Inside look at New York Transit Museum's new exhibit celebrating 120 years of the subway
BROOKLYN (WABC) -- Subway trains have been rumbling below the streets of New York City for close to a century.
Just about every New Yorker has a story to tell about squeezing inside the closing doors or watching helplessly as trains pull away from the platform.
Starting Thursday you can celebrate your own Subway first with a new exhibit.
The New York City Transit Museum is taking us on a ride like most have never been on before.
Using images and objects from the Museum collection, this exhibit explores some of the endless ways to complete the sentence, "The Subway Is..."
Eyewitness News' Michelle Charlesworth got an inside look ahead of the exhibit opening that celebrates 120 years of the subway.
Welcome to 1904 on Queens Boulevard where it's five cents to ride the subway with leather straps and horse hair-filled seats.
"The first subway system in NY is the IRT which opened on October 27th 1904. It cost five cents to ride it and it would stay that same way for the next 44 years through both World Wars and the Great Depression," said New York Transit Museum Director Concetta Bencivenga.
The adjusted price for inflation the 5 cents would be $1.77 now.
"It connects all of us. It has made place for all of us. There are entire neighborhoods most recently Hudson Yards. Our collection is from 1904-1907 and they had leather straps, that's why we're called straphangers," Bencivenga said.
The rattan over cotton batting and horsehair seats from 1904 make the subway car look like something from a movie.
Many shows and movies including Marvelous Ms. Maisel and Tom Hanks movies have been shot here.
Some cars have "grab hands" and were trains that did go underground from 1917.
"I love when we get to show people photographs of people actually building the subway. The photographs were made by photographers who afforded a level of dignity to these laborers," said New York Transit Museum Curator Jodi Shapir said.
Even though New York has about 660 miles of track which would stretch from New York to Charleston, we aren't the biggest and weren't even the first.
"The first subway is in Budapest, the second was in London, and the first in the United States was Boston," Shapiro said.
"The Subway Is.." opens Thursday.
In the show, there's a sign that says Paris subways go to sleep but New York is 24/7.
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