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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities

Category / Off-Beat & Little Known

December 18, 2018

Oh, Just an Abandoned Real-Life Gingerbread Castle to Haunt your Christmas

Because why bake a gingerbread house this holiday season, when a real-life abandoned one can haunt your dreams? Let’s head out to Hamburg, New Jersey, where a local landmark is in dire need of a little TLC from Hansel & Gretel. Since the late 1920s, the now-crumbling structure was known as The Gingerbread Castle, a…

December 18, 2018

Stop Everything, it’s a Historic Bookshop For Sale with Everything Inside it

Every once in a while, the Internet gods deliver us a property listing that hits every MessyNessy sweet spot. Quaint antique architecture? Check. Unexpected links to remarkable figures and inventions throughout history? Double check. Make it a library, and you’ve dreamt up our perfect spot, aka Clough’s Bookshop in Cherry Valley, New York. The 178-year-old…

December 13, 2018

The Bittersweet Story of the World’s First Motel

It’s as American as Apple Pie in all its neon-lit glory, evoking our collective cultural memory of 1950s road-tripping, film noir fugitive hideouts and the golden age of kitsch. The motel is as much a part of the American open road as the gas station and the roadside diner, an indispensable amenity to the roving motorist; the…

December 7, 2018

Stargazing for Aliens, not Celebrities, on the French Riviera

As it turns out, the French Riviera caters to more than a few of our favourite holiday past-times: channeling Brigitte Bardot, building sand castles at the beach and … tracking down aliens? About an hour north of the seaside city of Nice, into the mountainous terrain where Provence meets the Cote d’Azur; at the end of a…

December 6, 2018

A Beginner’s Guide to the Bath Houses of Japan

You’re probably familiar with the favourite Roman past time of nude public bathing, but did you know that it’s an even bigger phenomenon in Japan? Getting hot and steamy is deeply rooted in the Japanese culture, and public baths are still as popular as ever. The archipelago, which consists of over 6, 800 islands, is…

November 21, 2018

The Asylum That Gave Lou Reed Electroshock Therapy Is Also an Unforgettable Art Museum

“Excuse me!” says a man by a snowed-in dumpster. “Excuse me,” he continues, in a teleprompted tone, “Where are you, excuse me, goodnight!” It’s 2pm at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. I tell him I’m lost, and pull out a map of the 300 acres where he is a patient, and where I’m late…

November 20, 2018

Let’s Take a Tea Break at Beatrix Potter’s Cottage

It’s time for a little breather, don’t you think? So today, we’re popping over to Beatrix Potter’s old village, in the calm of England’s Lake District. We’ll stop by Buckle Yeat for a cup of tea, and stroll through the garden where so many of her children’s book characters — namely, Peter Rabbit — got…

November 6, 2018

Three NYC Bookshops That Will Steal Your Heart

New York City has no shortage of vast bookstores where you can easily spend an hour peacefully browsing the endless shelves and genres, but what I’m looking for is a bookshop that makes my heart ache a little; one that makes me want to swap lives with the bookseller and live inside their world. So…

November 2, 2018

A Kitschy Weekend Guide to the Australian Outback

We’ve got that itch for a little road trip once again, and this time it’s taking us to the Land Down Under, specifically, to the town of Broken Hill— no sandy beaches, no respite from a sun that (literally) shines longer and brighter than most places on earth, but it’s the keeper of some of…

November 2, 2018

Unlocking the Secrets of Vinegar Hill, New York

How can you escape from the New York City grind on an MTA card budget? Make a break for Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill, the sleepy neighbourhood that’s managed to safeguard its 400-year-old, cobblestone streets from the clutches of big development. It’s on small but hallowed ground, bound together by a tight-knit community whose homes look like…

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