1

Vinyl records are spinning again

For something declared obsolete decades ago, vinyl is doing remarkably well. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, U.S. vinyl revenue has now increased for 19 consecutive years. In 2025 alone, Americans bought 46.8 million vinyl albums, compared with 29.5 million CDs .

And this revival is happening in the age of streaming, not instead of it. Vinyl topped $1 billion in wholesale revenue in 2025, while streaming still dominated the music business. Apparently, plenty of listeners want both: instant access when convenient and a record they can hold, admire, drop a needle onto, and, yes, get up to flip halfway through.

2

Film photography gets another shot

Digital cameras were supposed to send film the way of the floppy disk. Instead, a generation raised on smartphone cameras has discovered the novel-again pleasure of taking a picture without immediately seeing it . The comeback became difficult to dismiss when Ricoh introduced the Pentax 17, a brand-new 35mm film camera, in 2024.

The company specifically pointed to growing interest among younger photographers. Demand in Japan was so strong that Ricoh temporarily stopped accepting orders shortly after launch. Film hasn't disappeared from Hollywood, either: Kodak counted 33 film-shot productions at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

3

Game night isn’t over

Board games survived television, video games, and smartphones, and somehow came out cooler on the other side. Today's tabletop world extends far beyond Monopoly and Clue, with strategy games, role-playing adventures, collectibles, and board-game cafés turning an old family pastime into a thriving social hobby .

American spending reflects that enthusiasm. Circana reported that U.S. sales in the broader Games & Puzzles category jumped 37% in 2025 , although that figure also includes the booming Pokémon trading-card market. Adults are increasingly important customers, too.

4

Baking is back

Remember when everyone suddenly had a sourdough starter? The great bread-baking revival exploded during the pandemic spring of 2020, when homebound Americans transformed flour, yeast, water, and an abundance of spare time into homemade loaves.

King Arthur Baking shipped one million bags of flour to retailers in just two weeks in April 2020 . The company also found that 80% of previously infrequent bakers had started baking at least several times per month. The lockdowns ended; plenty of bread starters survived.

5

Birdwatching gains popularity

Birdwatching may conjure images of binoculars, field guides, and extremely patient retirees, but modern American birding is much bigger than that stereotype. Maybe not NFL big, but still big. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimated that approximately 96 million Americans aged 16 and older participated in birdwatching in 2022: roughly 37% of that population .

Most didn't travel to remote forests. About 91 million watched birds around their homes, while 43 million ventured at least a mile away specifically to see them. Birders also spent billions on trips and equipment. Smartphones have unexpectedly helped the hobby, allowing beginners to identify calls and photograph unfamiliar species. Sometimes technology's best trick is getting us to look away from it.

6

Model kits build a new audience

Model building never completely vanished. Dedicated hobbyists kept assembling miniature cars, aircraft, ships, trains, and military vehicles while other generations moved toward digital entertainment. But the basic satisfaction of turning a box full of tiny pieces into something recognizable is finding fresh admirers.

The hobby has also become far more international . Japan's Gundam model kits, commonly called Gunpla, have become a global phenomenon, with manufacturer Bandai Namco reporting that overseas sales were approaching half of total model-kit sales in 2024 . Whether the finished product is a WWII fighter or a giant Japanese robot, the attraction remains wonderfully old-fashioned: patience, precision, paint, glue, and something real to put on the shelf afterward.

7

Knitting and crochet are cool again

Grandma may have been onto something. Knitting and crochet have joined a broader resurgence of so-called "grandma hobbies," with younger adults embracing needles, hooks, and yarn as a welcome alternative to endless scrolling. The pandemic gave fiber crafts an additional boost, but enthusiasm continued after people were free to leave their homes again.

The appeal isn't difficult to understand. A Craft Yarn Council survey of more than 5,000 knitters and crocheters found that enjoyment was the leading motivation, while stress relief, creativity, and gift-making were also common reasons. Unlike another hour spent online, an evening crocheting leaves behind physical evidence that you actually did something.

8

Canning makes a comeback

For generations of Americans, late summer meant turning a garden's excess tomatoes, cucumbers, and berries into shelves filled with jars. Supermarkets and freezers made home preservation less essential, but the practice never disappeared, and t he pandemic gave it an unexpected jolt .

