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A Photographer Finds the Ghost of Woody Guthrie in an Abandoned Asylum

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article-imageInside Greystone Hospital (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

In the legend of folk icon Woody Guthrie, his final 15 years as a hospital patient tormented by Huntington's Disease are often forgotten. The vibrant musician from Oklahoma boiled over with hundreds of songs of worker empowerment, and odes to the downtrodden burst from his guitar slapped with the words: "This Machine Kills Fascists." His "This Land Is Your Land" is practically an alternative populist national anthem. Yet his final years are also a part of who he was, even as his mental and physical abilities deteriorated with the degenerative hereditary disease so that he couldn't even hold a guitar. 

Photographer Phillip Buehler set out to document the abandoned Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Morris Plains, New Jersey, where Guthrie was a patient from 1956 to 1961. Buehler has been photographing "modern ruins" for decades, and wanted to document this old 19th century ruined building before it faded from memory. 

article-imagePhotographer Phillip Buehler

"When Woody's story has been told, it has usually ended when he stopped performing," Buehler told Atlas Obscura. "His Huntington's Disease and hospitalization were rarely mentioned. But he was still alive, he was still writing, he was still influencing people like Bob Dylan. And just like Woody, these decaying buildings at Greystone still hold meaning."

The imposing main building at Greystone is up for demolition. Opened in 1876, it was until the Pentagon the most massive American poured concrete structure. Woody's daughter Nora Guthrie, who has argued that Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital should be preserved, collaborated with Buehler on the recently published Woody Guthrie's Wardy Forty: Greystone Park State Hospital Revisited. The book compiles together over 70 of Buehler's photographs of the hospital along with Guthrie family photographs, letters, and other materials from the Woody Guthrie Archives. Valentine Gallery in Queens is also currently exhibiting Buehler's photographs through April 13. 

Buehler's images of Greystone are haunting, perhaps more for their quiet than anything creepy. Hospital beds are empty, an old piano is silent among the peeling paint, winter snow has fallen in the hallways. Guthrie's mother had also been institutionalized in a mental hospital for Huntington's, and when Guthrie started to be impacted by its symptoms there was still not much known about the disease. So people with Huntington's, including Guthrie, often ended up in psychiatric facilities. Guthrie, however, didn't lose his wry spirit, calling the place "Gravestone" and his Ward 40 the "Wardy Forty." One of his last songs proclaimed: "I Ain't Dead Yet."

"Buildings outlast us, so their preservation is important as they often hold the key to our memories," Buehler explained. "Without the buildings on Ellis Island, would people still visit and learn about that period of American history? Unfortunately, the ruins of Greystone Park may not exist much longer."

Buehler will be at Valentine Gallery this weekend from 1 to 3 pm Saturday and Sunday to answer questions and sign books which will be available for purchase.

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Greystone Hospital (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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A hospital ward (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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Hair dryers (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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A faded artwork of a man with his guitar (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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Paint peeling on an open door (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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An abandoned piano (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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Greystone Hospital in winter (photograph by Phillip Buehler)

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The exhibition at Valentine Gallery

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The exhibition at Valentine Gallery

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Woody Guthrie in 1943 (via Library of Congress)


Woody Guthrie's Wardy Forty: Greystone Park State Hospital Revisited is available from Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. Photographs by Phillip Buehler are on view at Valentine Gallery in Ridgewood, Queens, NYC, through April 13.


    







Relics of the World's Fair: Knoxville, Tennesse

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After visiting ParisChicagoBarcelonaNew York CityMontrealSt. LouisMelbourneSeattle, and Brussels, Atlas Obscura's next stop in our tour of World's Fair relics is Knoxville, Tennessee, host to the fair in 1982. 

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Sunsphere (photograph by Joel Kramer)

Several years after it folded, the 1982 Knoxville International Energy Exposition in Tennessee enjoyed an unexpected 15 minutes of fame when it was featured on an episode of The Simpsons. In the 1996 episode “Bart On The Road,” after scoring a fake driver's license, Bart rents a car and rounds up his buddies for a road trip. Milhouse finds an old brochure for the 1982 World's Fair in the car, and the gang are wowed by the brochure’s description of the “Sunsphere,” a 266-foot tower topped with a huge gold-colored glass sphere used as an observation deck. But when Bart and friends turn up at the site, they find the fair is long since gone, and the Sunsphere is now storage space for a wig shop.  

article-imageSunsphere (photograph by Sean Russell, via Flickr)

The actual Sunsphere's fate seemed equally dicey at the time "Bart On The Road" aired. The tower had wowed crowds at the fair itself — civic planners used the building’s silhouette on all marketing and as the fair’s logo, and plenty of Knoxville sports teams also adopted its image. 

But the local pride didn’t actually translate into support for post-fair use. Two separate proposals during the 1990s to convert the sphere to a restaurant failed. A minor-league basketball team considered moving to Knoxville and using the space for its team offices — “what better place for basketball offices than a giant gold basketball in the sky?” on person argued — but they ultimately passed.  

article-imageInside the Sunsphere (photograph by Joel Kramer, via Flickr)

 Finally, in 2005, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam stepped in, turning the former World's Fair grounds into a city park. The Sunsphere was reopened in 2007, and now includes an observation deck, restaurants, and displays of memorabilia from the 1982 fair.

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Sunsphere (photograph by downing.amanda, via Flickr)
 

Check out this thrilling commercial for the expo, and watch a comet collide with the Sunsphere to the catchy refrain: The 1982 World's Fair, you've got to be there!

And here's a chipper video overview of the festivities:


Stay tuned for more in our series on World's Fair relics, and be sure to visit ParisChicagoBarcelonaNew York CityMontrealSt. LouisMelbourne, Seattle, and Brussels


    






The Real Game of Thrones

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article-imageJean Auguste Dominique Ingres, "Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne" (1806), oil on canvas (via Musée de l'Armée) 

In our anticipation for Sunday's premiere of Game of Thrones season four, today we take a look at some of history's real life thrones that give the Iron Throne a run for its money. The history of human rule has left behind a lot of ostentatious seats of power. They might not exhibit the fantastically overt metaphors put forth by the jagged seat of the Seven Kingdoms, but from unicorn horns to an actual passage for serfs to crawl under, these royal seats leave little doubt about the attitudes and eccentricities of their rulers. 

Throne of Denmark

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Christian VIII and Caroline Amalie, with Christian in the unicorn throne, painted by Joseph-Désiré Court (1841) (via Statens Museum for Kunst)

Sure, any king or emperor can commission a gold throne or one of fine marble, but the Throne of Denmark is much rarer. Unicorn horns border the coronation seat, and if that weren't enough, there are also three life-size silver lions inspired by the 12 lions said to guard the Throne of Solomon. Of course, they aren't actually unicorn horns but narwhal tusks, which is still a pretty awesome material to craft your power chair. 

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The unicorn throne (photograph by Sven Rosborn)

King Edward's Chair

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Engraving of the chair from 1855 (via Wikimedia); King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey (photograph by Kjetil Bjørnsrud)

King Edward's Chair in England's Westminster Abbey takes it a step further and has another country's throne lodged inside of it. The Gothic oak throne dates to 1296 and was commissioned by King Edward I to include the Stone of Scone — the coronation stone of Scotland — in the place right below his behind. The stone has since been returned to Scotland, but it still journeys back to London for all coronations, the last being Elizabeth II in 1953. 

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The Stone of Scone replica in Scotland (photograph by Aly1963/Flickr user)

Marble Throne

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The Marble Throne (via Wikimedia)

The Marble Throne — or Takht-e marmar — of Tehran, Iran, is sculpturally awesome with 65 marble components including men, women, and magical creatures supporting its platform. The open-air terrace in the Golestan Palace around it continues the decadence with mirrors on all sides. Built between 1747 and 1751, it makes quite the impressive regal room. 

