Over the holidays, I discovered that an old subway car made certain stops along the F line as a way to garner interest in learning more about the NYC transit system at their Brooklyn based museum. Chris had shown interest in visiting the museum for several months so I took this random sighting as an opportunity to gift him with not only a chance to ride the special holiday train, but also tickets to the museum!
We waited on the platform where the train was set to arrive with a number of other excited passengers in Queens one Sunday morning. We intended to ride it from one end to the other while checking out all the cool old advertisements lining each car. It surprised us to discover how much more quickly it felt like this train ran than the current ones in our system now. These older cars were also equipped with ceiling fans rather than air conditioning - an interesting feature that would make for a very sticky and smelly summer! As the crowd thinned from stop to stop, we moved from car to car exploring each before we departed at the final stop - 2nd Ave. At this last stop, there were several actors dressed in period clothing that socialized and took photos on the train - quite an interesting way to end the adventure!
A few weeks later, we made our way over to the transit museum to spend some time learning about the history of the subway system. We both really enjoyed discovering more about the process involved in physically building the system as well as the politics behind implementing the system(s) - there was more than one subway line company in the early days! My favorite part of the museum was exploring the various cars from different time periods. Chris enjoyed checking out the different forms of fare payment over the years...and how the system worked to prevent fake coins before it moved to an electronic swipe method. We were surprised to see how popular the museum was for families until we came upon a whole section of interactive games and videos set up for kids. There was also a really neat area set up to detail how the subway system handled various times of disaster and devastation chronicling the 9/11 attacks, major blackouts, and various hurricanes. Definitely a museum worth checking out if you have spare time on your next trip to NYC!
Andrea :)
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