The University of Minnesota Extension says interest in home food preservation surged during COVID-19 and remains popular, helped by gardening, farmers' markets, household budgets, and efforts to reduce food waste. Today's enthusiasts aren't limited to canned tomatoes, either: pickling, fermenting, drying, freezing, jams, and jellies are all part of the revival.

9

Book clubs are back too

A book club may be one of the simplest social technologies ever invented: read something, meet other humans, and talk about it. That formula still works remarkably well. Physical bookstores and libraries remain gathering places, while younger Americans haven't abandoned printed books nearly as completely as the arrival of e-readers once suggested.

The concept is evolving, too. Silent Book Club, founded in San Francisco in 2012, reverses the usual formula: members gather together but bring whatever book they happen to be reading. By 2025, the organization said it had more than 1,500 chapters around the world .

10

Painting becomes a night out

Paint-and-sip nights put a modern spin on an extremely analog activity. Instead of sitting alone with an easel, participants gather in studios, follow an instructor, socialize, and usually enjoy a drink while attempting to produce something vaguely resembling the example at the front of the room.

One of America's biggest paint-and-sip businesses grew from an unlikely place. Cathy Deano and Renee Maloney started what became Painting with a Twist in Louisiana in 2007, following Hurricane Katrina . Originally called Corks & Canvas, it offered residents a fun communal escape while the region recovered. The idea eventually expanded to roughly 300 franchise locations.

11

Home gardens are getting bigger

You don't need a farmhouse, or even a backyard, to grow food. Container gardening has brought an old American pastime onto balconies, patios, rooftops, and tiny urban spaces, where tomatoes, peppers, herbs, flowers, and even strawberries can thrive inside surprisingly modest pots.

Gardening's broader popularity remains enormous. The National Gardening Association estimated that 122.3 million U.S. households participated in some form of lawn or garden activity in 2024, including 51.8 million that grew vegetables . The idea isn't new: a predecessor of today's USDA was publishing advice about "The City and Suburban Vegetable Garden" back in 1918.

12

Foraging is cool

Of all the hobbies on this list, foraging is undoubtedly the oldest. Long before supermarkets existed, knowing which plants, berries, nuts, and mushrooms were edible was simply part of staying alive. Today, Americans are voluntarily heading back into the woods to rediscover some of that forgotten knowledge.

Interest has become particularly noticeable among younger adults. Iowa State University Extension reported strong demand for mushroom-identification programs, including a two-year backlog of interested participants and classes regularly reaching their 30-person limit. Of course, this hobby requires more caution than knitting: a misidentified mushroom can be dangerous. Learning from experienced experts is essential.

1

A renovation project saved thousands of lives on 9/11

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing 189 people. Few people know this part: the death toll could have been much higher. But there was a renovation project underway at the time of the attacks.

The Pentagon’s five-sided structure is divided into five "wedges," and workers had been renovating them one at a time. Flight 77 struck the wedge that had just been completed. Of the 4,500 people who normally worked in that section, only about 800 had moved back in. Without the reinforced construction and the incomplete occupancy, experts believe the casualties would have been catastrophically higher.

2

The Cold War and the hot dog stand

In the middle of the Pentagon’s five-acre center courtyard once stood a modest hot dog stand. According to a Cold War legend (one still retold by official Pentagon tour guides on every public tour), between the 60s and the 80s, Soviet satellite images tracked large groups of high-ranking military officials converging on that small building at the same time every day.

Soviet intelligence reportedly concluded the structure must be the entrance to some underground bunker in America. In reality, all it did was sell lunch. In 2006, the original stand was torn down, and a sandwich shop was built in its place.

3

Its construction began on September 11th, exactly 60 years before the attack

Builders broke ground on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941. That was exactly 60 years to the day before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that would strike the same building.

Construction had been ordered by Army Brigadier General Brehon Somervell, who wanted a permanent headquarters for the Defense Department to replace its then-17 scattered offices across Washington, D.C.

The project was extraordinarily ambitious: plans called for the world’s largest office building to be completed in just 16 months. In the end, the conception, design, and construction of the entire Pentagon building took a total of 15 months.

4

The same person oversaw its construction and the Manhattan Project

Colonel Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers took charge of Pentagon construction in August 1941. He worked six days a week and drove his team relentlessly, at one point employing more than 15,000 workers around the clock.

When the Pentagon was finished in January 1943, Groves was assigned to lead the Manhattan Project, America’s secret program to build the atomic bomb . His deputy, Captain Robert Furman, followed him into the Manhattan Project as chief of foreign intelligence. Together, the men who built the world’s largest office building went on to produce the weapon that ended World War II.

