Sunday, May 13, 2007

Stopping by the New York Transit Museum

Diana and I decided to head into the city yesterday to check out the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn.

We had a bit of trouble finding the museum, as we went to the mailing address. Diana and I were directed across the street but expected to see a ground floor entrance. We walked past a subway stairwell which we finally figured out to be the museum.






Diana and I spent about three hours walking through the exhibits. They have a great balance between pictures and artifacts along with some hands on experiences.

The museum also has an exhibit for the creation of the Triborough bridge and Robert Moses. On a side note: Robert Caro wrote a great book about Robert Moses: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.


Since the museum is an old subway station, there is a platform where they have all of the old subway cars on display. You could walk through the old cars and they even had old advertisements in the cars.

One feature of the old cars that was personally striking to me was the pre-AC cooling systems. I took a few pictures of the old fans.

Exposed metal fan blades? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Maybe in the past people were smarter - they knew not to put their hands into the spinning metal blades. Or maybe we've become less astute over time as the fans in a future version have cages protecting them.










Diana and I highly recommend a visit to this museum.

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