New York Transit Museum: Inside an Abandoned Subway Station
New York Transit Museum: Inside an Abandoned Subway Station
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The New York Transit Museum lives inside an old abandoned subway station in Brooklyn (the station dates back to 1936).
The location alone makes it worth a visit. You can climb aboard historic subway cars and take hilarious photos with nobody getting in your way.
What to see at the Transit Museum
On the first level of this station in Downtown Brooklyn, you'll find interactive exhibits on the history of New York's public transportation.
School groups pour in here on weekdays, learning their city's history up close. If you're traveling with kids, this is definitely a solid plan.
The Transit Museum also digs into the secrets of the system that connected the city and made today's New York possible.
Here you'll learn about:
- the engineering challenges and the workers who broke ground a century ago.
- how the New York subway permanently reshaped the city's look and rhythm.
- the technology and logistics that keep this subway running 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Historic subway cars
The best part of the Transit Museum is down on the station platform, where twenty vintage subway cars are lined up along the track.
They're so well preserved that they still have period advertisements hanging inside. You can browse the full collection on the Museum's website.
You can step inside and wander freely through the cars. Each one drops you into a different decade of New York, especially the oldest, which dates to 1907.
Fun fact: several TV shows have filmed period scenes in these cars 😉
New York souvenir shop
If you want to bring home something nice, the museum shop has high-quality New York souvenirs and books, nothing like the trinkets you'll find all over the city.
If you're short on time and can't make it out to Brooklyn, you can also buy these souvenirs at the Transit Museum gallery inside Grand Central Terminal, located in the Shuttle Passage off the Main Concourse.
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Address:
99 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn
How to get there
Subway 2, 3, 4, 5. Borough Hall station
Subway R. Court St station
Subway A, C, G. Hoyt-Schermerhorn St station
Prices:
Adults US$10 / ages 2 to 17 US$5 / 62+ US$5
62+ free on Wednesdays
Hours:
Tuesday to Friday 10 am to 4 pm
Saturday and Sunday 11 am to 5 pm
Closed Mondays and holidays