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The Marble Throne in the hall of mirrors  (photograph by Philippe Chavin)

Charlemagne's Throne

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The throne in Aachen Cathedral (photograph by Holger Weinandt)

The Throne of Charlemagne — commissioned by Charlemagne himself in the 790s — might not look like much compared to these others with its stern stone structure. However, the elevated seat includes a passage below it so people could stoop down or crawl beneath to show their reverence. The marble and the steps may even have been removed from Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

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The Aachen throne (via Wikimedia)

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly

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The throne in the Smithsonian (photograph by ellenm1/Flickr user)

You don't necessarily have to be crowned sovereign of a nation to have a throne — or at least that was the case with James Hampton. From 1950 to 1964, Hampton built his imagined Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly (he was self-anointed St. James, Director of Special Projects for the State of Eternity) in a garage. Although constructed from materials like old lightbulbs, tinfoil, and coffee cans, it would rival any kingdom's throne. When Hampton passed away the throne was discovered in its obscurity and it now has its own space to preside over in the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. 

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The throne in the Smithsonian (photograph by ellenm1/Flickr user)


    






Hand of Glory: The Macabre Magic of Severed Hands

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article-imageHand of Glory

A traditional form of punishment, under Sharia, Islamic law, and in Medieval Europe, involved publicly amputating a criminal’s body part, often the one used to commit a crime.

The pain of the amputation and the shame of the permanent mark served as punishment for the criminal, while the display of the severed limb functioned as a sinister warning to all onlookers: follow in this guy’s footsteps and you will suffer a similar fate. This macabre tradition likely has its roots in the Code of Hammurabi.

The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian code of laws from ancient Mesopotamia — now Iraq — enacted by Hammurabi, the sixth Babylonian king. This ancient set of laws dates to about 1772 BC and is one of the oldest translated writings in the world. Today partial copies exist on stone stele and clay tablets. The code consists of 282 laws, with scaled penalties, also known as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

“Eye for an eye” is a legal principle where exact reciprocity is used to mete out justice depending on social status — e.g., free man versus slave. For example, if a person caused the death of another person, the killer would be put to death; if a man has knocked out the eye of an aristocrat, his eye would also be knocked out; and if a son has struck his father, his hands would be cut off.

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"He who does not keep peace shall lose his hand." (photo by Andreas Praefcke)

In Europe, the severed hands of criminals were displayed like relics to prevent future grievances (a thief's arm still dangles in a Prague church). In most cases the owner of the hand was not known, but the provenance was usually irrelevant because the setting of the hand’s exhibition determined the story that was told about its origin.

The Haunch of Venison in Wiltshire, England, is a 684-year-old pub that was famous for its display of a cursed gambler’s hand. The hand was reportedly amputated from a gambler who was caught cheating during a game of whist a few hundred years ago. According to workers at the pub, a butcher chopped the gambler’s hand off and threw it into the fireplace. The grisly relic was discovered during renovation work at the pub in 1911 and was stored in a locked glass case with a pack of 18th century playing cards. In 2010, thieves unscrewed the glass cabinet and stole the criminal’s relic.

article-imageA mummified severed hand (photograph by Colin Wilson)

During the demolition of an old fortified town in 1905, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, workers found an amputated hand preserved in limestone. It became known as the “perjury-hand” and from 1907 was stored in a wooden box at St Brigida’s Catholic church. According to local legend, the hand was severed as punishment for breaking an oath and was displayed to serve as a warning to those who might consider telling a lie. But nobody knew who the owner of the perjury hand was or why the owner was punished.

Unfortunately, the hand was stolen in 2012, about the time the people of Legden raised enough money to send it to Düsseldorf University for testing to determine the owner’s sex and age.

article-imageThe Hand of Glory in the Whitby Museum (photograph by John W. Schulze)

Sometimes the amputated hands of felons were used to commit crimes rather than prevent them. According to an old European belief, a candle made out of the dried, severed hand of a criminal who had been hanged — known as the Hand of Glory— had supernatural powers. Traditionally, a Hand of Glory was the “pickled” right hand of a felon, cut off while the body still hung from the gallows. It was used by burglars to send the sleeping victims in a house into a coma from which they were unable to wake.

There were a couple of versions of the Hand on Glory. In one interpretation, a clenched hand is used as a candleholder, with the candle held between the bent fingers. In another version, such as the hand at the Whitby Museum in England, all five fingers of an outstretched hand were lit. If one of the fingers did not light, the burglars saw it as a sign that someone in the house was still awake. The Whitby Museum has the only known surviving Hand of Glory.

For more fascinating stories of forensic anthropology visit Dolly Stolze's Strange Remains, where a version of this article also appeared


Morbid Mondays highlight macabre stories from around the world and through time, indulging in our morbid curiosity for stories from history's darkest corners. Read more Morbid Mondays>








Germany's Real-Life Grand Budapest Hotel

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article-imageThe grand entrance to the hotel (all photographs by Mathias Wasik)

It turns out the fictitious European town in which Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel was set isn’t so fictitious after all.

Hidden amidst the Brandenburg forest 15 kilometers (9.32 miles) north of Berlin are buildings seemingly lost in time and built in such grandiose socialist-classicism style, you wouldn’t be surprised if a concierge named Gustave greeted you at the door or a “Boy With Apple” painting adorned the walls. Winding back the clock a few decades to the Cold War era, it was within these very four walls that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) brainwashed young people and officials from all around the world with propaganda about the ideals of socialism and the evils of the capitalist West.

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From 1951 to 1990, the FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend) youth academy was the top-secret educational facility for the official communist youth movement of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, occupying a vast 43 000 square meters at Bogensee near Wandlitz. Today, despite being relinquished and left to decay for over two decades, these buildings haven't lost their majestic, otherworldly charms.


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Göbbels’ Love Nest



In 1936, the city of Berlin gave Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Göbbels the Bogensee property and its surrounding terrain, along with a humble log cabin, for his 39th birthday. Three years later, Göbbels built a grand villa there costing 1.5 million Reichsmarks. Otherwise known as his “Liebesnest” (“love nest”) where he brought his long succession of affairs, the forest retreat comprised 30 private rooms, 40 day rooms, a bunker, a guest house in which the SS guards were housed, and a cinema where he examined the newest Nazi propaganda films.


Göbbels wrote in his diary in November 1936:

"Gorgeous fall weather! The forest smells so wonderful. This Jewish pest must be completely eradicated. There must be nothing left of them. In other news, only palaver, reading, writing. Going to bed early. I sleep so marvelously out here in the woods."

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Establishment of the FDJ Elite


After the end of World War II, the property was first used as a military hospital by Western allies before it was taken over by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) on March 9, 1946, and it's there that the FDJ youth academy was established.

In the early years, the FDJ was an open, democratic organization welcoming Christians in addition to Communists and Social Democrats, where you’d more likely overhear a discussion about democracy, anti-fascism, and East-West bloc politics in the cafeteria than one about dogmatic Leninism and Stalinism.


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Alas, all good things come to an end. When the GDR was founded in 1949, the FDJ’s spiritual climate drastically changed. Christians were forced out of the organization and the youth academy was systematically transformed into a "training ground" for the FDJ elite. It wasn’t long before indoctrination replaced frank and open discussion and party line ousted personal opinion. Even the old teaching staff were swiftly superseded by former prisoners of war who had been retrained in the Soviet Union and were sworn to party discipline.


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A Soviet Gingerbread Town


In 1950, the academy was named “Wilhelm Pieck” after the GDR’s first (and only) president, and in 1951, Berlin’s Stalin-Allee architect Hermann Henselmann was entrusted with the construction of a complex of monumental buildings, encompassing conference rooms, interpreter cabins, dance halls, boarding school dormitories, and banquet halls. I

In the mid-1950s, several new dormitory buildings, a large cafeteria, and a teaching building were built — turning the once private country estate into a small Soviet gingerbread-style town. 


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More than 500 students each year from the GDR and other socialist countries could now attend courses at Bogensee. Party loyalty was naturally a prerequisite for admission, as all the students had to be committed to the ideal of a new social order. In fact, almost all of them were members of the SED.

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A Pseudo-International Melting Pot

By the beginning of the 1960s, the academy had established itself as a cadre training school for the highest of the elite. Intended to be the source of a socialist stimulus for the world, students were taught philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, scientific communism, dialectical materialism, and the political economy of capitalism.

Liberation organizations across Africa, Latin America and Asia started sending their young members to the academy, and from the mid-1970s, even students from West Germany and Western Europe, delegated by their Communist parties, were enrolled in the hope that the seeds of socialism would then carried to the West. 

