Quick answer
The New York Transit Museum is a history museum inside the decommissioned Court Street subway station in Downtown Brooklyn. It opened in 1976 with admission of one subway token, and its two live tracks hold vintage cars from the IRT, BMT and IND lines.
Full transcript
The station that became a museum
The New York Transit Museum sits in a real subway station, the old Court Street terminal of the IND Fulton Street Line in Downtown Brooklyn. The station opened on April 9, 1936 and closed on June 1, 1946 after a decade of light traffic; then the sealed platform waited. On July 4, 1976, as part of the United States Bicentennial, the city opened a transit exhibit there, charging one subway token for admission. It was supposed to close in September. It never did. Walk down the entrance stairs and the tile band, the platform edge and the smell are the originals.
Rolling stock
Two fully powered, operational tracks run along the platform, lined with preserved cars from the three companies that built the subway: the IRT, the BMT and the city's IND. Most still run, and the museum moves them when exhibits change. Look for bus No. 3100, built in 1956, the first air-conditioned bus in American service, and the signal tower with its live control levers, still needed when the cars on display are shuffled. The collection even starred in movies: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three shot here in 1974.
How to do it
Ride any train to the Borough Hall or Jay Street stations in Downtown Brooklyn and walk to the entrance at Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street. Go downstairs and walk the platform from end to end before reading anything, because the space itself is the exhibit. Then pick one car and really look — the rattan seats, the ceiling fans, the vintage ads. Check the calendar for nostalgia rides and the Bus Festival, which began in 1994 and is free. Sit in one of the old seats for a minute before you go back up to the street.