USA 45 Days by Rail: Day 26 - New York Transit Museum

After a shower and breakfast I left the apartment in headed down to the 207^th Street station where I just got on the A train seconds before it was leaving. I was riding down the train all the way to 59^th Street. There I switched to the 1 train that took me straight down to South Ferry, the line’s final stop. As there were less riders on this Saturday morning the journey didn’t take as long as the day before. I left the station and entered the Staten Island Ferry terminal just right in front of the subway. There however were more people and the 11 am departure of the Staten Island Ferry was quite busy. Boarding began sharp 11 am. I was lucky and still got a nice spot on the upper deck giving me a direct view off the Statue of Liberty as well as the skyline of Manhattan. Unfortunately clouds had formed making it harder to get good pictures. Still I took a few pictures while the ferry passed by the Statue of Liberty however I wasn’t really satisfied with the outcome. Conditions started to become better once the ferry had reached Staten Island. I took the chance to take some pictures from the shoreline. Indeed the skyline of Manhattan had changed since I had been in Staten Island the last time about 5 years ago. Before getting back on the ferry I had lunch in the terminal. I got again on the ferry by 12.30 pm. The conditions were still good and on the way back I got much better pictures. Also this time I was able to get a spot on the upper deck. Being busy with taking pictures the 25 minutes crossing went really fast. Once back in Manhattan I got again on the line 1 train. I went off after a few stops on Chamber Street where I could connect to the line 3. Line 3 took me all the way to Brooklyn, I exited the train at Borough Hall and walked the short distance to the New York Transit Museum. The museum was located in an old subway station and the entry was through a regular subway entrance. The ticket hall featured an interesting exhibition about how the subway system was built in the early 1900s and how public transit in New York has developed since its early beginnings in the 1810s. Many interesting artifacts and models of trams, buses and trolley cars were on display. There were also cut outs of different bus driver cabins where one could sit down behind the wheel and get a feel how it must be to drive a bus. Finally on the platform level different subway cars were on display from the early beginnings until the modern age. Most of this cars were also accessible. After going through the entire exhibition I briefly visited the museum’s shop. The museum was really great and I can only recommend it to anyone interested in the history of New York’s transit system. Once back on surface I walked back to Borough Hall station. This time I took line 6 all the way back to Manhattan. I got off at City Hall right at the ramp leading to Brooklyn Bridge. I started walking up Brooklyn Bridge but again clouds interfered my plans and I decided to leave the walk across the bridge for another day when conditions for taking pictures were better. Instead I continued on Center Street towards Chinatown. Chinatown was packed with people, I went up and down some of the streets looking for some interesting photo spots. Right besides China Town was Little Italy which I was striving through next. Also in Little Italy many people were walking on the street. Luckily the streets had been closed for traffic. I got some postcards and had some ice cream. As it started to get late I wanted to head back to my accommodation. However, getting on the subway wasn’t as easy as normally. There was some constructions going on and a few lines were suspended from service. The first station I tried to enter was closed, the second only provided limited service and I had to switch trains at West 4^th Street in order to get to Times Square from where I could catch the A line to 207^th Street. However, as I arrived at Times Square/42^nd Street station I decided to get off the subway and briefly visit Times Square. The conditions for photography were perfect as the sun was just setting. Getting from the E line to the exit on Times Square took really long and I had to cross the entire station which is really large. Finally I got out of the station at 7^th Avenue and 42^nd Street close to Times Square. Times Square was really packed with people. It was difficult to move around but still I was able to get some really good pictures with all the people, the lights as well as the fading day light. I made my way up to 46^th Street. Once there I didn’t want to go back all the way to 42^nd Street station. Luckily I remembered from my last visit to New York in 2010 that somewhere on 8^th Avenue and 49^th Street or so there was another subway station. Indeed, there was a station on 50^th Street. Once I had entered the station I was informed that the C line wasn’t running due to construction works. The A line however did not stop at 50^th Street station because it wasn’t an express line stop. So there was no uptown train stopping at that station. In order to catch the A line I had to take first a down town bound train back to 42^nd Street and then transfer to an uptown bound A line train. Luckily the A line was still running very frequently and I didn’t had to wait too long until I finally got on the uptown train and all the way back to 207^th Street. Finally after almost 12 hours discovering New York I was back at the apartment. I was very hungry and had dinner right away before spending the rest of the evening writing on the blog and answering e-mails as well as making new plans for the upcoming day.