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Over time, the academy evolved into a bustling international melting pot, with celebrities such as American actor Dean Reed, German astronaut Sigmund Jähn, and former West Germany Chancellor Helmut Schmidt even visiting Bogensee. However, despite the supposed newfound “international feel” on the campus, close relationships or romances with international peers were strongly advised against, and GDR students even got an "internal briefing" on how to deal with international students.


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The End of the Palace of Red Dreams


The end of the GDR and a divided Germany also meant the end for the elite at Bogensee. By the end of January 1990, the FDJ broke up; by March, the last People’s Police guarding the area finally withdrew, and by summer, the last students left the campus. Over the four decades of the FDJ academy’s history, thousands of young people and officials from all over the world successfully completed their training there, with many former students going on to possess high positions in Latin American or African governments today.


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After 1990, other institutions attempted to take over the old “Palace of Red Dreams,” however, with building maintenance costing a colossal 250,000 Euros ($340,000) per year, it failed to work effectively as a meeting venue or as a hotel, and no buyer has been willing to take it on since. Those days might soon be over though, as it was put up for sale late last year.


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For now though, saying the derelict property has fallen on hard times is an understatement. Dripping — in the truest sense of the word — with history, the grand hall’s roof is leaking, rotten floorboards crunch beneath your feet, and the musty “smell of the East” permeates through the damp peeling walls. In a losing battle against Mother Nature, there’s no longer a guest in sight, the only patron getting a spin on the old dance floors is a tumbleweed, and the “lobby boy” holding up the fort today is an old janitor named Robert.


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All photographs by Mathias Wasik








Vice in Montreal

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The address was 312 Ontario Street. A series of apartment buildings stuck together made up the city's largest complex of brothels to date, where the mere mention of the numbers “312” would turn many cheeks beet red. Filled with over 80 rooms and employing about 80 women, it was run by the once notorious “Madame Bobbe.”

Opened for business from the World War I era until the 1950s, the first floor of the building was the place to drink, dance, and socialize, while the upper floor was reserved for socializing of the more intimate kind. The second floor layout of the 312 was described as a “honeycomb” of rooms where locals, tourists, and soldiers alike could indulge in a number of pleasures and some morally-questionable activities; all feasible even with a police station right around the corner.

And the whereabouts of this address? In none other than the city of Montreal.

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What the infamous area of Ontario Street looks like today, with apartments filling the top two floors and a bistro, burger joint, and a bar on the main floor (all photographs by the author unless indicated)

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The apartment complex of the old "312", present day

The Centre d'Histoire de Montréal is currently hosting an exhibition entitled Scandal! Vice, Crime, and Morality in Montreal, 1940-1960, which documents many aspects of Montreal’s glory days along with its downfall. Various experts, including local authors, professors, former police officers, taxi drivers, and performers, were interviewed for Scandal!.

It begins with a layout of a typical Montreal club from the 1920s and 30s, with images and biographies of celebrities who spent a great deal of their time performing in the city, such as Montreal-born jazz musician Oscar Peterson and American exotic dancer Lili St. Cyr. The walls are filled with quotes from journalist Al Palmer, images of the Montreal club scene during the era, as well as maps identifying the locations of the clubs, bars, and brothels that existed in the first half of the 20th century. Along with the recorded interviews (audio and visual) offered in English and French, people can sit and listen to many experts on this time period. As one voice says: "Las Vegas was one thing, but Montreal was big."

article-imageBeer ad in 1920 on Boulevard Saint-Laurent in Montreal (via Archives du Musée McCord)

With a large port, a multicultural population, and a large number of bilingual citizens, Montreal developed into North America's sin city. The port made everything easily accessible, as Montrealers worked to satisfy the growing needs of the public, whatever that entailed. Booze was served, bars stayed open late, and brothels opened.

The bars were known as “blind pigs.” They stayed open late and served alcohol without permits, therefore a “blind” eye was turned. During the era of the American prohibition, which lasted from 1920 until 1933, actors and other artists from New York and Chicago heard rumors about a city just north of the border that served alcohol in clubs. Thus they started to flock to Montreal, where the party showed no signs of stopping. "Some clubs were opened 24 hours," explains Oliver Jones in Scandal!. "There were after-hours clubs where musicians would go after a show to play jazz."

Hot spots such as the Tour Eiffel, El Morocco, Normandie Roof, and Bellevue Casino were just some of the main spots for drinking, dancing, and then some, with their main locations clustered around Ste-Catherine's street, now a famous area for shopping in the city. These were for the city's straight population, while bars like the Tropical, the Monarch, Starry Sky, and Blue Sky were hang outs for Montreal's gay and lesbian community.

In an interview in the exhibition, Montreal professor Line Chamberland described the life of a bar called the Point de Paris on St.Andre and St. Catherine's. "The bar was divided", she explained. "The left side was for the lesbians. Women's bathroom on the left side, so there was no need for men to go on that side."

The Monarch bar was a big "all-male" bar on 1422 Peel Street. Armand Larivee-Monroe, a floor-show emcee who worked in gay clubs around Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s, discusses in Scandal! the life of a gay man in Montreal. "Actions such as handholding, kissing, and slow-dancing weren't allowed in public, all displays of affection like that. But being gay wasn't illegal at the time." He continues, "They couldn't promote gay clubs in the papers, but underground papers with code words like 'debauchery' referring to the vice and other underground activities were used to describe the life in these clubs in the 'petits journaux jeunes' such as 'Ici Montreal' and other small weekly papers."

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Map indicating Montreal's former "hot spots"

The exhibition examines a day (or night) in the life of the 312. The brothels were opened and run by women. One main lady — a “madame” — ran the brothel and they employed a growing population of female workers who didn't want to spend a 12-14 hour day in a factory. Montreal professor Karen Herland described the brothel life: "It was an industry managed by women, for women. When the girls got caught it was their 'madame' who went to the court to pay their fine. It was a decent life for a woman; they got room and board and you could drink every night."

As for public outcry, "the city had a sort of 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. People would turn a blind eye for the most part." While many church-goers and specifically the League of the Sacred Heart made efforts to calm the vice, Montreal didn't stop. 

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A former "madame's" business card

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A "sheik" brand condom from the 1940s

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Prophylactic kit

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Poster for venerial disease, displayed around Montreal during WWII

Montreal saw an influx of sexually transmitted diseases spread by soldiers who passed through town and invaded the brothels. "During the 40s, because it was a port city, there were a lot of soldiers passing through town," explained Karen Herland. Public health became an issue for the city. Anouk Belanger, sociology professor at UQAM (Universite de Quebec a Montreal) added, "the disease vector was the army."

In an interview that can be heard through headphones available in the "312" section of the exhibit, Belanger and Herland summarized the events leading up to the eventual closing of the "312" and a good portion of Montreal's red light district. From 1940-1943, there were over 4,000 reported cases of STI's within the Canadian military, and Montreal's red light district was directly targeted. Major General Renaud threatened the city. “Renaud gave the city an ultimatum: ‘Clean up the red light, or I’ll send my soldiers through Halifax,'" Herland stated.

The city couldn't afford the loss of the military passing through town, so in 1944 many brothels were forced to be shut down. "In an instant, he single-handedly accomplished what any group opposed to this type of behavior couldn't get done," Herland said.

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Mug shots of brothel owners

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Copy of newspaper headline from 1939

During this same period, Montreal became a player in one of the 20th century's largest drug trafficking networks: the French Connection. Heroine was exported by the Marseilles mafia, led by the Corsicans. Due to Montreal’s large Italian population and its bilingualism, it was easy for Europeans to conduct their business in the city.

While larger cities like New York wanted to take over the trade, the French and Italian traders felt more comfortable working with Montreal’s population. Thus Montreal became the main North American hub for heroine by the early 1950s. All of this was led by Vic Cotroni, one of Montreal’s most notorious figures to date.

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Mug shot of Vincenzo "Vic" Cotroni

There was more clean-up to be done. The blind-eyes turned to picking sides, and as the news of the brothels closing unfolded, the citizens became more invested in the state of its city. As the small weekly newspapers once served as an insight into the world of vice, they transformed into a platform for tackling it.

In 1949, a man named Pacifique Plante, a lawyer who unsuccessfully ran for the position of chief of police, published a series of articles in one of the city's French-language newspapers Le Devoir, entitled "Montréal sous le règne de la pègre" ("Montreal in the grip of the underworld"). This opened the doors for much debate and change. Plante worked for the "morality squad," a division of the Montreal police department formed in the 1940s, and successfully closed down everything from brothels, clubs, blind pigs, to even some church bingo halls. 

