NY Transit Museum hosts 21st Annual Bus Festival

Vintage Buses, Special Activities – All the Excitement of Atlantic Antic

September 17, 2014 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

At the New York Transit Museum’s 21st Annual Bus Festival, kids of all ages will have the chance to visit the “IdeaLab” on the street to design and build their own visions for the perfect bus of the future.

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The New York Transit Museum’s 21st Annual Bus Festival returns on Sunday, Sept. 28, with opportunities to see and step aboard the Transit Museum’s vintage fleet, representing over 80 years of surface transit history in the city.

More than a dozen buses and trucks will be stationed on Boerum Place between State Street and Atlantic Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Crafts, toys and transit merchandise will be available, and Transit Museum admission will be $1 throughout the day. The Museum will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last admission at 4:30 p.m. Visitors can also enjoy food, art, music, shopping, festivities and fun at the 40thAnnual Atlantic Antic, Brooklyn’s largest street fair.

Educational programming during the day will focus on buses of the future. New technologies and initiatives like alternative-fuel engines, Real-Time Bus Tracking and Select Bus Service are making bus rides safer, faster and more sustainable for the environment. After seeing the vintage fleet, Museum Interpreters will encourage young visitors to think about what surprises and innovations are still yet to come. Kids of all ages will have the chance to visit the “IdeaLab” on the street to design and build their own visions for the perfect bus of the future.

This year’s special guests include:

“Betsy” – A Fifth Avenue Coach Company double decker bus, Betsy ran in Manhattan from 1931 until 1953. It was acquired by the Museum in 2004, and will be the oldest vehicle at the Bus Festival.
Bus 2969 – On the TV show “The Honeymooners,” Jackie Gleason played Ralph Kramden, a New York bus driver who drove a vehicle just like this one along Madison Avenue.
Bus 3100 – A Fifth Avenue Coach Company prototype bus, this vehicle debuted in 1958 as one of the first air-conditioned buses nationwide.

Work vehicles on display include:

Tunnel Wrecker – Nicknamed “the Monster of the Tunnels,” this unusual emergency truck was built to move disabled vehicles in the Hugh L. Carey and Queens-Midtown Tunnels. Square in shape, it is equipped to handle everything from a compact car to a tractor-trailer.
Tunnel Wash Truck – This vehicle is used to wash the inside walls and ceiling at the Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown Tunnels.
Autocar – From 1936 to 1972, this truck served as a mobile testing laboratory for electric power distribution in the Independent Subway (IND) and, later, throughout the subway system.

NOTE: Bus equipment on display is subject to change.