There is the Wax Last Supper, an old travelling religious sideshow tableau that now rests behind lock and key, guarded by a very old woman and a perpetually burning red light, in a distant cemetery. There is the huge nature reserve with board walks hidden smack in the middle of the city. There is an amazingly whimsicle house and compound that was built in WWII by a crazy guy who thought masonry could keep the Japanese subs away. There are hidden beaches, secret caves, wierd stuff in the forest, even a secret university professor.
My favorite in the Bay Area is the Albany Bulb. It’s a huge bulb shaped park that juts into the bay. Years ago, it was an industrial waste dump. Now it has been taking over by artists and all the waste material has been transformed into an ever changing display of paintings, sculptures, and other delights hidden away in the scrub.
The bulb sounds awesome. A few years ago I was out driving aimlessly with a couple of friends and somehow we stumbled onto a field hidden in the woods. I have no idea how we found it. The field was full of really amazing sculptures.
Another secret cemetary thing here. In a south-side suburb of Indanapolis, there’s a tiny Civil War-era cemetary hidden in a small copse of trees, that (AFAIK) can only be accessed by taking a detour out of a small city park and through a few backyards.
A few years back, I helped a friend clean out the basement storage area of a record shop in downtown Indianapolis; the site had been a former video rental store, and all of the used VHS cassettes, shelving, posters, etc. were still down there. We moved one bit of shelving, and behind it was a low-slung, stone-lined arched doorway. It was an entrance to an apparently abandoned labyrinth of tunnels snaking around under several city blocks. We took flashlights along and explored, finding plenty of old, abandoned coal-fired furnaces, boilers, staircases to nowhere, and the like.
More recent, and less mysterious, are secret parts of shopping malls. Entire abandoned wings with shuttered stores (signs still hanging in the windows) hidden behind false walls, a little park in an area ringed by employee-only hallways, abandoned second floors of old stores hidden behind drop ceilings. I worked at a mall store as a teenager that had formerly been a two-story Steak and Shake; I poked up through the ceiling once, and was greeted by a preserved upper floor, still lit by a sky light. I got to the portion of staircase still hanging up there, climbed up, and explored the back rooms, looked at the old advertising posters… I felt like a strange type of spelunker.
New York City has a weekend in the fall called Open House New York, which was started four or five years ago. All sorts of things are opened to the public, many for only that Saturday or Sunday - everything from historical homes to monuments to artists’ studios to big civic works.
Nitpick: Brrokline isn’t part of Boston, it’s its own city, but you wouldn’t guess that from the way the two blend together (and the way Brookline is surrounded by Boston, as if it’s an invading cell being engulfed by a leokocyte).
I’m curious about these things – I’m not familiar with them. Can you tell us where they’re located?
I can’t seem to figure out how to get a good link to google maps to show you Pleasure Bay. The neighborhood is Dorchester Heights. Pleasure Bay is just north of Dorchester Bay and just south of Logan. It looks like the letter C.
There’s a city park in Orlando, Azalea Park (not to be confused with the neighborhood of the same name a couple miles east of it,) which I’ve only seen a couple people in. It’s here (it even goes under E Washington Street.) It’s a recessed drainage ditch…errr, creek, laid with ancient-looking concrete with stone or concrete steps into it and lined with all sorts of flowers, although it was a lot prettier before they took out all the non-native flowers. And despite it being only a couple dozen feet from houses in most places, it’s recessed down so much you hardly notice!
It even has a podium with its back to the dr…creek with several benches there, so if I were getting married I choose it as my wedding site for certain.
Also in Seattle, there’s Waterfall Garden (about halfway down the page). A great place to eat lunch on a warm day. Never seen more than 5 or so people in there at any one time.