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Mug shots and biographies of various Montreal criminals

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Poster by Montreal's former Public Morality Committee

The newspapers continued on the subject of commercialized vice, and in 1950, a "Public Morality Committee" was formed by the citizens. Police officers, police chiefs, and politicians were put on trial under Judge Caron for tolerance to all the vice and organized crime that occurred all over the city.

Plante was called to be the main prosecutor, even though many of the police officers in question were under his supervision during the raids and shut-downs by the "morality squad". His assistant was Jean Drapeau. A year and a half later a report was released by Caron, and around two dozen police officers and some police chiefs were found guilty of infractions and were fined. Only a few months following the commission, Jean Drapeau ran for mayor and won. He chose Plante as his police chief.

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Mayor Jean Drapeau (left) and Pacifique Plante (right)

Many on the police force accepted bribes for numerous reasons, the main one being their uncomfortably low salaries. Charles Latulippe, a former Montreal police officer, explains: "Policemen weren't well paid. You had to know someone to get in." 

Eventually Plante was dismissed from the force in 1957 by Mayor Fournier and fled to Mexico, "where he finished his days." 

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The corner of Ste-Catherine and St-Laurent today 

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Sex shops and video stores on the corner of Ste-Catherine's and St-Laurent

While many brothels have closed and the landscape of the city has modernized, Montreal still offers some glimpses of its heyday. On the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine streets, strip clubs, and adult shops remain. The ongoing gentrification of the city does not overshadow the continued corruption of many Montreal politicians; the city's previous two mayors have resigned due to numerous corruption allegations over the past three years. 

article-imageStreet art in Montreal (photograph by Julian Stallabrass)

Scandal! Vice, Crime and Morality in Montreal, 1940-1960 is at the Centre d'Histoire de Montréal until October 2015.








Objects of Intrigue: One-Handed Trombone

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article-imageThe one-handed trombone (courtesy Horniman Museum)

The Horniman Museum in London has some fascinating objects in its musical instruments collection, from arm-shaped clappers to a crystallophone made from 33 glass bowls, but one brass horn is especially extraordinary for its inventiveness. The one-handed trombone allows a person to play the bellowing instrument with just one arm. 

Classical music specialist Gavin Dixon wrote a guest post for the Horniman about the One Handed Musical Instrument Trust's recent visit to check out the musical wonder. The Trust is dedicated to the development of instruments like the old trombone for musicians to play with one hand. The trombone was the work of Eric McGavin who was with Boosey & Hawkes from 1950 to 1970, working on instrument design, education, and overseeing the musical instrument museum at the company's factory in Edgware.

"This double-slide trombone benefited from all these fields of expertise," Dixon writes. "Another instrument in the Horniman collection, a double-slide contrabass trombone, was part of the Boosey & Hawkes collection that McGavin curated, and this may have provided an inspiration for his design."

article-imageEric McGavin with the trombone (courtesy Horniman Museum)

The instrument was played with a now-missing support stand which allowed the musician to slide the trombone and buzz into the mouthpiece with just one hand. There's a long, if somewhat obscure, tradition of one-armed instruments, such as the early 20th century vaudeville star Bert Amend who lost an arm in a mill accident and formed a whole one-armed band with devices he engineered for one-handed play, and the late jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk, known for playing several saxophones at once, who altered his instruments following a stroke so he could continue to perform.

But how did the one-handed trombone sound? It's a bit worn with age, but Dixon tried it out himself:

"After our visitors had left, I couldn’t resist the chance to put the trombone through its paces. The 50-year-old slide was a bit creaky, and the double-slide arrangement only adds to the problem by increasing the resistance. Then there is the issue of the shortened slide positions. Anyway, excuses, excuses... I managed to get a tune out of it, just."

Gavin Dixon writes on classical music and instruments at Orpheus Complex. Thanks to the Horniman Museum for sharing this intriguing instrument with us, and check out their blog for more from their fascinating collections. 


Objects of Intrigue is a feature highlighting extraordinary objects from the world's great museums, private collections, historic libraries, and overlooked archives. See more incredible objects here >








Funerals in the Vatican: Discovering the Final Rites of the Popes

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article-imageThe Pope lying in state at the National Museum of Funeral History (all images courtesy the museum)

Two late 20th century Catholic leaders — Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII — will be canonized into sainthood on April 27. The event will be live streamed around the world, but it is not the only posthumous honor for the pontiffs. Over in the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston, Texas, the funerary traditions of the Vatican are explored in an elaborate exhibition. 

Celebrating the Lives and Deaths of the Popes opened in 2008, and the museum is offering it as an opportunity to learn more about what happens when a Pope dies, beyond potential sainthood. Like anything within the Holy See, there is much pomp and ritual, and it's something most of us rarely get to see. A life-size diorama of the deceased in repose and a multimedia installation take visitors right inside a funeral mass in St. Peter's Basilica and its square. 

article-imageReplica of the tomb of Pope John Paul II

The museum, started in 1992, is dedicated to the history of mourning around the world, with exhibitions including Fantasy Coffins from Ghana19th century mourning customs, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Lives and Deaths of the Popes is the result of three years of collaboration with the Vatican, even working with the papal tailor to create replica vestments.

A meticulous copy of the coffin used in the burial of the three previous popes is on display, as well as a duplicate of Pope John Paul II's crypt, the full installation aiming to give you "a true sense of attending a Pope's funeral." As the title promises, there are also artifacts related to papal life, including the "Pope-mobile" that Pope John Paul II rode in during his 1982 UK tour. 

article-image1982 Pope-mobile

Over in Pope John Paul II's former home in Wadowice, Poland, another high tech experience is opening today: the Museum of the Holy Father John Paul II Family Home. Pope John XXIII before sainthood received one of the ultimate holy rites — his body was exhumed under Pope John Paul II himself and is now on display in a glass coffin in Saint Peter's.

As both now move into sainthood, the details of their lives from birth to death will likely get even more attention, and the National Museum of Funeral History is the best chance to understand their mortal end. And on your way out, don't forget your souvenir Lives and Deaths of the Popes coffee mug from the gift shop.

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Celebrating the Lives and Deaths of the Popes is at the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston, Texas.









Destruction on the Horizon for the Eiffel Tower of Moscow

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article-imageShukhov Tower in Mosco (photograph by Ivtorov/Wikimedia)

It's been compared to the Eiffel Tower and is celebrated by architects around the world, but after a century of looming over Moscow the Shukhov Tower may be destroyed.

Built from 1920 to 1922 after a design by Vladimir Shukhov, the 525-foot radio tower was commissioned by Lenin to broadcast into distant Soviet territories. Also known as the Shabolovka Tower, it was originally meant to be much taller — 1,150 feet — and was curtailed by a steel shortage due to the Civil War. Now it may be dismantled because of structural concerns, a proposal given approval by the Russian State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting this February. 

article-imageInside the Shukhov Radio Tower (photograph by Arssenev/Wikimedia)

Architects and Moscow citizens aren't ready to let the lattice tower go, with thousands of locals and numerous architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and Elizabeth Diller expressing their dismay at its demise. They argue that it should be preserved as the architectural and engineering achievement that it is. 

Photographer Richard Pare, co-author of the open letter to President Putin, told the BBC: "It is a transcendent structure. The sensation of standing underneath it is so uplifting, it makes you feel weightless. It soars upwards."

article-imageView from inside the Shukhov Tower (photograph by Maxim Fedorov)

The preservation letter proclaims, according to the Guardian, that the tower "is one of the emblems of Moscow, and one of the superlative engineering feats of the 20th century, still influencing and enriching technical and architectural ideas globally." What makes the elegant old tower so special is the man behind it. Vladimir Shukhov was incredibly inventive with his designs that incorporated innovative mathematics as well as the early modernist Constructivist movement.

The Shukhov Tower takes a hyperboloid shape — such as you might find at the Sagrada Família or a nuclear plant cooling tower — and incorporates a diagrid so it can be very tall while surviving the wind. Shukhov first experimented with hyperboloids through a tower in Polibino in 1896. By the time he was working on the tower in Moscow he had refined the ideas into such a deft combination of material and form he likely could have succeeded if it had made it to its planned height. 

