kickassNYC

Like the name might suggest, the walls of this bar are covered in – who guessed it? – gold. The most famous part is the glowing “ossuary” of gold skulls, but everything from the paintings to the tables are gilt with the precious metal.

Slide through the non descript telephone booth at Crif Dogs to access this speakeasy.

Originally a welfare hotel, Carlton Arms re-vamped itself by beginning an art-in-residence program  through the Carlton Arms Art Project. Up-and-coming artists from all over the world came to design and hand-decorate every room and every inch of space.  Today it is a super cute, arty hostel – Banksy, street artist extraordinaire, has also painted here.

Japanese futuristic hotel located in Times Square with a “space age minimalist” and “futuristic technology” feel. Cabins have motorized beds that can change into sofas, and a techno wall with a flat screen TV.

A quirky, vintage-style hotel that features rooms modeled after old-fashioned train cabins. Its old-timey touches include bellhops, maids in black-and-white uniforms, carved moose heads, and stuffed monkeys wearing fez hats. The American Seaman’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute, as it was originally known, was designed by William A. Boring (the architect who created Ellis Island’s immigrant station). As the name might suggest, it was originally built for sailors. In 1912, the hotel housed the survivors of the Titanic, and the ship’s surviving crew held a memorial service there four days after the tragedy.

Sci-fi nerds, prepare yourself for one of the coolest geek-chic bars around. The Way Station is a steampunk bar with a bathroom that replicates TARDIS, from Doctor Who (the wall is even autographed by Matt Smith, the show’s star). The cocktail names even reference shows like Game of Thrones and Battlestar Galactica.

In a city of skyscrapers, Walter De Maria has created an “interior sculpture” in the second floor of a SoHo storefront that consists of 280,000 pounds of Manhattan soil lying in a 3,600-square-foot room. It is exactly what the name suggests.

See 10 live acts and attractions in the home of sideshow culture. Acts include sword-swallowing, contortion, knife-juggling, and more.

Gowanus Canal has long had a reputation for being one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States. In 2010, it was even labeled a Superfund site. In spite (or because) of this, Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club is offering self-guided canoe tours with the goal of educating people about its history as a busy cargo transportation hub, and its future with environmental cleanup efforts.

A narrow little island in the middle of the East River. In the 1800s, the city bought the island to create a “city of asylums” in what was an attempt to create a more humane space for prisoners and the mentally ill. The island housed several hospitals, mental institutions, and prisons, and one penitentiary in particular became steeped in scandal (think uprisings, nude men swimming for their freedom, and boss gangsters running the joint). Celebrity prisoners there included Mae West and Emma Goldman. Nellie Bly also visited one of the mental institutions undercover, and wrote a stirring expose about the mistreatment of the “mentally ill” housed there (along with the actually mentally ill, many of the patients were women who were committed by their husbands for being insubordinate). There are still remains of the smallpox hospital, lunatic asylum, and library.