12 Unheard Of New York City Locales That Will Make You Question Whether You're A Real New Yorker

Take refuge from the urban jungle with these secretive New York City gems.

1. Jumel Terrace

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The cobblestone streets of Jumel Terrace give a surprising peek at New York City's architectural version of the French Quarter. The oldest house in Manhattan (the former residence of George Washington), a treasure filled mom-and-pop bookstore and free weekly jazz performances in Marjorie Elliot's living room are among the highlights.

2. Meadowmere

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Dotted with fishing boats, the neighborhood of Meadowmere in Queens scratches the border of Nassau County and is situated directly under the path of jets landing at John F. Kennedy airport. A rustic pedestrian bridge separates the counties in this charming cove and serves as a summer launching pad for children swimming in their own backyards.

3. Wave Hill

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Ivy-coated cliffside mansions resembling the Scottish Highlands oddly define this Bronx area. Neighboring Wave Hill, a bucolic gem, surveys the Hudson Valley and hosts a mansion once inhabited by Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain.

4. North Brother Island

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A stone's throw from Hunts Point in the Bronx, North Brother Island is a forgotten isle with a long and creepy folklore. A shipwreck site that lost a thousand souls and a desolate city hospital for quarantined diseases, this outpost housed Typhoid Mary in isolation for three decades. Abandoned in the 1960's, the ruins have been consumed by nature and poison ivy.

5. Pomander Walk

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Strolling down one of the Upper West Side's busiest streets, you may come across the serendipitous vision of a stage set fit for Munchkins. Formerly inhabited by Humphrey Bogart, Pomander Walk is the cousin of another fenced off Manhattan complex -- Patchin Place that has the last remaining gaslit lamp in the city.

6. Hart Island

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Almost a million bodies are supposedly buried on this small piece of land in the Long Island Sound. Hart Island, once served as a Civil War prison camp, missile silo and lunatic asylum, and became a potters field that is now a worksite for Rikers Island inmates who still work as grave diggers.

7. United Palace Theater

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One of the few great remaining movie palaces in the city (one of the others being Jamaica's Valencia), the United Palace Theater was a 1930's era Loew's Wonder Theater and now offers religious services in one of the most breathtaking interiors the city has to offer.

8. Alley Pond Park

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The Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, the world's first limited access highway network, laid the groundwork for the American interstate road system. The parkway, situated on a glacial moraine, concludes at an idyllic pond populated by turtles and muskrats. From the park, you can hike to the oldest living inhabitant of New York City, a tree believed to be standing when Christopher Columbus was sailing the ocean blue.

9. Fort Totten

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Under the Throgs Neck Bridge stands a Civil War era fort with secret passageways meandering through bunkers, ammunition lockers and abandoned fortifications. Occasionally, lantern-lit tours of the tunnels are offered.

10. Rooftops of Bushwick

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A hidden society of rooftop pigeon keepers inhabits Brooklyn's Bushwick

neighborhood, where residents escape their street-level struggles with this 10,000 year-old tradition. Mike Tyson supposedly continues to maintain his childhood pigeon coop in this region of the city.

11. Broad Channel

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A neighborhood built on the Big Egg Marsh of Jamaica Bay, Broad Channel is a community you would expect to find in the bayous. With many wooden houses suspended on stilts over the marshy water, Broad Channel borders a wildlife refuge and is home to both New York's firemen and fishermen.

12. Staten Island Boat Graveyard

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This gritty harbor bordering New Jersey on the Kill Van Kull is where damaged and decommissioned boats come to die. A parking lot of half-sunken 19th century shipping vessels, the boat graveyard is a fascination for urban explorers.