I’ve been living in Boston for nearly three decades, and I’m still finding places that I never new existed.
There’s a farm stand far out in the countryside. Nothing but pasture and trees as far as the eye can see. And yet, it’s in the city. (Brookline.)
There is a residential neighborhood in Jamaice Plain that’s so rural that the houses have no electricity. People live that way intentionally.
In the very east part of the city, slightly to the south, there’s an old sort of ethnic neighborhood that’s tucked away from the rest of the city. Next to it is Pleasure Bay, a small body of saltwater with a man-made beach. Airplanes fly over it so low that you can practically see the faces of the passengers.
The Nonconformists’ Graveyard. Along a small pathway between buildings, and through a solidly-built wooden door in a seven-foot wall. The door’s never locked. It’s perhaps 20 yards square, on a plot of land in between the back or sides of three 18th/19th-century buildings. Filled with modest headstones, which mostly have been eroded into anonymity. It’s looked after, not overgrown, but it’s not gardened into precision, either. Just one ordinary wooden park bench at the side. It has a welcoming placidity, no sound of traffic from outside, just birds chirping away in the far corners.
I grew up in this town, and had walked past the door thousands of times during some twenty years, before somebody showed me what was behind it. And I’ve not yet shown anybody else
In the Isle of Man there are many secluded beaches and secret bits of glens that are accessable for anyone who’s prepared to do a bit of climbing and going off the beaten track, such as myself.
I’ve been here over six years, but There is a huge amount of the island unexplored by me.
Edit: You said city (doh) well I guess it still applies. In this coastal city there are one or two difficult to get to beaches either side of the bay. There are winding roads, back-alleys. All kinds.
In the suburbs of Rochester, NY, up in the woods, pretty far from where anyone would think to go, is the Silver Disk. It’s just the top of some sort of water tank or something, maybe 40-50 yards across, and maybe 3 feet high. It’s painted gray. I used to go up there with my friends to get high. It’s been decades, so maybe it’s all developed now, but it was a cool little secret back then.
In the densely populated and wealthy eastern suburbs of Sydney (just down the road from the airport), there are market fruit gardens. At least they were there five years ago - not sure about now.
For Boston College, the seminary, graveyard, and Cleveland Circle Park are all hugely underexplored. They aren’t secret to Brighton as a whole, but to BC students they are. They are all great places to take a walk through (minus the seminary at night…).
Do you guys have something like our Dutch National Open Monument Day?
There are a lot of old buildings in the Netherlands that have “monument”-status. That means that the current users get a government grant for upkeep etcetera, in exchange for the promise to keep the appearance of the building intact, and, to open it to the public once a year.
So on that day, I make an effort to see as many old houses, factories, gardens as I can cram into my programme. I see all sorts of secret places, including the backs of houses and the hidden gardens and inside of housing blocks. It’s the coolest holiday of the year.
On edit: my city, Maastricht, has remains of 17 century city walls that for some reason aren’t even mentioned in most tourist guides of the city.
I’ll second this. Around the corner from my house in Zilker is a beat up old cinder block building sitting in a large yard with a historical marker in front. It’s the old black church and graveyard from when the neighborhood was a plantation (My street was redlined until the 1950s or later.) The University of Texas supposedly made a geological survey of the land at one point and found a large disruption near the street. The local assumption is that this was a mass of graves from the 1918 flu pandemic.
Although I’m an atheist, I enjoy the “Garden of Gethsemane” downtown. The linked article’s description of it as an “unexpected oasis” is right on. It’s a tiny park filled with religious statues crafted by Felix Lucero based on a promise to God made on a WW1 battlefield. It’s quiet, green, and beautiful, in a not-so-lovely section of downtown.
The concept exists to a certain extent throughout Europe as European Heritage Days, but my friends in the Netherlands claim that their (i.e. your) Open Monumentendag is the best implementation.
Apparently, it also exists in North America (amongst other non-European places), but I can’t say that I’ve ever seen it here – the closest thing I’ve been to has been San Francisco Open Studios, but that focuses on artists’ studios rather than historic buildings.
Don’t you go calling this town that! (There’s actually only three cities within a 100 miles of here. I had to do some Google Earth measuring to check that, though!)
While its becoming more well known (mostly because of a huge renovation that was recently completed), the Liberty Memorial is usually overlooked when people talk about sightseeing in Kansas City. This is the only WWI memorial in the US, and is really quite amazing.
What, the one right in the Circle? Next to Applebee’s? It seems to be pretty populated, what with all the sports activities.
Arnold Arboretum doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It’s something like 260 acres of nature, right in the city. It’s never crowded, always peaceful, and always puts me in a good mood.
All this talk of cemeteries got me remembering one I used to see when I lived in Toronto. It’s not terribly secret–thousands of people likely see it every day–but it certainly is one of the most curious, because most people don’t expect to see a cemetery in the middle of a freeway interchange. But that’s Richview Cemetery–the little cemetery that is best viewed (that is as best viewed as is possible when rushing by at freeway speeds) while driving on the ramp from 427 north to 401 west. There it is on the grassy area between ramps.
Why is it there? Because the cemetery long predated the highways, and because somehow the people whose family members are buried there persuaded the highway builders to build around the cemetery, rather than moving it. So there it remains, causing people like me who passed by on countless daily commutes, to wonder why a cemetery sits in the middle of a busy freeway interchange.
That’s awesome. Apparently there’s a hidden city – and culture – underneath New York.
Known to a handful in Boston, but not very many, is an old stone bridge. It’s for foot traffic only, but it’s wide enough that a car could use it. On a certain night of the week, on warm summer nights, someone will show up with a boom box and play salsa music. People will gather and dance. And these people are GOOD. They really know what they are doing. And they get dressed up for it. We’re talking formal wear here.
I’ve never been there, but apparently in Vienna (or near there), there is an old man-made cave, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years old. It’s carved into the living rock, and is basically a spiral staircase that goes down hundreds of feet. At the bottom is a wine bar.
(There’s actually only three cities within a 100 miles of here. I had to do some Google Earth measuring to check that, though!)