5

Why is it shaped like that?

The Pentagon’s iconic five-sided shape was the consequence of a geographic accident. The original site selected for the building, near Arlington Cemetery, **happened to be bordered on five sides by roads. **Architects designed the structure to fit those boundaries, producing a pentagonal floor plan. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened: worried the massive building would obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington, he ordered the site moved to its current location along the Potomac River. But the five-sided design had already been drawn up, and nobody changed it.

6

It was the first desegregated building in Virginia

When the Pentagon was designed in 1941, segregation was the law in Virginia. Original plans called for doubled bathroom facilities: separate ones for Black and white employees, as required by Virginia statute. But President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, prohibiting racial discrimination in federal employment and government contracting.

As a federal building, the Pentagon was exempt from Virginia law. It became the only building in the state where segregation was not enforced. A fully desegregated federal workplace that opened in 1943. The doubled bathrooms were built anyway, as the plans were too far along to revise, but were never used as separately designated spaces.

7

Its construction was surprisingly frugal and incredibly fast

Ground broke on September 11, 1941, and construction finished on January 15, 1943, just 16 months later. More than 15,000 workers were on site around the clock. Wartime office shortages were so severe that employees moved into completed wings before the rest of the building was finished. Steel was too scarce to use extensively, so builders relied almost entirely on reinforced concrete. The 689,000 tons of sand and gravel required came directly from the nearby Potomac River, cutting transportation costs. The project was budgeted at $35 million, but the final bill was $63 million, which would translate to over $900 million in today’s dollars.

8

You can walk between its farthest points in only 7 minutes

The Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building: 6.5 million square feet of space, which is three times the total floor area of the Empire State Building. Each of its five outer walls is 921 feet long. It has 7,754 windows and 17.5 miles of corridors. Approximately 26,000 military and civilian employees report for work there every day.

Despite that scale, the building’s concentric ring design is so efficient that it takes only about seven minutes to walk between its two farthest points.

9

The man who secretly lived inside its walls

During construction, Colonel Groves drove his deputy, Captain Robert Furman, so relentlessly that Furman rarely left the building. To cope, Furman had contractors build him a small, windowless apartment hidden inside the walls of the Army’s Ordnance Division. In this private room, he could sleep and shower without leaving the premises.

When construction ended and personnel dispersed, knowledge of the hidden room was never passed on to building management. Months later, when Furman returned to Washington on Manhattan Project intelligence business, he found the apartment undiscovered and exactly as he’d left it.

For over a year, he would slip back to the Pentagon, pop open a wall panel, spend the night, and emerge in the morning with his suitcase. He was finally caught in 1943 and forced to surrender the keys. It was never disclosed whether the secret apartment was maintained or eventually absorbed back into the official floor plans.

10

It houses over 30 restaurants, including everyone's favorite chains

The Pentagon feeds roughly 26,000 people a day, and its dining options read less like a military headquarters and more like a mall food court. The main Concourse Food Court, which opened in September 2009 and seats 875 people, is the largest of several dining areas.

Confirmed chains currently inside the building include McDonald’s, Five Guys, Subway, Popeyes, Starbucks (multiple locations), Dunkin’ (two locations), Panera Bread, Taco Bell, Panda Express, Baskin-Robbins, Potbelly, Jamba Juice, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, among others. The building also houses a CVS pharmacy, a florist, a jeweler, and a dry cleaner. In the summer of 2024, Potbelly became the first restaurant to open in the center courtyard. Yes, the very spot where the legendary Cold War hot dog stand once stood.

1

Woolworth’s

Woolworth’s was the place to buy everything from school supplies and toys to household goods and candy—or even to grab lunch. The first store opened its doors in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879. It was a five-and-dime shop, and the chain soon became one of America’s most recognizable retail names, with over 3,000 stores nationwide at its peak. So, why did it disappear?

With the steady rise of suburban shopping centers and large discount stores, Woolworth’s couldn’t keep up and began a slow decline in the 1960s that culminated in 1997, when it closed its final stores for good.

2

A&P

A&P used to be the spot to get everyday groceries. It began as a tea and coffee business in 1859 and later evolved into one of America’s biggest supermarkets with more than 16,000 stores in the country at its peak. But despite pioneering high-volume retailing, A&P couldn’t stick around.

