| New York Transit Museum | ||
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Location : Corner of Boerum
Place and Schermerhorn Street, Location : Brooklyn Heights Phone : (718) 694-1600 Admission : Adults $5, Children ( 3 to 17 ) $3, Seniors $3 : Museum members Free Hours : Tue - Fri = 10AM to 4PM Hours : Sat - Sun = 12 Noon to 5PM Hours : Mon & Most major holidays = closed Directions : The New York Transit Museum is home to over a hundred years of New York subway history and memorabilia. The Museum is located in an authentic subway station, built in 1936, containing 19 vintage subway and elevated cars, antique turnstiles and a working signal tower. The New York Transit Museum, one of the city’s leading cultural
institutions is the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban
public transportation history, and one of the premier institutions of its
kind in the world. The Museum explores the development of the greater New
York metropolitan region through the presentation of exhibitions, tours,
educational programs and workshops dealing with the cultural, social and
technological history of public transportation. Since its inception as a
temporary exhibit in 1976, the Museum has grown in scope and popularity.
The Region on the Move gallery located at the entrance of the Museum introduces visitors to the Museum, its mission, and its unique setting will greet new and returning visitors. This orientation is expanded through an exhibition of artifacts and new acquisitions which provide an historical overview of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and its operating agencies: New York City Transit; Long Island Rail Road; Long Island Bus; Metro-North Railroad; MTA Bridges and Tunnels, and predecessor companies. This exhibit salutes the achievements of the workers who created the subways system. It is a product of thousands of skilled and unskilled workers. The exhibit tells the story of the construction, planning, tools and machinery and the 30,000 workers who constructed on of the most famous mass transit systems in the World. The exhibit includes many new highly interactive exhibitions such as On the Streets, an in-depth look at New York City’s trolleys and buses. On the Streets: New York’s Trolleys and Buses, a new gallery dedicated to
surface transportation presents, in nine complementing segments, a history
of above ground mobility for the last 175 years - from the early 1800s
through the 21st Century. The central element of this new exhibition is a
simulated traffic intersection complete with traffic lights and coordinated
walk-don’t-walk signs, parking meters, fire hydrants, and an array of other
street “furniture.” Children of all ages will delight in a new, wheelchair
accessible, twelve-seat bus; refurbished 1960s bus cab, and child-sized
trolley. Audio interviews with New York City Transit’s Department of Buses
personnel and a commissioned photo essay, A Day in the Life of a Bus
complete the streetscape. Exhibition sidebars credit two men who were
instrumental in the electrification of streetcars and railcars. Frank Julian
Sprague (1857 – 1934), of European descent, often called “the father of
electric railway traction” was responsible for the first large-scale
successful use of electricity to run an entire system of streetcars in
Richmond, Virginia, in 1887 – 1888; and Granville T. Woods (1856 – 1910), an
African-American inventor who patented more than 60 devices over 30 years
that sped development of telegraphs, telephones and electric trains. One of
Woods’ most significant inventions, a third-rail system for conducting
electric power to railway cars – successfully demonstrated in 1892 in Coney
Island – made the subway a reality in New York City. The exhibition also
tells the story of Elizabeth Jennings Graham (1830 – 1901), an
African-American schoolteacher who won a landmark legal decision that
defined the rights of people of color to ride any public conveyance on the
city’s street. Ms. Graham’s victory occurred 100 years before Rosa Parks won
a U.S Supreme Court case in the 1950s, that gave African-Americans the right
to sit anywhere in a public bus. Moving Millions A new exhibition on the platform level, Moving the Millions: New York City’s Subways from its Origins to the Present provides visitors with an overview of the magnitude and complexity of New York City’s rapid transit system. The exhibition uses historical photographs, diagrams, cartoons, period maps, and newspaper clippings to illustrate major issues and events that influenced the development of the largest transportation network in North America. While touring Moving the Millions museum visitors may board the Museum’s vintage collection of subway and elevated trains and visit a working signal tower. New York City Transit’s Division of Car Equipment has lovingly refurbished the Museum’s unparalleled collection of vintage subway and elevated cars. Visitors will be pleased to see their old favourites in mint condition. Elevated City
From classic wooden cars originally used on the old Brooklyn Els to subway cars of today. They are all on display and most allow you to sit were millions have sat before. Ceramic Ornament in the Subway Have a look at the vast collection of ceramic custom made plaques, tablets, mosaics, and other decorative elements. There are some excellent examples of subway art to be viewed up close as well as many photographs of the art work that many subway travellers miss in their day to day travel. There are maps covering more than 100 years of subway transit. It shows the growth that they system has experienced over the years and how these changes have been relayed to customers. You can see nearly 2,000 examples of subway signs, some dating back to 1904. A new exhibit on fare collection is illustrated by representative examples of various collection devices used throughout the subway system’s history. Visitors may interact with these devices for a uniquely tactile retrospective experience. The exhibit features the first paper ticket-choppers used in 1904, later turnstile designs that accepted coins and tokens, the MetroCard turnstile currently in operation, and a graphic timeline underscoring milestones in fare collection as well as the fifty-year history of the token. Images from the Museum’s archives not previously displayed show these reliable vintage turnstiles in use in their respective eras. The Museum provides an excellent history of the New York Subway system, from construction to present day. The Museum also has an excellent gift shop with subway memorabilia and souvenirs. The Museum is a great value and contains a wealth of information that will interest adults and children alike. If you have ever wanted to know more about New York Subways this is the place for you. Also keep an eye out for Museum public programs that include things such as tours of disused subway stations. The Museum’s new Sanford Gaster Education Centre boasts a welcoming area for conducting workshops and hands-on activities for youngsters and a new computer resource centre. The resource centre will increase the opportunities for research and learning about public transportation currently available to our young adult audience. It will feature online access to the Museum’s collections and allow for remote exploration of other transportation related resources. The centre extends and greatly enhances the Museum’s educational outreach efforts from a local to a national and global audience. On June 1, 2003, the Museum launched a new online education site: New York Transit Museum EDUCATION STATION. For a preview of our offerings please log on to www.mta.info . Cinema Subway an exhibition of movie stills, lobby cards and posters issued to advertise films made in New York City depicting the subway system since the 1920s, is the featured presentation in the Museum’s RR Gallery. The gallery will also host transportation-themed lectures and film and video programs. |