189 Best Sights in USA

Built in two segments a few years apart, the Monadnock captures the turning point in high-rise construction. Its northern half, designed in 1891 by Burnham & Root, was erected with traditional load-bearing masonry walls (6 feet deep at the base). In 1893 Holabird & Roche designed its southern half, which rose around the soon-to-be-common steel skeleton. The building's stone-and-brick exterior, shockingly unornamented for its time, led one critic to liken it to a chimney. The lobby is equally spartan; lined on either side with windowed shops, it's essentially a corridor, but one well worth traveling. Walk it from end to end and you'll feel as if you're stepping back in time.

A showpiece on downtown Madison's skyline, this contemporary, curvy white structure hugs Lake Monona's shoreline. Although designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the 25,000-square-foot structure was not completed until 1997, long after his death. Events include a summer dance series on the rooftop and tapings of the Wisconsin Public Radio show "Whad'Ya Know?" Lake Vista Café, open May through October, is within a charming rooftop garden with a sculpture of musician Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash in Lake Monona, nearby, in 1967. The indoor GrandView Cafe opens during major events in the building. The center also houses Madison's Sports Hall of Fame.

Governors lived in this Victorian mansion between 1913 and 1959. You can take a scheduled guided tour, but call ahead, because some tours are unexpectedly canceled.

Built in 1887 by Captain William Moore and his son Ben Moore, the tiny cabin was the first structure erected in Skagway. An early homesteader, Captain Moore prospered from the flood of miners, constructing a dock, warehouse, and sawmill to supply them, and selling land for other ventures. Next door, the larger Moore House (1897–98) contains interesting exhibits on the Moore family. Both structures are maintained by the Park Service, and the main house is open daily in summer.

This 1989 limestone-and-granite edifice by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill looks back to the art deco days without becoming a victim of fashion's past. Four floors of the 38-story tower are dedicated to a radio and television broadcasting facility.

Delaware's colonial capital until 1777 is a pristine museum of state history, its three brick wings topped by a white cupola and spire. Tours and interpretive programs highlight colonial and state history and early governmental systems.

Erected by Freemasons in 1957, the hall is familiar to locals mostly as a concert and lecture venue, where such notables as Van Morrison and Trevor Noah have appeared. But you don't need a ticket to check out the outdoor war memorial or artist Emile Norman's impressive lobby mosaic. Mainly in rich greens and yellows, it depicts the Masons' role in California history.

The construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad was instrumental in opening up the West to settlers, and the arrival of the line in Missoula is a key point in the city's history. The depot, opened in 1901, is an example of the Renaissance Revival architecture that dominates the north end of downtown. Today, the depot houses private offices, but you can still look around inside, enjoy a picnic outside, and examine Crossings, a sculpture of giant red-enamel Xs representing railroad trestles over mountain ravines.

Erected in 1929, this triangular, 12-story art deco office building is the anchor of the North-Milwaukee–Damen intersection and is used as a reference point from miles around. According to the Chicago Tribune, some artists dubbed it the Coyote Building in the 1980s, because they thought that the base attaching the flagpole to the rest of the tower "resembled a coyote howling at the moon." The tower has a café on the ground floor, a hotel (The Robey Chicago), a rooftop lounge, and a club.

Built in 1865, Old City Hall is a historic site and served as the municipal seat of government for 38 of Boston's mayors, including famous ones like John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, James Curley, and Kevin White. In its courtyard, find Richard S. Greenough's bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin and a mural marking the original site of the Boston Latin School. Today, Old City Hall is an office building. While you can't really venture too far inside the building, do go up and check out the murals around its entrance.

In the 19th century, this graceful, gambrel-roof, early-Georgian structure—built in 1718 on land once owned by religious rebel Anne Hutchinson—also housed the city's leading bookstore. We'll preface this by saying that the only way to see inside this amazingly historic Freedom Trail site is to order up some fast food. Sadly, that's the current role this literary gem plays, but anyone stopping by can also read the plaque on the wall that shares more about its history. From 1845 to 1865, literary lights including Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Charles Dickens visited here where many of their works were published by James T. "Jamie" Fields (founder of Ticknor and Fields). This is Freedom Trail stop 7.

