adorned with a gorgeous mural dedicated to the buzzing insect.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Nine Mile Run

This picturesque stream was up until recently the site of a ten story mountain of slag and sewage.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Paramount Film Exchange

Once used to screen films for theater owners to rent, this historic building is now a start up hub.
Millvale, Pennsylvania

Mr. Small's Funhouse

An 18th-century Catholic church converted into an eccentric temple of music and bacchanalia.
Chicago, Illinois

The Hub Theatre

Once an ornate movie theater remade by Catholic Charities.
Chicago, Illinois

Aircraft Carriers of Navy Pier

Chicago's Navy Pier on Lake Michigan was a training hub for aircraft carrier pilots during WWII.
Chicago, Illinois

Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room

Once at the center of U.S. finance, the historic Trading Room was meticulously recreated piece by piece and rebuilt in the Art Institute.
Chicago, Illinois

Bubbly Creek

This cheerfully-named branch of the Chicago River is the fetid result of years of blood, entrails, and meatpacking waste.
Chicago, Illinois

Shipwreck of the Silver Spray

This historic-shipwreck-cum-diving-spot can still be seen poking its boiler out of the Lake Michigan waters that claimed it.
Chicago, Illinois

The Garfield-Clarendon Model Railroad Club

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

American Writers Museum

Small and slightly hidden, the American Writers Museum is preserving the legacy of America's finest authors.
Chicago, Illinois

World Artifacts on the Tribune Tower Walls

Fragments of architectural wonders from around the globe are embedded in the newspaper building's walls.
Chicago, Illinois

Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

This surprising gem is a world-class archeological museum hidden at the University of Chicago.
Chicago, Illinois

Couch Place (The Alley of Death)

This alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after the fateful Iroquois Theatre fire.
Chicago, Illinois

Lucent

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.
Chicago, Illinois

Thorne Miniature Rooms

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

Hidden Egyptian Temple in Field Museum Break Room

Years of archaeology, just chillin' by the water cooler.
Chicago, Illinois

The World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893

What's left of the ruins of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, or World's Fair, also known as the White City.
Chicago, Illinois

Graceland Cemetery

An enormous park-like oasis, full of famous Chicagoans' graves.
Chicago, Illinois

Merz Apothecary

An antiquated German apothecary on Chicago's North Side.
Laurel, Maryland

Forest Haven Asylum

This abandoned asylum was once a state of the art facility before devolving into one of the most deadly mental institutions in American history.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Conflict Kitchen

A take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The First Heinz Pickle Charm

The souvenir got the company’s founder out of a pretty pickle at the World’s Fair.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Johnny Angel's Ginchy Stuff

One Pittsburgh musician's decades-in-the-making memorabilia collection is on display at this rock-n-roll curio shop.