New York Transit Museum at 50: A Half-Century Celebration!
From rolling museum pieces to a disco inferno soiree, everyone’s invited to the 50th Anniversary party for one of Gotham’s most beloved underground attractions.
| 11 Apr 2026 | 02:10
New York Trasit Museum celebrations include a May 17 Party on Wheels. (
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The New York Transit Museum began as a 1976 exhibition. (
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New York Transit Museum Vinyl Night will transform this platform level into a funky dance hall. (
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The beloved New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn is having a 50th anniversary celebration this year—raise that flag and toot those horns! If you don’t know what this means—if you don’t feel it in your marrow—watch 1974’s “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” (the greatest subway movie of them all) and read Jim Dwyer’s 1991 reportorial masterpiece, “Subway Lives,” which ranks among the greatest of all New York City books ever written, period.
Opened to coincide with the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial, the museum was originally a temporary exhibition proposed by proud New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) employees. (The old red, white and blue “TA” logo remains iconic.) Housed in the decommissioned Court Street subway station (opened 1936, closed 1946), the Transit Museum is the largest such institution in North America. Today, its archives include contain more than 1 million objects.
Location at 99 Schermerhorn St., just a block away from Brooklyn Borough Hall (formerly Brooklyn City Hall), the museum is easily accessible by from nearly every train line except the “L” and the runt “S.” One could also walk or bicycle there over the Brooklyn Bridge, or take a ferry to Atlantic Avenue and hoof it on over. That walk would be about a mile but it’s a pleasant one and if you can recall a favorite Walt Whitman poem or Henry Ward Beecher sermon, all the better.
Though located in Brooklyn, the museum’s reach and mission extends to all five boroughs, including various Nostalgia Rides on vintage trains, a Bus Festival, two satellite museum stores in Manhattan (one inside Grand Central Terminal, the other at 2 Broadway) and other events.
As for its 50th anniversary year, the museum has new exhibitions, a citywide scavenger hunt, and even more historic train rides planned.
Want to start the party early? Take a look at the museum’s digital exhibition Our Journey: The New York Transit Museum at 50.
After going down that tunnel, consider the City-Wide Transit Scavenger Hunt. On June 1, the Transit Museum app will start inviting users to explore 50 transit history sites across the city. Bopping around to these locations, which include subways, buses, railroads, bridges, and tunnels, people will find hidden stories, surprising facts, pop quizzes and more. The hunt runs until November 1.
Starting the real-time anniversary fest is a Members-Only Nostalgia Trip on Saturday April 18; if you aren’t yet a member, you might want to be. Leaving from the museum, the train of historic 1914-24 BMT Standard cars will bring riders on tracks that once served the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit (BMT) and Independent (IND) subway companies. It will travel to Lefferts Boulevard on the A line, then heads towards Manhattan.
On Sunday, May 17, Party on Wheels: A Family Subway Celebration fundraiser will include vintage trains between the Museum and Hoyt-Schermerhorn, and enjoy family activities, replete with with classic New York bagels, coffee, and birthday cake. This event will be $75 for adults, $50 for children.
The ever popular Parade of Trains will be held on Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Everyone can ride a showcase of vintage subway cars, shuttling between Brighton Beach and Kings Highway on the B/Q line. Also, if you take the subway from Manhattan to Brighton Beach, there’s no additional cost.
On July 4, after you attend the Independence Day Parade in lower Manhattan, saddle up for some 50th Anniversary Weekend Shuttle Rides. On both July 4-5, one can experience the old HH train, a short shuttle service that ran between Court Street and Hoyt–Schermerhorn in Brooklyn. These rides are included with Museum admissions of $10 for adults and $5 for children 2-17 and Seniors. Reservations for the shuttle trains open June 1.
Put on your boogie shoes and shake that booty to some sweaty funky city sounds on Vinyl Night, Saturday, September 26. This one-night-only fundraiser will transform the Transit Museum into a two-level dance party—disco upstairs, funk and hip-hop below. Though jazz isn’t mentioned, ask the DJ to play B.T. Express “Peace Pipe” or “Eric B. and Rakim “Don’t Sweat The Technique” and it’s likely you’ll get at least a nod approval.
For all the details about anniversary events and programs, visit nytransitmuseum.org/50years.