Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square winds visitors through twisted halls housing more than 500 artifacts of whimsy, amazement, curiosity, and intrigue. Along self-guided tours of the Odditorium, groups of awestruck wanderers gaze upon a two-headed cow, an albino giraffe, and the skeleton of a giant crocodile while perusing more than 20 themed galleries. Pickled heads stare out of jars and medieval torture devices such as dot-matrix printers hang from the ceiling while an authentic hunk of the Berlin wall stands in remembrance of the time it got to meet David Hasselhoff. Among the more than one dozen new artifacts are a portrait of Lady Gaga made out of crayons, a World Trade Center memorial made from more than 470,000 matchsticks, the fastest walking tour of NYC, and a newly designed Babe Ruth theatre with plenty of sports memorabilia.

Outside, beneath the marquee, guests witness the antics of performers swallowing swords, breathing fire, and pushing the limits of the human body. Back inside, guests navigate Ripley’s laser maze, contorting and slithering through a room crisscrossed with green lasers. The playhouse of eccentricities—a birthday-party hot spot—and its Odd Shop stock enough insect candy and one-eyed stuffed canines to feed a pet clown for months.