However, due to the nature of his towers which were designed for radios and electricity, many became obsolete, such as one pylon that sits rusting on the Oka River. Constructivism and Shukhov's style of building ended with Stalin, who preferred a sterner, anti-experimental architecture. Some have proposed relocating the Shukhov Tower and claiming the space for some new construction that might soar as high. Yet that would not have the same lofty elegance or influential history in its form, which stands as a reminder of early 20th century optimism for a Soviet future that never arrived. 

article-imageThe Shukhov Tower in Moscow (photograph by Ivtorov/Wikimedia)








The Radical Victorian Lady behind an Essential Collection of Botanical Art

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article-imageThe Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens (photograph by Jim Linwood)

Walking into the Marianne North Gallery is like entering a palace of color. The walls are plastered in vibrant greens, oranges, and fuchsias, jammed together in a luscious collage. Small squares of bright oil paintings line the doorways, luring visitors further inside.

Housed in a small building off a side path at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London, the gallery was designed in 1882 by artist Marianne North and her friend, architect James Fergusson. Two full rooms display 833 botanical paintings created by North in her 13 years of travel around the globe, along with 246 different types of wood collected by North during her journeys. 

article-imageMarianne North (courtesy A McRobb/RBG Kew)

North was an unusual woman for her time. She believed religion to be “mumbo jumbo,” marriage to be “a terrible experiment,” and travel companions to be “tiresome.” She was determined, energetic, ambitious and, according to her brother-in-law, “a little satirical.” This independent woman was the oldest daughter of a wealthy political family in London. When her mother died when she was 24, she was asked to look after her aging father. For the next 15 years, North remained unmarried and traveled extensively with her father in his work as a prominent member of Parliament.

When she was 37, North was introduced to painting and found it seductive and addictive, “like dram drinking,” she reported in her 1894 autobiography Recollections of a Happy Life, Being the Autobiography of Marianne North. When her father died a few years later, North was 39 and left without her confidante and good friend. She was also left in charge of a sizable inheritance, and soon decided to venture out on her own to document the world’s biodiversity with her easel.

article-imageMarianne North painting a Tamil boy in Ceylon (1877) (photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron)

She preferred to travel alone, though she carried plenty of letters of introduction to ambassadors and heads of state to ease her arrival in foreign lands. North traveled to 16 countries on six continents and lived a life free of the societal pressures of a typical upper-class woman of the day, preferring huts or locals’ homes to fancy hotels. Crossing raging rivers, traveling at top speed on donkey carts, traversing mosquito-infested jungles — nothing stopped this woman from getting the most unusual specimens for her work. And she painted feverishly, producing over 1,000 pieces of art. 

What made North special, in addition to her utter lack of formal art training, was her preference for working in the environment where her specimens appeared naturally. She captured each plant where it grew, often including more than one species in a painting.

article-image"Honeyflowers and Honeysuckers" (1882), South Africa (via WikiPaintings)

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"The Aqueduct of Morro Velho" (1873), Brazil (via WikiPaintings)

When she exhibited in London in 1879, her full-color paintings exploded on the art scene, bringing to adventure-hungry city dwellers the lush hues and textures of the tropics, deserts, and mountains. Soon after, the always-ambitious North asked Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker if she could donate a permanent exhibition hall to Kew Gardens in order to display her paintings. Hooker agreed. Once the gallery was built, North arranged the drawings by hand according to geographic location. (The Marianne North Gallery is still the only permanent solo exhibition by a female artist in Great Britain.)

article-imageEntrance to the Marianne North Gallery (photograph Jim Linwood)

article-imageThe Marianne North Gallery (photograph by Heather Cowper)

North’s legacy was clear even in her own time. Sir Hooker proclaimed her collection to be an important record of soon-to-be extinct species, and Charles Darwin, a family friend, requested she document the flora of Australia, New Zealand, and Tanzania to fill out her collection (which she did, despite her failing health). Though her lifestyle was controversial in her time, her work continues to be one of the world’s most important collections of historic botanical art. Four species are named in her honor.

Marianne North died in 1890 at the age of 59. Though the gallery was renovated in 2009, the paintings remain displayed exactly as North intended, creating a lively jamboree of color and shapes that celebrate the incredible diversity of the world’s plant life, and the incredible accomplishments of this determined woman.

article-imagePitcher plants of Borneo (1876) (via Wikimedia)

Recommended further reading: Abundant Beauty: The Adventurous Travels of Marianne North, Botanic Artist from Greystone Books.








Relics of the World's Fair: Brisbane

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article-imageExpo 88 in Brisbane (via Brisbane City Council)

After visiting ParisChicagoBarcelonaNew York CityMontrealSt. LouisMelbourneSeattleBrussels, and Knoxville, Atlas Obscura's final stop in this epic tour of World's Fair relics is Brisbane, Australia, host to the fair in 1988. 

Like with Knoxville, Brisbane had its own towering landmark for World Expo 88 — the Skyneedle, a 289-foot tall monumental tower constructed especially for the fair.   

article-imageThe Skyneedle (via Wikimedia)

Unlike the Knoxville Sunsphere, however, Brisbane never intended to keep it; fair organizers were in talks with the then-new Tokyo Disneyland to relocate the Skyneedle there after the fair's close. But a Brisbane businessman and hairdresser, Stefan Ackerie, outbid Tokyo Disney and bought it instead, so it could stay in Brisbane.  

Ackerie then moved it to his salon’s corporate headquarters, adding his logo to the Skyneedle’s tip. The logo was later removed, but Ackerie still has ownership of the Skyneedle, occasionally rigging up light shows from the tower for special events. The Skyneedle has since been re-named "Night Companion," but most in Brisbane still know it as the "Skyneedle." A local band even named themselves "Sky Needle" after the structure. 

article-imageThe Peace Pagoda (photograph by Richard Fisher)

Brisbane's other showiest relic is from Asia. Nepal’s pavilion at the 1988 fair took the form of a traditional Nepalese Peace Pagoda, and is one of only three such pagodas to be found outside Nepal. It is a close copy of a pagoda in Kathmandu, India, and amid the Buddhist statuary and Sanskrit inscriptions, the pagoda has prayers for peace in four languages. 

article-imageDetail of the Peace Pagoda (photograph by J Brew)

The Peace Pagoda was one of the most popular exhibits at the Brisbane fair, with Sir Edmund Hillary himself — the first person to scale Mount Everest — among its admirers. Today the Pagoda sits in Brisbane’s South Bank Parklands, close to its former 1988 Fair location.

Check out this vintage visit to see more of the wonders of Expo 88!


For more in our series on World's Fair relics, visit ParisChicagoBarcelonaNew York CityMontrealSt. LouisMelbourneSeattleBrussels, and Knoxville








The Dusty, Diminutive Inhabitants of the San Diego Model Train Museum

Into the Midnight Sun: How to Spend a Sunlit Night in Reykjavík

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Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...

article-imageReykjavík's Hallgrímskirkja at night in July (photograph by scuba_beer/Flickr user)

Centering around the Summer Solstice this June 21 will be the Midnight Sun.

The phenomenon casts a perpetual twilight rather than an evening as the sun just barely dips below the horizon in northern regions of the world. This is especially beautiful in Iceland, and in the capital city Reykjavík people often choose to not sleep and party all night.

There's no shortage of bars and clubs around the main street of Laugavegur, but that's not the only way you can spend a sunlit night. While you of course have the option to stroll some of the strange and stunning architecture of the small city by the wavering light such as the futuristic Hallgrímskirkja church, you can also engage in some unique activities during the continuous sunset.  

For example, there is the Midnight Sun Run for those who like the feeling of running beneath the never-dark sky, or you can play golf at the Arctic Open. You can also take a bike tour and see the city sights at 3 am as if it was still the afternoon.

This year is the debut of the Secret Solstice, a June 20-22 festival utilizing the 72 hours of daylight to showcase bands like Massive Attack alongside festivities celebrating Norse mythology. Another option is the wonderful midnight summer solstice party at the Blue Lagoon, a spa set in the run off of an electrical power plant.

article-image Blue Lagoon (photograph by Christophe Pinard)

article-imageWhale watching in Iceland (photograph by Antonio Picascia)

Another fantastic Midnight Sun activity is whale watching at midnight with Elding tours that runs the Midnight Sun excursions to see humpback whales, minke whales, dolphins, and other marine creatures from mid-June until July.

