Located
in a disused subway station in Brooklyn, the New York Transit Museum is the
largest cultural institution in the United States dedicated to urban public
transport.
The Museum has been open for
almost 40 years, but its collection tells stories spanning more than a
century. Visitors can tour interactive
exhibits and to-scale models that take an in-depth look at New York’s trolleys,
buses, and subway systems.
The museum
has a treasure trove of photographs, maps, and souvenirs that document New York’s
transport history, including the landmark 1854 legal victory for
African-American schoolteacher Elizabeth Jennings Graham, whose court case
defined the rights of all commuters to ride public transport in NYC. By 1861,
New York City’s transport system was fully desegregated, 94 years before
Rosa Parks’s infamous bus trip changed the country.
These days, the fully-operational subway cars
at the NY Transit Museum are furnished with vintage advertising and route
maps. At certain times of the year
these “Nostalgia Trains” leave the Museum and take people on special tours of
subway tunnels across the City.
And for locals and visitors too pressed for time to leave Manhattan, the Museum also
operates a smaller off-site exhibition in Grand Central Station that is totally
free.
