Great Escape: New York Transit Museum

At first glance, one may think it’s just an average subway station. But take a second look, and you’ll step onto a platform to the past at the New York Transit Museum in Downtown Brooklyn.

The museum is a real train station decommissioned in 1936, and it takes visitors through a bunch of different aspects of the New York City subway system.

The most popular among visitors is the platform level, on which you can see and walk through some very cool vintage trains from the early 1900s.

There’s also an exhibit on the very first NYC subway line ever built, which began construction in 1900. Steel, Stone & Backbone features century-old pictures, various artifacts and period videos.

MTA fare prices are pretty steep these days, but can you believe they used to be as little as five cents? The museum’s exhibit on fare collection displays a collection of fare taking devices over the past hundred years, and the exhibit is totally interactive, so feel free to play all you want.

The museum’s latest addition, created by the Liberty Science Center, is called ElectriCity, which opened in late October.

It marks the first science exhibit to come to the New York Transit Museum, as well as the Liberty Science Center’s first ever exhibit based in New York City.

ElectriCity, as a whole, will enable visitors to participate in an interactive exploration of electricity’s role in the urban subway system.

The exciting addition incorporates authentic artifacts like huge switches and circuit breakers as well as a gigantic subway control board panel from 1932.

The New York Transit Museum has a ton more interesting exhibits plus lots of free weekend programs for kids and adults alike, and for only $7, who could say no to that?

The New York Transit Museum is located at the corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Hours are Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more info, call 718-694-1600.