Exhibits
Transit Museum in Downtown Brooklyn
The New York Transit Museum is located in a decommissioned subway station at 99 Schermerhorn Street. Advance tickets and masks are recommended but not required. Click here for hours, admission, and directions.
Rotating Exhibits:
The Subway Is…
Now on View
You take it to work, to school, or for a night out. It’s become a shorthand for New York — or urbanity in the abstract.
It’s the New York City subway. It moves millions of people — and has since the day it opened on October 27th, 1904. Using images and objects from the Museum collection, this exhibit explores some of the endless ways to complete the sentence, “The Subway Is…”
The Subway Is… exhibit is generously sponsored by Boldyn Networks, with additional sponsorship support from Alstom, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Mitsubishi Electric, di Domenico + Partners LLP, and Interactive Elements, Inc.
Ticket to Ride
Now on View
Through archival photographs, ephemera, and objects from the Transit Museum’s extensive collection, Ticket to Ride shows the evolution of fare collection across all of New York’s modes of transportation. Visitors will see and touch different types of collection equipment such as turnstiles and fare boxes, get a sense the colossal process of fare collection, and see some of the people who make sure the money goes where it’s supposed to go.
Ticket to Ride is generously sponsored by
Pure Vision Arts Express
Now on View
The one-of-a-kind Pure Vision Arts (PVA) studio is Manhattan’s premier art studio and exhibition space for artists with autism spectrum disorder and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. Pure Vision Arts provides artists with opportunities to exhibit their work and immerse themselves in the arts community. Fourteen artists from PVA focused on public transportation to create this body of work.
Permanent Exhibits:
Steel, Stone & Backbone: Building New York’s Subways presents a look at the construction methods and labor required to build the city’s first subway line at the turn of the 20th Century. Historical artifacts, video and photography footage bring to life the dedication and tenacity of the workers who made this project possible.
Moving the Millions highlights the evolution of the subway and the major issues and events that influenced the development of the largest transportation network in North America. Home to twenty vintage subway and elevated cars dating back to 1907, and a working signal tower, the Museum’s working platform level spans a full city block
On the Streets: New York’s Trolleys and Buses tells the story of above ground mobility and surface transit from the early 1800s to the present. A 12-seat city bus, “fishbowl” bus cab, walk-don’t walk signs, parking meters, fire hydrants, traffic lights, and an array of other interactive “Street furniture” bring this exhibit to life. Visitors can also learn about the evolution of fuel technologies and its environmental impact.
No Spitting on the Platform includes a selection of historic way-finding and platform etiquette signage from the New York Transit Museum’s archives.
The Dr. George T.F Rahilly Trolley and Bus Study Center features over 50 detailed scale models of trolleys and work cars, with a focus on Brooklyn.
Grand Central Gallery & Store
Our Grand Central Gallery & Store is located just off the Main Concourse in the Shuttle Passage, adjacent to the Station Masters’ Office. Click here for more information on hours, admission, and directions.
What’s New: Telling Transit Stories
Now on View
The New York Transit Museum’s collecting mission is to honor, preserve, and interpret materials related to New York’s vast transportation system. These items in various forms, shape, sizes, age, and condition provide us with a lens through which one can view the evolution of almost everything in our region. But how and why do we collect the things we do? Now on view at our Grand Central Gallery, What’s New: Telling Transit Stories, presents four recent additions to the Museum’s collection and explores how objects add dimension and context to the stories we tell.
Holiday Train Show
Opening November 14th, 2024
This holiday season, the New York Transit Museum’s Grand Central Gallery & Store plays host to a city within a city with the display of a miniature electric railroad running over, through, and beneath some of New York’s most magnificent landmarks. Celebrating its 20th year of operation, this beloved holiday exhibit features Lionel model trains traveling along a 34’ long, two-level, “O” gauge model train layout. Departing from a miniature replica of Grand Central Terminal, the Transit Museum’s collection of model trains including Metro-North, Polar Express, and vintage subway train sets will dazzle the eyes of children and adults alike as they make their way past New York landmarks and on to the North Pole!
Digital Exhibits
Click here to view our online exhibits.