Finally, for something more traditional, head out of the city limits for the Jónsmessa festival on June 24 where families and friends construct bonfires for the saint day of St. John the Baptist. This was traditionally seen as a special time for nature, when animals could gain voices and people were encouraged to take off their clothes and roll in the grass under the surreal Midnight Sun. We encourage the continuation of such behavior. 

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The midnight sun (photograph by Gudny Olafsdottir)


Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...








Waterways That May Run Their Course: America's 10 Most Endangered Rivers

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article-imageMaroon Bells mountains on the White River (via US Department of Agriculture)

The rivers of the United States are essential to drinking water for millions of Americans and the survival of natural communities around their banks, but they are drying up and being corralled by dams and diversions. The nonprofit environmental advocacy group American Rivers released their America's 10 Most Endangered Rivers for 2014 list earlier this month outlining those waterways in the greatest danger.

The ranking was determined by the level of reliance of both humans and nature alike, the strength of the threat, and the imminence of decisions that will be impacting the rivers' future. The peril for the rivers ranges from outdated dam and fish passage systems such as at Washington's White River and California's San Francisquito Creek, to the reduction of floodplains and increase of diversions as with two giants of riverdom: the Middle Mississippi River and Upper Colorado River. Then there are development and industrial issues like the "megaload" trucks that pass by Idaho's Middle Fork Clearwater-Lochsa River creating both a visual and environmental blight, as well as the wastewater runoff polluting North Carolina's Haw River

However, at the top of the list is California's San Joaquin River. The largest river in the state gets the harrowing first place for its dated water management which has left much of it running dry, even as it provides drinking water for millions. American Rivers' mission is to raise the public profile of these rivers, which is especially essential for San Joaquin. As Scientific American reports, there are two major legislative and management decisions impending on San Joaquin, including the state's Water Resources Control Board updating its Bay Delta Water Quality Plan, along with a potentially devastating overturning of a settlement agreement for its restoration by Congress.

Below are the top 10 most endangered rivers per the American Rivers report, and their site includes information on what you can do to help protect them from deteriorating further. 

1 - San Joaquin River, California

article-imageSan Joaquin River (photograph by Richard E. Ellis)

2 - Upper Colorado River, Colorado

article-imageColorado River (via Grand Canyon National Park)

3 - Middle Mississippi River, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky

article-imageAerial view of the Mississippi River (photograph by rmadlo119/Flickr user)

4 - Gila River, New Mexico

article-imageGila River downstream from Coolidge Dam (photograph by Alan Stark)

5 - San Francisquito Creek, California

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Searsville Dam on San Francisquito Creek (photograph by Gazebo/Wikimedia)

6 - South Fork Of The Edisto River, South Carolina

article-imageEdisto River in South Carolina (photograph by mogollon_1/Flickr user) 

7 - White River, Colorado

article-imageMaroon Lake on the White River (via US Department of Agriculture)

8 - White River, Washington 

article-imageWhite River's Triple Drop (photograph by Zachary Collier)

9 - Haw River, North Carolina

article-imageA rocky area of Haw River (photograph by Donald Lee Pardue)

10 - Middle Fork Clearwater & Lochsa Rivers, Idaho

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The Lochsa River in Clearwater National Forest (via Fredlyfish4/Wikimedia)


Read more about America's 10 Most Endangered Rivers for 2014 at American Rivers.

 








Into the Heart of Thrihnukagigur: A Trip Inside a Volcano

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Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...

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The Thrihnukagigur volcano (photograph by Mr Hicks46/Flickr user)

 There's only one volcano where visitors can descend into a magma chamber, and it's just 13 miles outside of Reykjavík, Iceland.

Thrihnukagigur — or "Three Peaks Crater" — opened to the public in 2012 after a campaign from cave explorer Árni B. Stefánsson to make it accessible. The visits have continued into this year, and from May 15 to September 13, tour operators Inside the Volcano will transport you down 394 feet on an open-air cable lift elevator into the heart of the volcano through a 12 foot by 12 foot cinder cone opening.

article-imageInside the volcano (photograph by Mr Hicks46/Flickr user)

The volcano, located in Bláfjöll Country Park, has been dormant for 4,000 years, although that doesn't mean it will never explode again. Iceland is a volatile place, sitting on top of where the Eurasian and North American plates slide apart. However, Inside the Volcano offers this confidence on their site: "We know what you are probably thinking — This is crazy and must be dangerous. But don’t worry, you will be surrounded by expert guides at all times and you can rest assured that extreme safety precautions are taken at every step of the process."

Still, it's not an adventure for the mild of heart — there is a 45 minute hike just to get to the entrance of the volcano. However, after you make it down past the walls of cooled magma in their vibrant patterns, you're greeted with traditional Icelandic soup and drinks. The cost per person is ISK 37.000 (~$327).

article-imageBláfjöll Country Park (photograph by Mr Hicks46/Flickr user)

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Volcano entrance (photograph by Mr Hicks46/Flickr user)

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The magma chamber (photograph by Mr Hicks46/Flickr user)

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Volcano walls (photograph by Mr Hicks46/Flickr user)

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At the bottom of the volcano (photograph by Olikristinn/Wikimedia user)


Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...









80 Years Later, Retracing the Real Life of Bonnie and Clyde

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Made into legends through books, comics, movies, songs, and TV specials, Bonnie and Clyde have lived on nearly 80 years after their deaths as a Depression era Romeo and Juliet. Brandishing high-powered machine guns and driving the newly invented Ford V-8s, Bonnie and Clyde are mythologized as Robin Hoods for the poor and destitute who had been failed by the American political and financial institutions.

article-imageClyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (via Library of Congress)

But what is the real story behind Bonnie — a girl from Cement City, Texas, a small industrial town three miles west of Dallas — and Clyde — a young man of 5-foot-6 with dark, wavy hair and tattoos on his arms that included a heart-dagger and the letters “U.S.N.” from a failed attempt to enter the Navy as a teenager?

Growing up in Dallas in the back room of his father’s filling station, Clyde’s first brush with the law came in 1926 when he was arrested for automobile theft as a result of neglecting to return a rental car. While these charges were dropped, Clyde was arrested again only three weeks later with his brother Buck — who would later initially refuse to join the Barrow gang during the height of its notoriety — for possession of a truck full of stolen turkeys.

article-imageThe Barrow filling station (all photographs by the author)

By 1930, Clyde was incarcerated in the Eastham Prison Farm on a 14-year term for automobile theft and robbery. Known as the “Murder House” or “The Bloody Ham,” Eastham was notorious for its tough working and living conditions, as well as guards who would beat inmates with trace chains and perform random spot killings, all of which was substantiated by the Texas state legislature and the Osborne Association on U.S. Prisons which ranked the Texas prison system as the worst in the nation in 1935.

During his time at Eastham, Clyde transformed from petty criminal to emotionless killer when he murdered Ed Crowder, a man who had been sexually assaulting him since he entered the prison. Clyde’s drive in life wasn’t to become a famous bank robber, as he is sometimes labeled; it was to take revenge on Eastham. It was here that he enlisted future gang member Ralph Fults in a plan to raise enough money and ammunition to raid the prison farm and kill all of the guards after his release. While at Eastham, Clyde went so far as to chop off two of his toes with an ax to secure a medical release from the grueling work. Ironically, six days later, on February 2, 1932, he was granted parole by Texas Governor Ross Sterling. 

What followed was a two-year stretch that saw the Barrow gang rise into the national consciousness.

article-image1933 Wanted Poster (via Texas State Library & Archives Commission)

The first bank heist occurred in April of 1932 at the First National Bank in Lawrence, Kansas. While the Barrow gang is often thought of as prolific bank robbers, they mostly robbed mom-and-pop filling stations, feed, and hardware stores. After a failed robbery attempt and a shootout in Kaufman County, Texas, Clyde and an associate named Raymond Hamilton escaped while Fultz and Bonnie Parker were jailed in a small one-room cell in Kemp, Texas. Fults was transferred back to prison, but Bonnie spent only one night in jail and was released. Though injured and wounded several times by officers during her two-year run with Clyde, Bonnie never shot anyone but herself. In 1932 she accidentally grazed two of her toes when a weapon she was holding for Clyde discharged.

