Some days you wake up and think, “Christ… another day?” and it is on these days that you should get up and do something you’ve always wanted to do. ENTER THE TRANSIT MUSEUM!
It’s absolutely wild that this was the first time I’ve ever been here, it is now definitely in my top three favourite museums of New York. It should really just be called the train museum though because that’s what it is. “Transit” might be the most boring word in the history of language. Also, how cool is it to have the museum itself be inside the abandoned Court Street station?
Can you even imagine riding around in that bus (above)? So f-ing elegant.
Those photos (above) are of the now closed City Hall Station that I vow to visit one day. They do tours of the station every few years and I can only imagine how beautiful it would be to see in person. (Yes, I know that you can get glimpses of it if you stay on the downtown 6 train as it loops back around to become an uptown, but it’s not the same. I want to be out on that platform and ROAM damnit.)
On the ground floor of the museum, there are tons of photos and advertisements from old transit ads as well as old ticket booths and replica buses.
And the downstairs area is where it gets really fun.
Trains from different eras line both sides of the platforms and you can walk in and out of them.
If I can be honest here, it feels insane to be able to walk through history. You feel every era of each train. The coldness of the ones from the 70s, the decadence of the ones from the 20s, it’s unreal. The second best part of this place? The subway ads.
There aren’t enough ads these days that scare children into caring about safety.
I can’t recommend this museum enough. With kids, without kids, go high, go after the farmer’s market nearby. Just go. Such a good time.
Open Fridays - Sundays, 11am-4pm, advance tickets required.