8 Secret places in NYC That Only Real New Yorkers Know About

Rob Grams • May 27, 2016

This is the reason our out of town friends come to us to show them around. Because only real New Yorkers know all the curious, sometimes weird and sometimes beautiful, but always interesting things to see in NYC.

The Masstransiscope Subway Mural

If you regularly travel the B or Q train from DeKalb Avenue to Manhattan, then you’re no stranger to the Masstransiscope Subway Mural… but blink and you’ll miss it, it only takes 15-17 seconds to pass it completely. Go check it out now if you haven’t seen it before it gets tagged-to-death.

The Mott Haven Substation

What looks like a normal row of fancy houses to visitors is actually more than meets the eye. Bronx residents know there’s a secret inside, a Con Edison Substation. Built in 2007, and looking like expensive housing, what’s inside is actually keeping all the neighborhood lights on.

The Tabernacle of Prayer Church

Jamaica Ave, Queens, holds one of the greatest secret jewels of the city. It’s not uncommon to see old movie theaters re-purposed into gyms, churches or pharmacies, but Tabernacle of Prayer church is something very different and special. From stunningly ornate facade to the mind-blowing interior you see in the image above, it’s hard to believe you’re in NYC and not on some distant foreign shore.

The Berlin Wall

In a corporate Midtown public plaza stands a relic of the Cold War era. What once separated communist East Germany from West now stands as public art for people on their lunch break. If you want to see a real slice of recent history, head on over to see this section of the Berlin wall.

The Submarine in Coney Island Creek

Yes, you read it correctly, there’s an abandoned submarine in Coney Island Creek… and yes, that’s right Beatles fans, it’s yellow. The 45-foot vessel was built from salvaged metal some forty years ago by Jerry Bianco, a local shipyard worker, and stands a few hundred yards from the southern shore of the creek. “Quester I”, the ships original name, was designed to raise the Andrea Doria, an ocean liner that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 1956. Obviously… it didn’t make it.

Morbid Anatomy Museum

This nonprofit museum in Brooklyn is definitely worth visiting, though perhaps wait a few hours after eating. With regularly changing exhibitions from both private and public collections, the Morbid Anatomy Museum deserves a lot more attention than it gets… although, if the morbid and the macabre isn’t your thing then perhaps you’ll want to wait in the gift shop.

Secret train tracks underneath the Waldorf Astoria

dc88bc4c83e1064fac42bd49f4b6c0e6 — [pinterest]

This sounds like the original Bat Cave! Before the time of private jets and stretch limos with tinted windows, if you were a celebrity and you wanted to arrive in style or in secret you’d do it by rail. Yes once upon-a-time private trains stations were today’s private jets… and while we’re on the subject of private jests…

77 Water Street Rooftop

When you think “Wall Street” you probably think of high finance, bankers… or maybe Micheal Douglas. While most who work in the financial district may dream of one day owning a private airplane they they probably don’t want that plane to be a non -functioning replica of a WW1 fighter plane. Shame, because that’s exactly what is sitting on the rooftop of 77 Water Street.

Featured Image Source [afterthefinalcurtain]