If
you are finding a place to spend your weekend, New York Transit Museum (NYTM)
will be a pleasant surprise for both you and your companion.
A
Paradise for Public Transportation Junkie:
A
trip underground to the New York Transit Museum can be an interesting and
educational. You will start your visit from a funnel for the exhibition ‘Steel,
Stone & Backbone: Building New York’s Subways’, massive visual resources
depict the construction methods and labor required to build the city’s first
subway line at the turn of the 20th Century.
Another
historical exhibition ‘Fare Collection’ traces the history of paper tickets,
tokens, illegal slugs, MetroCards, and the many turnstile designs (both vintage
and contemporary) that have moved commuters through the system since 1904.
Bringing Back The City presents how
mass transit responds to crisis. When disaster strikes, it is the dedicated
staffs who get this “city that never sleep” moving again. From storms,
blizzards, and blackouts to the terror of September 11, 2001, their stories are
striking examples of resourcefulness, resilience, and heroism in times of
crisis.
An Amusement Park
for Children:
If
you are looking for a museum for your kids to entertain or you really love
those little trouble-makers, New York Transit Museum is a great place to
explore. It is a place full of delighted elements for your kids and you to
spend the entire afternoon.
There is a section where hundreds of bus models are displayed in
several glass cabinets. Children will definitely stop by these windows, staring
at these “toys” without an intention to leave.
To enroll in an education program, you can check the museum’s official
website and find an appropriate program for your kids. For example, Subway
Sleuths is an after-school program at the New York Transit Museum that uses a
shared interest in trains among kids on the autism spectrum to encourage
peer-to-peer interaction and develop social skills and confidence through
goal-oriented sessions.
Another magic section in this museum is an area with different
real-sized bus and trolley models, on which children can act as drivers,
navigating these transportation tools. They can also pretend to ride as
passengers, fueling a bus with gas and following the street lights and signs.
Here
is a tip to entertain those lovely trouble-makers: just smile and try to catch
their eyes! Your laugh and movements will make them happier and playing with
you!
The Best Place to
Photograph:
"Beautiful" and
"subway" won't often fit together in a statement about New York
City’s transit system. When it comes to the city’s vintage subway cars, though,
any rider can agree they hold both history and allure.
In the bottom level of the museum, there
is a subway station with one platform and two tracks that store a historical
cross section of preserved subway cars. You can take a walk of vintage subway cars in the
1920s, 1940s, 1960s and feel like a trip back in time. The varying colors,
interior designs and changing advertisements offer people a glimpse about the
evolving decades the cars represent. The most delightful and fun surprise is
that these old cars give visitors a great chance to snag vintage subway pics.
You can reenact scenes from famous movies and take a nostalgia trip.
Here are some photography techniques and styles that we tried in NYTM.
Black & White images are still prevalent, depicting the mysterious era.
Scary photos lookalike movie posters
Comparison can tell a story: past vs now
From inside to outside
Photos as if we were back to the 1980s and 90s