Over the decades, newer competitors entered the market, and grocery shopping became more and more competitive. Walmart, Target, Aldi, Whole Foods—A&P failed to adapt and filed for bankruptcy twice, first in 2010 and again in 2015, and finally shut down in November 2015.

3

Blockbuster

Blockbuster was the go-to for movie rentals . It dominated the market with 9,100 stores worldwide by 2004, about $6 billion in revenue, and thousands of movies to choose from—it was hard to imagine Blockbuster ever falling, but it did.

The rapid advancement of technology hit Blockbuster hard, with newer options like DVD-by-mail services, Redbox kiosks, and the final blow: streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and more. All Blockbuster corporate-owned stores closed by January 2014; however, you can still visit one holdout location in Bend, Oregon.

4

Montgomery Ward

Long before Amazon, consumers could buy almost anything from Montgomery Ward from the comfort of their homes , and the company would ship it directly to them. It felt like online shopping before the internet. So why did it vanish?

To adapt to newer shopping habits, Montgomery Ward opened physical stores and started competing with brands like Sears; but once suburban malls and discount stores became widespread in the 1980s, Montgomery Ward couldn’t keep pace and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and again in 2001.

5

Circuit City

Circuit City started in 1949 and quickly became the source for TVs, stereos, VCRs, video games, and just about every kind of electronics , especially during the 1980s. The company continued growing by the early 2000s, expanding to more than 600 stores, though one controversial decision made it trip and fall.

Circuit City was already struggling to compete with Best Buy and Walmart. And in 2007, it replaced its commissioned sales staff with low-paid hourly workers, damaging customer service—often considered one of Circuit City’s biggest strategic mistakes. By March 2009, the chain was gone.

6

Caldor

There was a time when one trip to Caldor could cover almost everything on your shopping list. Founded in 1951, it became a major one-stop discount department store . By the 1990s, it had grown to more than 150 stores across New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, but in 1995 it filed for bankruptcy. What happened in between?

Big box stores like Walmart and Target were expanding rapidly, and Caldor simply fell behind as people moved toward newer retail formats that combined department stores and supermarkets. Plus, the company took on a lot of debt in 1991, which only made things worse. Caldor finally closed for good in 1999.

7

Borders

Borders is a reminder of a time when buying a book was an experience, rather than just clicking a few buttons online. It opened in 1971 and set itself apart from other modern bookstores. At Borders, you could spend an entire afternoon browsing not just books, but music and DVDs or even grabbing a coffee.

Around 2003–2004, Borders had more than 1,200 stores worldwide , but it failed to adapt to an inevitable growing trend: online book sales. Amazon eventually took over, and Borders couldn’t stay in the game, closing its final location in September 2011.

8

G.C. Murphy

Much like Woolworth’s, G.C. Murphy was a five-and-dime store that sold a little bit of everything and had lunch counters or snack bars where people would hang out. The company opened in 1906, and it operated more than 500 stores by 1976.

But once the traditional five-and-dime model came under pressure from discount giants, G.C. Murphy was forced to adapt. The chain did make some efforts and experimented with bigger stores and different formats, but it wasn’t enough, and G.C. Murphy filed for bankruptcy in 1985.

9

Zayre

Zayre entered the market in 1956 as a classic discount department store that looked more like a warehouse . It was a no-frills, self-service shopping experience with massive stores, wide-open interiors, and exposed ceilings where you could find lots of everyday items like clothing, household goods, or appliances at low prices.

While it was pretty successful, especially across the Northeast and Midwest, Zayre struggled to keep up with giants like Target. It tried to reinvent itself by founding TJ Maxx in 1977, but eventually sold the remaining Zayre stores to Ames in 1988, and the Zayre name vanished by 1990.

10

Service Merchandise

Service Merchandise was founded in 1934 and, unlike typical retail stores, it introduced a strange new concept called the " catalog showroom " in 1960, where display floors showcased single working samples of products, and the actual inventory was stored in an adjacent backroom warehouse. Customers would look at a catalog, place an order, and an employee would bring it to them.

The concept proved successful, and Service Merchandise operated more than 400 showrooms by the mid-1990s. But Service Merchandise’s model meant longer waiting times, and traditional discount stores began offering a faster and easier shopping experience. The company tried to modernize by introducing electronic inventory systems, but it didn’t work out. By 2002, Service Merchandise was gone.