A Missoula landmark along the river's south shore, this 1910 passenger depot, with Romanesque windows, a Spanish-style roof, two towers, and mission-style parapet walls, is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's now the national headquarters of the Boone and Crockett Club, an organization founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt to establish conservation of wild habitats. Open to the public is a display of a world-record taxidermied elk, bighorn sheep, and other wildlife.

Also called the DeVargas Street House, this adobe dwelling is said to be the oldest in the United States—a sign on the exterior puts the date at 1646. Some say it's much older, but historians currently can verify only that it dates back to the mid-1700s. Inside the tiny museum, a small gift shop features Harvey House jewelry, kachinas, paintings, pottery, and more.

The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art's two installations—celebrating the work of individuals with extraordinary imaginations—are definitely two of Houston's strangest (and coolest) attractions. The Orange Show monument, located near the University of Houston at 2401 Munger St., is a handmade architectural spectacle constructed by late postman Jefferson Davis McKissack from 1956 to 1979. The outdoor 3,000-square-foot installation, which celebrates the artist's favorite fruit, includes a wishing well, a pond, a stage, a museum and a gift shop; McKissack built it with concrete, brick, found objects, wagon wheels, and statues. The Orange Show Center's other sight is the Beer Can House at 222 Malone St., near Memorial Park. The house—completely covered and decorated with aluminum beer-can "siding," and garlands of cut beer cans hanging from the roof edges—represents the meticulous beer chugging and recycling work of the late John Milkovisch; more than 50,000 cans were used.

This sumptuous mansion was built in 1868 as a wedding gift from Colonel William Lewis Wynn to his daughter. The side building, on the Uptown side of the main building, is an auditorium added in the 1950s. The house is closed to the public, but serves as headquarters to a ladies' social club and hosts many debutante teas and wedding receptions.

The former home of silver baron James Clair Flood cost a whopping $1.5 million in 1886, when even a stylish Victorian like the Haas-Lilienthal House cost less than $20,000. All that cash did buy some structural stability—the Flood residence (to be precise, its shell) was the only Nob Hill mansion to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire. The Pacific-Union Club, a bastion of the wealthy and powerful, purchased the house in 1907 and commissioned Willis Polk to redesign it; the architect added the semicircular wings and third floor. The ornate fence design dates from the mansion's construction. It is now a members-only private social club.

Artist and film director Julian Schnabel lives here. But that's not why it's worth making a point to stand across the street and marvel at this pink structure of wonder. Plopped atop a former horse stable, this 12-floor pink Venetian-style palace rises 170 feet above the low-level skyline of the West Village. The facade is highlighted by Renaissance-style porticos and the name engraved halfway up, Palazzo Chupi—a reference to a popular brand of Spanish lollipop and the pet name for Schnabel's wife. When it was completed in 2008, there were rumors that various celebrities—Bono, Madonna, the Olsen Twins—were going to buy one of the five apartments inside. (The only famous person who actually did buy a place was actor Richard Gere.) The building immediately became a divisive flashpoint for West Villagers: some passionately hated it while others loved it. Over time, the haters have thinned out and now most locals love Palazzo Chupi.

Once the hub for Cleveland's passenger railroad traffic, the city's oldest skyscraper is the second tallest in Ohio, after the Key Bank Tower, which also stands on Public Square. The 708-foot-tall building, completed in 1930 (and the second tallest building in the world until 1967), is an architectural masterpiece from old Cleveland, home to dozens of retail shops, restaurants, and daily conveniences. The 42nd-floor observatory has been closed indefinitely due to terrorism concerns, but the seven murals in the entrance hall, painted by Jules Guerin, are worth a look.

An exact copy of the Athenian original, Nashville's Parthenon was constructed for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition. Across the street from Vanderbilt University's campus in Centennial Park, it's a magnificent sight, perched on a gentle green slope beside a duck pond. Inside are the 63-piece Cowan Collection of American Art, temporary exhibits, and the 42-foot Athena Parthenos, the tallest indoor sculpture in the Western world.