“There’s actually no tellin’ how many times they were wounded,” said “Boots” Hinton, son of Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Ted Hinton, the youngest of six law enforcement officers who ambushed Bonnie and Clyde. Living in Gibsland, Louisiana, where he runs the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum in the rundown town eight miles north of the actual ambush site, Boots insists it was an old school method of detective work that brought the outlaws down: a prescription bottle in the floorboard of an abandoned car in Michigan; testimony from waitresses and store clerks; and major highways and back roads canvassed to catch the gang on the move.

article-imageBonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum in Gibsland, Louisiana

article-imageInside the Ambush Museum

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Guns in the Ambush Museum

While the carnage the Barrow gang left behind perpetuated an image of a murderous, blood-lusting gang, their flight through the Midwest was anything but disorganized. If you were to drive from the Barrow filling station outward, you’d come across a string of markers and historical sites that are abandoned, rural, or are lining roads where the gang was fleeing from law enforcement.

Not far west of the Barrow filling station is the abandoned shell of Bonnie’s primary school in the defunct town of Cement City — now West Dallas. Through this community Bonnie and Clyde drove in and out of town across the original Eagle Ford Road — known as “The Devil’s Back Porch” — to visit family members while they were being hunted.

article-imageBonnie Parker's primary school in Cement City

Also around the corner from the filling station is the small white house where Clyde gunned-down Deputy Malcom Davis as officers waited for the gang. Northwest of Dallas, Bonnie and Clyde were confronted on the side of the road by Patrolmen H. D. Murphy and Edward Wheeler, ensuing in a shootout that turned the tide of public opinion against them. The gang ran as far west as Wellington, Texas, in the Panhandle, and as far north as Michigan to avoid the law. They drove through ambushes, wrecked cars, and sprinted ahead of the law with their stolen Ford V-8s. But it was outside of Gibsland, Louisiana, that their run violently ended.

article-imageMemorial to Edward Wheeler & H. D. Murphy

Today, Boots is happy to talk about what he knows with anyone who stops in the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum. He recalls stories his father told him in the years after the final shootout, and he sees his place at the museum as a testament and honor to his father’s wishes: to tell what really happened not only on that fateful day in rural Louisiana, but across the timeline of the Barrow gang’s reign.

“[Henry Methvin] went underground, which was a damn smart thing,” Boots said, referring to a member of the gang who supposedly sold out Bonnie and Clyde to Texas lawmen. For several decades, the ambush was retold as a plan by Henry Methvin — and his father — to secure his own freedom by snitching on the outlaw couple, but Boots insists the real story was suppressed because of its illegality. The lawmen saw Ivan Methvin, Henry’s father, coming down the road and flagged him down. From there they tied him to a tree and beat him.

article-imageReplica of Bonnie & Clyde's car in the Ambush Museum

Methvin’s broken-down car was a decoy to stop Bonnie and Clyde. What ensued was a massacre and rain of bullets that has captured the imagination of generation after generation through American pop culture. But there is so much more to the story. Clyde’s brother, “Buck,” was shot in the head during another ambush at the abandoned Dexfield Amusement Park in Iowa and survived for six days before passing away in a hospital. Raymond Hamilton, the Barrow gang member at odds with the group and thought to be more murderous and heartless than Clyde, was sent to electric chair.

Bonnie and Clyde narrowly escaped traps in multiple states and were passed on the highway several times by lawmen who were unable to turn around and follow them. Boots even says that the first two shots fired into the ambush car struck Clyde in the head, but the car continue to roll forward while it was in neutral, prompting lawmen to pump round after round into the car, killing Bonnie and providing the image we have today.

article-imageBonnie & Clyde's car full of bullet holes, photo in the Ambush Museum

article-imageThe bodies of Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow, photos in the Ambush Museum

May 23 of this year will mark the 80th anniversary of the infamous ambush, and the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum will be holding a reenactment and festival in Gibsland to mark the occasion.

Bonnie and Clyde lived in a time when many were stealing to survive. They knew countless people sent to prison for petty crimes. But it was Clyde's experiences at Eastham that turned him from Depression era-criminal into half of the legend of Bonnie and Clyde. At one point in his post-prison career, he returned to initiate a prison break that killed one guard and helped free a few inmates. Yet the myth of Bonnie and Clyde may outlast the reality, even with these genuine moments of legend.

article-imageBonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum

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Site of the death of Bonne & Clyde Barrow in Gibsland, Louisiana

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Detail of the stone at their death site in Gibsland, Louisiana, with chips missing from visitors who took pieces as souvenirs

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Grave of Clyde Barrow in Western Heights Cemetery, Dallas, Texas


Find more tales of crime and punishment on Atlas Obscura >








Watching the World Go By: A Timelapse Tour of Iceland

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Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...

Iceland is a country of otherworldly beauty, and to see this alien landscape in person can stir the imagination like almost no other place. However, if you haven't yet had the chance to visit, there is one medium up to the challenge of breathing life into Iceland from your computer screen.

To create a time-lapse video, a still camera is set up on a tripod, and is programmed to take photos in evenly spaced intervals, say one photo every 10 seconds. The final product is a vision of many hours compressed into just a moment, resulting in a familiar world seen in an impossible way — clouds fly by, tides ebb and flow in a matter of seconds, the sun sets in a flash before your eyes. 

Iceland makes a perfect subject for this medium — its incredible scale, varied landscapes, and fantastical geological features have inspired many a time-lapse. From the mysterious light show of the Northern Lights threading across the sky, to ethereal gliding blue icebergs, to the eruption of a volcano, to the pink glow of the Midnight Sun, we've gathered some of the very best here, so hit play and journey to magical Iceland through a lens that, without the help of a camera, no mere mortal could see.

 

 

 


Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...








The Cartography of Sound

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article-imageMeasuring the singing sands at Kelso Dunes in California (photograph by Trevor Cox)

Plenty of guidebooks have photographs of stunning views and extensive texts on the sites to see, but rare are the resources for sound tourists. Trevor Cox, a professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford in the UK, recently published a book on his expeditions to the sonic destinations of the globe.

article-image"I had this idea that it would be interesting to think about places to explore, to take your ears on holiday, to hunt for the most remarkable sounds in the world," Cox told Atlas Obscura. The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World released earlier this year by W. W. Norton & Company, follows Cox from Great Britain to a road trip across the United States to obscure corners of the world as he experiences singing roadsbooming sand dunes, Mexico's Mayan Kukulkan Pyramid with its odd chirping effect, and other reverberations, echoes, and sound curiosities both subdued and grand. 

You can hear some of these discoveries at his Sound Tourism: A Travel Guide to Sonic Wonders site set up prior to the book as a way to crowdsource and investigate the greatest sound wonders on Earth. We're not quite to an Instagram for sounds where people would capture the clinking of brunch forks or wash of waves beneath a glorious sunset like we now do impulsively with images, but there is YouTube with its horde of vacation videos that Cox used as a resource. 

"Overall this was about awakening our listening and picking out things everyday in our travels to listen to," he said. He also focused on sounds that were unexpected or unintended, steering away from instruments (although with exceptions for the unusual, such as the Great Stalacpipe Organ built from 37 stalactites) and spaces designed for acoustics like concert halls. However, he took his over two decades of experience in acoustic engineering as a starting point, for example the knowledge of the acoustics of a curved room to look for buildings with a similar shape that may have been built for something completely separate from sound. 

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Inside the Teufelsberg spying station (photograph by Trevor Cox)

This perspective took him to the abandoned Teufelsberg spying station in Berlin, which was once used to house listening equipment and now lures urban explorers to its empty radome with its impressive ricocheting acoustics. He also delved into the Victorian-era subterranean infrastructure under London, the tidal organ of Blackpool that uses the movement of the ocean to power an airy instrument, ancient sites like Stonehenge, a Scottish oil storage space with the world's longest echo, and even visited scientists who carry ducks around to test the echoes of their quacks. Along the way in his book, he links in ideas from design, archaeology, biology, and neuroscience. From the incredibly elaborate call of the Superb Lyrebird in Australia to the connecting reverberations of the Bell Caves of Israel, the world is a sonically diverse and astounding place, but Cox is still appreciative of the noise of the everyday, even in urban spaces where the details can often get lost in the roar.   

