Coming to New York City?

Already live here, but looking for something different, off the beaten track to do?

Well here are 10 cool and strange places to visit in Brooklyn, the best borough in the city…

The Historical and Infamous Headquarters of Murder Inc

During the 1930s, this corner store, the Midnight Rose Candy Store, was run by Mrs. Rosie Gold. Secretly, Rosie was running an assassination business, complete with a row of pay-phones on the wall, where gangsters could call in to order hits from the ‘regular’ patrons (hitmen), who made it their hangout.

The store is still there. The phones are gone and most of the hitmen met their end by riding the lightning in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, but you can shop in the new store and imagine the mayhem of days gone by.

The Largest Individual Building in the World? Brooklyn Army Terminal Building B

You have to book a tour to see it, but this historic building and complex served to launch the U.S. Military efforts during WWII.

It’s so huge that trains pulled right into the middle of it to unload and load cargo.

More than 20,000 people worked there during the war, and it continued to operate until 1966.

Now it’s a secure industrial park, with tenants in the offices overlooking the massive atrium, where the tracks are empty and the cranes, silent. But there are organized tours twice a month, and an open house in October.

Vinegar Hill, an Historic Remnant of 19th Century Brooklyn

If you want to know what the borough was like in the early to mid 19^th century, then you need to head over to Vinegar Hill.

There you will find a few preserved cobblestone streets, where Irish immigrants walked, talked, and struggled to make a living in a new world.

You’ll find Greek Revival row houses and the cobblestone streets. Make sure to stroll down Hudson Avenue, one of the best preserved streets in the neighborhood. Also check out Front Street between Bridge and Gold, and Gold Street right around Water Street.

Ghost Boats and a Yellow Submarine in Calvert Vaux Cove

A real hidden treasure, if you love abandoned and derelict sites, is Calvert Vaux Cove, at the end Coney Island Creek at Gravesend Bay.

You have to go past a junkyard (more fascinating stuff), and through some tall grass to reach it.

There you’ll find the graveyard of an old capsized boat. You can also see the burnt and ruined hulls of barges, and even the top of Quester I, a yellow submarine that sank in 1967.

The Tomb of Secrets: Greenwood Cemetery

This might be one of the weirdest places to visit on the list.

If you go, be prepared with your deepest, darkest secret, because there’s a tombstone there, where you can drop it! Yeah, weird, right?

There’s a white obelisk on Bay Grove Hill, a the junction of Bay Grove Path and Bayside Ave. On it you’ll see this inscription: “Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery.”

There’s a slot in the obelisk where you can drop the secret you’d never tell anyone…

It’s actually a public art project. Also weird…

But don’t worry, periodically, the artist, Sophie Calle, comes to retrieve them and burn them, so your secret is safe…

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store

Admit it. You’ve always wanted to be Batman.

Who hasn’t, right?

Well, at this awesome store, you can! Or you can be the superhero of your choosing.

Or even an arch-nemesis! That might be more fun anyway…

They have all kinds of cool stuff: costumes, ray-guns, mind reading gear, and even a black hole in a bottle.

How awesome is that?

There’s even a secret student writing club and center hidden behind a false bookcase. Nothing is stranger or cooler than a bookcase revealing a secret lair of student writers.

This place will get your Spidey-senses tingling!

Have a Drink with the Butcher of Hanover at the House of Wax Bar

Okay, this one is creepy, but if that’s what you’re lookin’ for, then you’re not gonna be disappointed at the House of Wax.

They have a collection from an old wax museum in Berlin, which opened in 1866 and closed in 1922. Even at the time it was weird.

You’ll find the wax body of Fritz Haarmann, the Butcher of Hanover (a serial killer), along with other bizarre stuff, like death masks, and wax models of medical anomalies, like syphilis, and tuberculosis.

You can check out the over 100 anatomical models, death masks, and other bizarre wax figures, while sipping on drinks from three categories: Anatomicals, Pathologicals, and Geographicals.”

Uhhhh what??

I’m in!

Catch a Concert in the Robotic Church

Hidden within the old Norwegian Seaman’s Church in Red Hook, is one strange, but cool art project… The Robotic Church.

It’s the genius of Chico MacMurtrie and his Amorphic Robot Works.

Here you will find an assortment of robots, from a foot tall, to over 15 feet tall, performing rhythmic and musical stuff.

But you can’t just walk in. Nope, you gotta sign up to find out when the next show will be. This is something you definitely want to put on your strange but cool list of things to do in Brooklyn.

Be a Pinball Wizard at the Sunshine Laundromat

If you love clean clothes and playing pinball, then this is probably the coolest destination on the list, for you.

Outside, it looks like any other city laundromat, but step inside, and you’ll see a line of classic pinball machines. (You can almost hear Elton John warming up…)

But in the backroom, hidden behind a row of actual washing machines and dryers, is a bar, and over 200 classic pinball machines. Yeah, 200.

You can find all your favs: AC/DC’s Back in Black, the Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, Star Trek: the Next Generation, and the list goes on…

And if you’re thirsty, they have a bar, the only laundromat in NYC with a license to serve booze.

But if it’s beer and booze you’re looking for, then you have to head to the last place on our list…

Super Cool and Not so Strange Circa Brewing Company

All that exploring of bizarre, weird, strange, and abandoned places will work up a powerful thirst for the best handcrafted beer in Brooklyn.

Well, make sure to add one last destination to your itinerary: Circa Brewing Company.

We have beers for everyone, from pilsners to stouts, smooth to hoppy.

And we have amazing food, too.

Come in on Saturday or Sunday from 11am to 3pm, for our Bottomless Brunches!

We have all day happy hours on Tuesdays, trivia on Wednesday nights, and karaoke on most Sunday nights!

Well, there ya have it: ten cool and strange things to do in Brooklyn, NY. See them one at a time, or schedule a couple days to race through them.

Just make sure you stay on the good side of Rosie Gold, though…