Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Irvington, NY
This exuberant pink Victorian residence was transformed in the 1870s into an eight-sided domed house inspired by nineteenth-century octagon-house theories. It remains a private residence, and both the house and grounds are accessible only through advance ticketed guided tours.
Kent, NY
Chuang Yen Monastery occupies more than 200 wooded acres and houses an enormous indoor Buddha surrounded by thousands of smaller Buddha images. The Buddhist Association of the United States welcomes visitors to the monastery at designated times, but religious services and current visitor schedules should be respected.
Brooklyn, NY
Coney Island USA's Sideshows by the Seashore continues the neighborhood's freak-show and circus-sideshow tradition with sword swallowers, fire performers and other live acts. The organization describes it as the last permanently housed circus sideshow in the United States, but performances follow a seasonal schedule rather than running every day of the year.
Oneida, NY
Built in 1989 on a tiny platform in the middle of Mason's Pond, Cross Island Chapel measures only about 28 square feet and has been promoted as the world's smallest church. The chapel is reached by boat for private ceremonies, but ordinary travelers should view it from the public roadside rather than attempting to cross the pond.
Orchard Park, NY
A natural gas seep burns inside a small grotto behind this waterfall in Chestnut Ridge Park, creating the strange sight of fire flickering through falling water. Reaching the flame requires a wooded hike and a walk along Shale Creek, and muddy or wet conditions are common.
East Otto, NY
More than 250 large-scale sculptures are scattered through fields, forests and ponds across one of the oldest outdoor sculpture parks in the country. The main Mill Valley Road section is generally open from May through October and involves walking trails over varied terrain.
Newport, NY
Visitors break apart exposed dolostone to search for naturally double-terminated quartz crystals known as Herkimer diamonds, which formed roughly 500 million years ago. The fee-dig surface mine operates seasonally and provides basic tools and instruction, with anything found by visitors theirs to keep.
Howes Cave, NY
Howe Caverns takes visitors deep underground through limestone passages, enormous chambers and an underground lake first explored commercially in the nineteenth century. The cave operates as a guided attraction with scheduled tours from its Discovery Drive visitor complex.
Mount Tremper, NY
The Kaatskill Kaleidoscope is a roughly 60-foot silo converted into an immersive walk-in kaleidoscope at the Emerson Resort in Mount Tremper, not Shokan proper. It opened in 1996, and visitors today buy admission to stand inside while projected imagery and sound transform the silo interior.
Lake George, NY
Stand on the marked X behind the Lake George Visitor Center and speak toward the lake; your voice returns as a strange focused echo that people standing only a few feet away may not hear the same way. The free public spot has accumulated both acoustic explanations and supernatural folklore and remains physically marked in Blais Park.
Pottersville, NY
A massive marble arch spans Trout Brook here, forming what is promoted as the largest marble cave entrance in the eastern United States. Seasonal trails lead through caves, potholes and unusual rock formations, with access dependent on the attraction's operating schedule and weather.
Saugerties, NY
Sculptor Harvey Fite spent nearly four decades assembling this sprawling bluestone earthwork by hand from millions of pieces of local stone. The six-acre labyrinth of ramps, terraces, walls and platforms is open seasonally as an outdoor arts site.
Panama, NY
Towering conglomerate formations create narrow passageways, caves and crevices through an old-growth forest at this privately operated park. The one-mile rock trail is open seasonally with paid admission, and visitors can walk directly among the formations rather than viewing them from a distance.
Prattsville, NY
Nineteenth-century businessman and congressman Zadock Pratt commissioned enormous carvings of himself, his family and symbols of his life directly into a Catskills cliff face. The free public park requires a steep climb from the road to reach the carvings, including an unfinished chamber originally intended as Pratt's tomb.
Wilmington, NY
This vintage Christmas theme park opened in 1949 and helped pioneer the modern American theme-park concept with a year-round North Pole village built around Santa Claus. The park is closed for much of 2026 for improvements but has announced limited winter-season reopening dates, so verify the calendar before routing visitors here.
Howes Cave, NY
Secret Caverns is a deliberately old-school show cave reached by descending 103 steps into a winding underground passage. The guided route ends at a roughly 100-foot underground waterfall, and the attraction is open daily during its 2026 season.
Romulus, NY
The fenced former Seneca Army Depot became home to the world's largest known herd of all-white white-tailed deer, descended from animals protected inside the military property for decades. Deer Haven Park now runs seasonal driving and bus tours through the old depot, combining the unusual herd with abandoned ammunition igloos and Cold War history.
Hammond, NY
This stone castle on Dark Island was built beginning in 1902 for Frederick Gilbert Bourne, president of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Guided seasonal tours reveal hidden passageways, concealed doors and secret observation spaces, but reaching the island requires a boat.
Cazenovia, NY
Large contemporary sculptures are scattered across more than 100 acres of fields, woods and trails at this outdoor art park founded in 1991. Visitors can wander the grounds from dawn to dusk and encounter the work as part of the landscape rather than inside a conventional gallery.
Flanders, NY
Built in 1931 to sell ducks and eggs, this roughly 20-foot-tall duck-shaped building became such a famous example of novelty architecture that similar buildings are sometimes called "ducks." It is now owned by Suffolk County and operates as a visitor center and gift shop, generally open seven days a week.
New York, NY
Walter De Maria arranged 500 polished brass rods in five precisely spaced rows inside this SoHo storefront, creating a total combined length of one kilometer. The 1979 installation remains permanently maintained by Dia Art Foundation and is free to visit during posted hours.
Jamestown, NY
Jamestown’s giant chair is the Iconic Jamestown Chair, a public-art tribute to the city’s once-dominant furniture industry. Fancher Chair Co. built the oversized oak club chair from a historic Jamestown Lounge Company design and installed it downtown in July 2019; it remains a public photo spot at West Third and Lafayette streets.
New York, NY
Walter De Maria filled a second-floor SoHo loft with roughly 250 cubic yards of earth in 1977, turning an ordinary interior into a permanent room of dark soil. Dia Art Foundation maintains the installation and allows visitors to see it for free during posted weekly hours.
Cherry Valley, NY
This giant concrete-and-steel tepee has stood beside U.S. Route 20 since the 1950s as a surviving piece of classic American roadside architecture. It still operates as a gift shop and overlook, so visitors can stop rather than simply photograph it while driving past.
