NEW YORK, June 22 (UPI) -- Implements of torture, a vampire survival kit and shrunken heads returned to New York's Time Square as Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium re-opened.
Founder Robert Ripley's museum of oddities returned Friday to Time Square after a 35-year-absence, Newsday reported.
"New York was Mr. Ripley's home, and it is wonderful to be back," said Bob Masterson, president of Ripley Entertainment in Orlando, Fla. "Times Square has done such a spectacular job reinventing itself."
The first Ripley's opened at Broadway and 48th Street in 1938, but closed after a year. The next opening lasted longer -- from 1957 to 1972. The museum shuttered when Times Square entered its seedier period, replaced by an X-rated theater.
Visitors to the third odditorium can check out a Buddha statue stuffed with $1 million in shredded bills, a vampire survival kit made for well-equipped, 19th-century European travelers and the "Stocks and Bonds Collection," a display of medieval torture instruments.
