| Edification value |  |
|---|---|
| Entertainment value |  |
| Should you go? | |
| Time spent | 113 minutes |
| Best thing I saw or learned | The Transit Museum could rebrand itself as a museum of advertising. Not only have they lovingly preserved subway cars from the past century, they have kept the ads intact as well. Each constitutes a hilarious Madison Avenue time capsule. Remember when wine cost 98c per quart? I sure don’t. |
The Transit Museum is one of only a few New York City museums not housed in a building. Instead, the city established it in a disused subway station in downtown Brooklyn.
Along with its satellite location in Grand Central Station, this museum features a series of exhibits covering the construction of the subway system, how the transit system responds to disasters, the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, and above-ground transport in New York, from horse trolleys to modern buses.
Trainspotting
But the real heart of the Transit Museum resides downstairs on the subway platform. There, you can visit lovingly restored El and subway cars from every era of the transit system’s evolution. Marvel at these steel boxes, with their incandescent lights, exposed fans, rattan seats, and hanging hold-straps. About the only historic subway feature not documented is the graffiti. I suppose not enough time has passed… The MTA can’t wax nostalgic about tagged trains, at least not yet. And it certainly doesn’t want to encourage anyone.
If you have ever felt curiosity about the history of the turnstile, this museum can scratch that itch. It features examples ranging from the manually operated days through modern, automated, swipe-your-metrocard marvels. Most interesting to me was the large size, un-jump-able rotating cage, affectionately(?) referred to as an “Iron Maiden.” Apparently people sometimes got trapped in those things — horrors!
A history of the subway token half-tells the story of Silvester Dubosz, the city comptroller who in the 1980s surreptitiously had his initials carved into the token design. Unlike City Reliquary, where I first heard that story, the Transit Museum doesn’t mention he got sacked for his ego. They also display a whole board of slugs and counterfeit tokens.
The Downside: Kids Galore
The Transit Museum stands as one of the noisiest museums I’ve visited so far, packed with kids (including a whole birthday party) on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Can’t hold that against it; I’ve never known a kid who doesn’t love trains, and the museum caters to that audience. Though as for modern parents’ inability to keep their kids under control and well-behaved in public…well, that’s a subject for another blog. Still, if you’re kidless, you might consider visiting on a weekday.
More than History
The Transit Museum tells the story of the city’s circulatory system — New York literally could not exist without it. I appreciate that they focus not just on the building of the system and nostalgic old trains, but also on what it will require to keep it functioning in a world of really bad weather and really bad people. The crisis exhibit looked in turn at rebuilding after 9/11, Irene, and Sandy, as well as the blackout of 2003.
Despite the challenges of modern times, the Transit Museum nonetheless also makes me thankful that I live today. While paying 98c for a quart of wine appeals to me, I can’t imagine commuting in one of those incredibly smelly, sweaty, pre-AC subway cars, dressed in a three-piece suit, with only whirring fans to move the muggy air around. I sometimes think the “Greatest Generation” gets overly lauded, but commuters back then were made of sterner stuff than I, for sure.
A Frustrated Reviewer
The Transit Museum fulfills its mission extremely well. It covers the things you’d expect a transit museum to, but holds surprises as well. Although kid-oriented and very kid-friendly, it also presents topics for grown-ups to delve into as well. As I re-read this entry, I feel frustrated because I want to write so much more. Some highlights:
- The story of Granville Woods. As the inventor of the “third rail” power system, he birthed a metaphor.
- As a trivia buff, I loved learning that on December 23, 1946, 8,872,244 people used the subway and elevated trains– a record that stands to this day.
- I also love Mayor Lindsay’s 1972 quote about the Second Avenue Subway line (proposed in 1919, it finally opened at the end of 2016): “We know that whatever is said about this project in the years to come, certainly no one can say that the city acted rashly or without due deliberation.”
- And there’s the wall of trolleys at the Dr. George T. F. Rahilly Trolley and Bus Study Center.
Like the treasures of the Fire Museum, the Transit Museum presents and interprets artifacts no other institution can replicate. Anyone with kids in the city should take them. And anyone who cares about New York history, or transportation and transit, should consider this Brooklyn hole in the ground a must-visit museum.
For Reference:
| Address | Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Streets, Underground, Brooklyn |
|---|---|
| Website | nytransitmuseum.org |
| Cost | General Admission: $10 |
A family tree shows how the Revolution divided families between loyalists and revolutionaries. It also names some of the slaves who worked for the Vechte family, though of course no one bothered to record how they felt about independence, or anything else about their thoughts and beliefs. Still, I like that they don’t sweep the Vechte’s slaves under the historic rug. Another brief display on slavery observes how surprisingly prevalent it was in revolutionary Brooklyn. One in three Kings County residents was a slave, and half of Dutch households owned them.