"There are little bits of pleasure to be had even in a busy city," he said. "It’s just in the modern world often if we’re waiting for something we’ll get our phones out, but it is quite nice to sit and listen for a bit. We’re in spring now and the birds are all alive and singing furiously, there are things to listen to if we just take the time to listen."


The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World by Trevor Cox is available from W. W. Norton & Company. Visit Cox's Sonic Wonders site to explore the sounds of the world. 








A Guide to the Ice Caves of Iceland

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Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...

article-imageDescending into an Icelandic ice cave (photograph by Ben Husmann)

From the middle of November through March, Iceland's glaciers creak open, exposing surreal caverns.

These ice caves can be luminous or dark, depending on the pressure of the water in the glacier and their depth. The most otherworldly are the "Crystal Caves" of the Vatnajökull Glacier in Skaftafell National Park, the largest of Europe's glaciers, where the light filters blue into the wide chasms in the ice.

article-imageIce cave, Sólheimajökull (photograph by martin_vmorris)

article-imageIce Cave (photo by valakirka)

Visiting ice caves is extremely hazardous and only recommended with a guide, such as Local Guide of VatnajökullIcelandic Mountain GuidesGoecco Eco Adventures Iceland, and Glacier Guides. Each year these guides discover the season's caves, as each winter's offerings are different from the last. Once summer comes, the ice becomes unsafe for humans to enter due to the threat of collapse in the warmer temperatures.

article-imageCave in the Klofajökull glacier, Iceland (photograph by our-planet)

While Vatnajökull is without a doubt the star for photographers and tourists, it's not the only glacier with ice caves worth exploring. They also occur on the edges of the Skeiðarárjökull, Breiðamerkurjökull, Sólheimajökull, Svínafellsjökull, Klofajökull, and Kverkfjöll glaciers. Usually water that has melted into the cave pools at the bottom, offering stunning reflections of the light that is absolutely ethereal. And as the water is constantly melting and refreezing, you can never see the same ice cave twice, making each visit an exceptional experience. 


Atlas Obscura's Iceland Week is in partnership with Icelandair, who will fly you to this unreal wonderland for surprisingly cheap...








Essential Guide to Defying Gravity

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article-imageDefying gravity on the beach of Sydney in 1937 (via State Library of New South Wales)

Gravity got you down? Fight back! Gravity varies around the world, and you can actually weigh less in some places. Some locales feature high-tech equipment to let us fly or float. Some fool us into mistaking which way is up. Here is a this list of places where you can beat gravity using technology, trickery, and terrain.

 

TECHNOLOGY

Indoor Skydiving
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States and other tourist spots

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Indoor skydiving in Los Angeles (photograph by Boris Dzhingarov)

If you really want to tell gravity to shove off, the best way is to float on air. You can do just that in Sin City. Right on the Strip, you’ll find a room where you can don protective gear and float in mid-air — with the help of an engine from a DC-3. The propellor blows air up and you ride on the currents, protected from the blades by a cage. Similar indoor skydiving facilities exist in dozens of touristy places around the globe.

The Vomit Comet
The Atmosphere

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Astronauts in the "Vomit Comet" (1959) (via NASA

There are practical reasons for defying gravity, and one of those is to train astronauts. The idea is pretty simple: fly faster than gravity. A 727 flies parabolas in the air at speeds greater than terminal velocity, giving you the exact effect of zero gravity for a few minutes at a time. The movie Apollo 13 was filmed in the aptly-nicknamed "Vomit Comet." The official name of the aircraft is "Reduced gravity aircraft."

Jet Ski Jet Packs

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Jetlev in action (photograph by Robert Neff)

If you don’t mind strapping a very powerful water jet to your back, you can soar above the waves and perform aerobatics in the waters of Hawaii. A jet ski motor powers a powerful jet of water that keeps you in the air until you dive (or crash) back into the sea. Check out this video to see what it's really like. If you really want to feel what it’s like to fly, this may be your best bet. You can also enjoy this activity in Singapore and likely other places as the idea catches on. 

 

EARTHLY ANOMALIES 

Hudson Bay
Canada

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Hudson Bay's missing gravity (photograph via NASA)

Not satisfied with a cheap trick like floating? No problem. Hudson Bay in northern Canada has what you need. Though you can certainly float in this large body of water, you’ll truly weigh less as you bobbed along because there is less gravity there. Yes, you read that correctly. Hudson Bay has less gravity than most places on Earth. The reason is complex, involving the Earth’s crust rebounding after the end of the Ice Age. The Earth is slowing rising back up after being crushed by miles of ice above, and that upward force reduced the effect of gravity on you. In addition, magma beneath the surface is swirling in such a way that the mass of the area is reduced, and thus gravity is less.

The Dead Sea
Israel and Jordan

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Reading in the Dead Sea (photograph by Arian Zwegers)

Split down the middle by a treaty between Jordan and Israel, the Dead Sea's shores are lined with spas and beaches. If you’re brave enough to take a dip in the waters, you’ll notice something very odd: it’s hard to stand up. With no outlet, water collects in the Dead Sea and evaporates, leaving whatever was dissolved behind. Over the centuries, salts and minerals have built up enough to create giant salt pillars beneath the surface. Enter the water, and these minerals make your body rise much higher than you expect. You float like an inflatable doll would in the ocean. Be careful though, as all those minerals sting your eyes and any place you’ve shaved recently. Another weird fact: the Dead Sea coughs up balls of asphalt from time to time, a material which was once used to coat Egyptian mummies.

The Equator

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The Equator in Colombia (photograph by David A. Acosta S.)

You weigh less on the Equator than at the poles. Why? Because the Earth is spinning at about 1,000 mph at the Equator, causing a slight bulge around the Earth’s middle. The same force that causes it also impacts you, as does the fact that you’re farther from the Earth’s center. You can weigh as much as a pound less on the Equator than at the North or South Pole. Need help spotting the Equator? There are markers around the planet's circumference, including the Middle of the World in Ecuador and the Equator Monument in Indonesia.

 

ILLUSIONS

Gravity Hills

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Magnetic Hill in Australia (photograph by Roo72/Wikimedia)

Located all over the world are deceptive optical tricks known as "gravity hills," "spook hills," or "magnetic hills." The illusion is that your car or even your bicycle seems to roll uphill. Visual cues in the area include slightly tilted signs or fence posts, and the fact that roads are "crowned," meaning they're higher in the middle than on the edges, giving the impression that up is down. What we think is a straight line is actually off-center. Though this is definitely not a gravitational anomaly, it can be fun to trick your senses into thinking it is. Visit Mooresville's Gravity Hill in Indiana, Electric Brae Gravity Hill in Scotland, Spook Hill in Florida, the Uphill-Downhill Road of Ariccia in Italy, or your local "haunted" road. 

Mystery Spots

article-imageVintage photo from the now defunct Wisconsin Wonder Spot (via Wisconsin Historical Society)

Similar to gravity hills, “Mystery Spots” are tourist attractions that create elaborate optical illusions which allow you to imagine you’re defying the laws of gravity. Popular in the 1940s and 1950s as Americans took to the roads in search of adventures, and, despite their claims, they're all playing tricks with tilted lines and disorientation. While many of these have now closed, there are still several you can visit, including California's Confusion Hill and the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, Michigan's St. Ignace Mystery Spot, South Dakota's Cosmos Mystery Area, and Oregon Vortex — Gold Hill, Oregon, United States

 

HONORABLE MENTION

Dogtown
Gloucester, Massachusetts, United States

article-imageSome of the many carved virtues (via Wikimedia)

For a completely different escape from gravity, there is Massachusetts' Dogtown. Throughout the woods of this 18th century ghost town are large granite boulders inscribed with words of inspiration. The rocks were commissioned by the eccentric Roger Babson who dedicated himself to anti-gravity research after his son tragically died in a plane crash. The words are simple pieces of wisdom that Babson hoped to impart upon future generations along with his gift of anti-gravy, which has yet to come to fruition. While you may not weigh less here, the boulders serve as a testimony to his efforts, as does his Gravity Research Foundation which is still in existence. 

So whether you choose the achievement of technology, the comfort (or discomfort) of illusion, or the Earth's own inconsistencies, you need not be a slave to gravity. Defy it! However, whatever you choose, know that what goes up must come down. 








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