On the northwest corner of Astor and Burton places in the swanky Gold Coast, you'll find this Georgian building. It was commissioned in 1891 by Chicago Tribune chief Joseph Medill and built by Stanford White. You can't go inside, though, because it's been converted into condos.

Hidden from busy Euclid Avenue and East Boulevard, and insulated within Case Western Reserve University's campus, this Frank Gehry–designed structure is as much an iconic work of art as it is a functional headquarters for the Weatherhead School of Management. A twisted and flowing stainless-steel roof caps the undulating brick and glass edifice, creating architectural movement and a centerpiece for Case Western's campus. The building is named for the chairman of the insurance giant Progressive Corporation, Peter Lewis, a renowned philanthropist and supporter of arts and cultural institutions. There are no formal tours.

The Contributionship, the nation's oldest fire insurance company, was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1752; the present Greek Revival building with fluted marble Corinthian columns dates from 1836 and has some magnificently elegant salons (particularly the boardroom, where a seating plan on the wall lists Benjamin Franklin as the first incumbent of seat Number One). The architect, Thomas U. Walter, was also responsible for the dome and House and Senate wings of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. This is still an active business, but a small museum is open to the public by appointment.

Designed by the well-known Philadelphia architect William Strickland and built in 1832, this impressive Greek Revival building served as the city's commercial center for 50 years. It was both the stock exchange and a place where merchants met to trade goods. In the tower a watchman scanned the Delaware River and notified merchants of arriving ships. The exchange stands behind Dock Street, a cobblestone thoroughfare. The building houses a small exhibit on its history and now serves as the headquarters for Independence National Park.

This is the headquarters of the American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 to promote "useful knowledge." The members of the oldest learned society in America have included Washington, Jefferson, Lafayette, Emerson, Darwin, Edison, Churchill, and Einstein. Erected between 1785 and 1789 in what has been called a "restrained Federal style" (designed to complement, not outshine, adjacent Independence Hall), Philosophical Hall is brick with marble trim, has a handsome arched entrance, and houses the Society's museum, open to the public Friday to Sunday. The society's library is across the street in Library Hall.

The only remaining tower of three of this type that once existed in Baltimore, this brick structure was used to make shot pellets by pouring molten lead from the top. As the drops fell, they formed balls that turned solid in cold water at the bottom. In the summer months the tower may close due to heat.

Built in 1891, the simple, redbrick Pontiac is an early Chicago School skyscraper—note the classic rectangular shape and flat roof. It is the city’s oldest existing Holabird & Roche building.

Portlandia, the second-largest hammered-copper statue in the world, surpassed only by the Statue of Liberty, kneels on the second-story balcony of one of the earliest postmodern buildings in the United States. Built in 1982, and architect Michael Graves's first major design commission, this 15-story office building is buff color, with brown-and-blue trim and exterior decorative touches. Locals tend to either love or hate it, and its current need for a nearly $100 million renovation has plenty of critics calling—probably in vain—for its demolition. A huge fiberglass mold of Portlandia's face is exhibited in the second-floor Public Art Gallery, which provides a good overview of Portland's 1% for Art Program, and the hundreds of works on display throughout the city.

Completed in 1713, the oldest public building in South Carolina is one of the few that remain from the time of the Lords Proprietors. The city's volatile—and precious—gunpowder was kept here during the Revolutionary War, and the building's thick walls were designed to contain an explosion if its stores were detonated. Today, it's a small museum with a permanent exhibit on Colonial and Revolutionary warfare.

Philip Johnson's 1984 postmodern whose glass spires and towers were modeled after London's Houses of Parliament, exemplifies the Pittsburgh renaissance. The structure's exterior is made almost entirely of plate glass (19,750 pieces to be precise). At sunset, with orange light bouncing off so many panes of glass, the effect is magical. On hot summer days, kids (and adventurous grown-ups) can cool off by romping through the courtyard's fountains.

History buffs and ghost hunters love poking around this fantastically creepy, 156-room, Romanesque Revival structure erected in 1894 to house troubled youth. Having fallen into disrepair, the building is slowly undergoing restoration. On tours, which take place on many Saturdays between April and August, you'll hear all sorts of spine-tingling tales.