The beloved New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn is having a 50th anniversary celebration this year\u2014raise that flag and toot those horns! If you don\u2019t know what this means\u2014if you don\u2019t feel it in your marrow\u2014watch 1974\u2019s \u201cThe Taking of Pelham 1-2-3\u201d (the greatest subway movie of them all) and read Jim Dwyer\u2019s 1991 reportorial masterpiece, \u201cSubway Lives,\u201d which ranks among the greatest of all New York City books ever written, period.<\/p>\n
Opened to coincide with the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial, the museum was originally a temporary exhibition proposed by proud New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) employees. (The old red, white and blue \u201cTA\u201d logo remains iconic.) Housed in the decommissioned Court Street subway station (opened 1936, closed 1946), the Transit Museum is the largest such institution in North America. Today, its archives include contain more than 1 million objects.<\/p>\n
Location at 99 Schermerhorn St., just a block away from Brooklyn Borough Hall (formerly Brooklyn City Hall), the museum is easily accessible by from nearly every train line except the \u201cL\u201d and the runt \u201cS.\u201d One could also walk or bicycle there over the Brooklyn Bridge, or take a ferry to Atlantic Avenue and hoof it on over. That walk would be about a mile but it\u2019s a pleasant one and if you can recall a favorite Walt Whitman poem or Henry Ward Beecher sermon, all the better.<\/p>\n
Though located in Brooklyn, the museum\u2019s reach and mission extends to all five boroughs, including various Nostalgia Rides on vintage trains, a Bus Festival, two satellite museum stores in Manhattan (one inside Grand Central Terminal, the other at 2 Broadway) and other events.<\/p>\n
As for its 50th anniversary year, the museum has new exhibitions, a citywide scavenger hunt, and even more historic train rides planned.<\/p>\n
Want to start the party early? Take a look at the museum\u2019s digital exhibition Our Journey: The New York Transit Museum at 50. <\/p>\n
After going down that tunnel, consider the City-Wide Transit Scavenger Hunt. On June 1, the Transit Museum app will start inviting users to explore 50 transit history sites across the city. Bopping around to these locations, which include subways, buses, railroads, bridges, and tunnels, people will find hidden stories, surprising facts, pop quizzes and more. The hunt runs until November 1.<\/p>\n
Starting the real-time anniversary fest is a Members-Only Nostalgia Trip on Saturday April 18; if you aren\u2019t yet a member, you might want to be. Leaving from the museum, the train of historic 1914-24 BMT Standard cars will bring riders on tracks that once served the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit (BMT) and Independent (IND) subway companies. It will travel to Lefferts Boulevard on the A line, then heads towards Manhattan.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, May 17, Party on Wheels: A Family Subway Celebration fundraiser will include vintage trains between the Museum and Hoyt-Schermerhorn, and enjoy family activities, replete with with classic New York bagels, coffee, and birthday cake. This event will be $75 for adults, $50 for children.<\/p>\n
The ever popular Parade of Trains will be held on Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Everyone can ride a showcase of vintage subway cars, shuttling between Brighton Beach and Kings Highway on the B\/Q line. Also, if you take the subway from Manhattan to Brighton Beach, there\u2019s no additional cost.<\/p>\n