The mansion’s vast land holdings at one point stretched the (albeit pretty narrow that far north) width of Manhattan. All that land is now Washington Heights, of course. And yet, its commanding hilltop location, surrounded by tiny, lovely Roger Morris Park, offers a taste of the country to this day. The grounds burst with rosebushes and even include a small sunken garden. I could easily see going back just to sit there and read a book.
BLDG 92 is the vowel-challenged, fascinating, historical center of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It tells the story of the Navy Yard through artifacts, an interactive tabletop, and a comprehensive timeline. 
Housed in a tiny storefront in Willamsburg, City Reliquary started as a hobby for its founder, who first created it as a display in a window in his apartment. It has grown from there as New Yorkers with collections of, well, whatever, occupied the space for exhibitions, and the Reliquary’s own collections multiplied.
The current temporary show features perhaps the most under-appreciated of the city’s street foods, the humble knish. I learned things I never thought to wonder about knishes. Where they come from (the Eastern European knish belt extends from Latvia through Moldova); who makes them (there are six “Heroes of the Knish” who are the main local manufacturers); and what it means in Yiddish slang (lady parts). Also, back in 2013 Joan Rivers tweeted that Kim an Kanye should name their baby Knish because “who doesn’t love one?” Who knew?
The current church is Gothic Revival, in brownstone, which always seems to me a striking and unlikely choice. Until this visit I never wondered what the surrounding area was like when it was built — if it was all brownstone rowhouses, it would’ve fit in nicely I suppose. Now it stands out, even as the surrounding skyscrapers far overtop it.
Trinity’s history goes back to 1697, but this is the third church on this site. The first Trinity Church burned down in the Great Fire during the revolution in 1776. The second revealed structural problems following a severe snowstorm in 1838 that led to its replacement with the current building in 1846. So while it’s old, it’s not as old as it might want you to believe. St. Paul’s Chapel, a Trinity offshoot a short stroll north on Broadway, dates to 1766. I strongly recommend visiting both if you have time.
The interior of Trinity is pretty, but not especially noteworthy. It’s on a par with most other gothic revival churches in the U.S. or U.K.
Anyone who likes old churches or cemeteries or Hamilton (or Robert Fulton) must visit Trinity. Moreover, the graveyard is an oasis of green in a part of the city that doesn’t have a lot of that. For those frantically visiting all of Lower Manhattan’s many historic sites, museums, and other landmarks, it represents a chance to catch one’s breath in the midst of a jam-packed day. Trinity also has a fine music program–definitely take a look at their website. Even for a casual visitor, Trinity is worth a special trip.
Federal Hall is not what it seems. In fact, it’s not Federal Hall at all. From the outside a passer-by might easily believe that it was the first capitol of the U.S., and the building where George Washington took the oath as president. I thought that for years; only recently did I realize: right location, wrong building.
But I couldn’t help get the sense that the National Park Service would trade today’s building if they could get the “real” Federal Hall back again.
The South Street Seaport Museum just celebrated its 50th anniversary, and its establishment contributed to the survival of a collection of historic buildings in the face of Lower Manhattan’s relentless pressure for development. The museum includes a print shop (worth visiting; great cards), the museum building proper, and the “street of ships,” a collection of historic vessels, several of which are open for tours when the museum is open.
Edgar Allan Poe, proto-goth, inventor of the detective story, writer of gruesome tales and horror-struck poetry, quother of the raven, had a hard life. Baltimore has largely claimed him as its own (just think of their NFL team). While he did live there for while, and died there in 1849, Poe was a New Yorker for a good chunk of his life. Indeed, he was only visiting Baltimore when he shuffled off his mortal coil in circumstances that remain mysterious to this day. For the last three years of his life Poe resided in a small rented cottage in what was then the village of Fordham in Westchester County, known today as the Bronx.
It’s furnished with a fair number of period pieces, three items of which are known to have been Poe’s: a rocking chair, a fancy gilded mirror, and the narrow bed where Virginia Poe passed away.
My guide during my visit was a local kid who really loved Poe and the place. His enthusiasm helped bring the cottage to life. 
The African Burial Ground is a small monument overshadowed by the government buildings around Foley Square. As they were digging for a new federal building in 1991 they discovered bodies, and from there re-discovered a forgotten cemetery used by the city’s African American population in the late 1600s and early 1700s.
Today a corner of what used to be the cemetery is a small green open space with a black granite monument, standing in for a headstone. There aren’t any markers, of course, and if it weren’t for the signs and a series of low humps of earth, you’d probably just think it was a pocket park. It’s not the whole extent of the cemetery, as this city is sufficiently about commerce and building that it won’t let the past fully forestall progress, even when that past includes the earthly remains of slaves.
The African Burial Ground is definitely not entertaining. But it is important. Every New Yorker and everyone with an interest in the city and its history should go and pay their respects.