page_title: New York Transit Museum
section_title: Bus fleet and artifacts
hierarchical_section_title: New York Transit Museum / Exhibits and programs / Bus fleet and artifacts
caption_attribution_description: English: New York Transit Museum's Annual Bus Festival in Brooklyn Bridge Park (Photo gallery of DUMBO, Brooklyn)
context_page_description: The New York Transit Museum is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is located in the decommissioned Court Street subway station in Downtown Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. There is a smaller satellite Museum Annex in Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. The museum is a self-supporting division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
context_section_description: Besides subway cars, the museum has a sizable vintage bus fleet of retired buses. Because there is no area available for their permanent exhibition in the underground museum, they are stored in various bus depots around the city. They are brought out for special events, such as the museum's annual "Bus Festival," which is held annually in conjunction with the Atlantic Antic street fair. The Bus Festival began as an annual tradition in 1994. During the Bus Festival, the museum opens its doors for free.
  The bus fleet includes:
  #3100 (built 1956) was the first air-conditioned bus in use in any American transportation system. An experimental bus of the Fifth Avenue Coach Company, it had rear exit doors that passengers pushed to open; seats wrapping around the back of the bus; soft seats; and fluorescent lights. It last saw passenger service in the mid-1970s, having been used later for the New York City Transit Police.
  #236 (built 1980) was the first of the advanced design - high-tech bus for its age, having wheelchair-accessible lifts and electronic marquees. The fleet had many mechanical/structural problems and was pulled from service after four years.
  #2969 (originally #4789; built 1948) was custom-made for the city's transit system and was one of the first 40-foot (12 m) buses. Its front door was twice as wide as other buses' front doors at the time. It was renumbered after the bus that Jackie Gleason's character in The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden, was pictured in.
  #3865 (built 1993) was operated by Queens Surface Corporation during its first years of service, but in May 2000, the bus became under the operation of Jamaica Buses. Twelve of the former Queens Surface buses (including #3865) replaced some 1980s-era buses that Jamaica Buses operated.
  #100 (built 1959) was a "New Look" bus built by GMC. In total, 190 "New Look" buses operated in New York City. Each had a curved windshield with a one-piece overhead route sign and windows shaped like parallelograms.
  #621 (built 1979) was a "Fishbowl" bus built by General Motors of Canada and one of ten such buses used in New York City until the 1990s.
  #3006 (built 1988) was a "Classic" bus operated by Liberty Lines Transit and used from 1982 to 2006.
  #1502 (built 1982) was a "New Look" bus. The 25 buses were operated by New York Bus Service. These buses had seats that faced forward; overhead racks and lights; and one door at the front.
  #5227 (built 1971 and rebuilt 1985) was one of 350 "New Look" buses that were rebuilt in Chicago. The buses, which had hard, blue lengthwise seating, were the last NYCT buses without a wheelchair lift.
  #1201 (built 1981) was one of ultimately 4,877 Rapid Transit Series buses used by the MTA Regional Bus Operations companies from 1981 to 1999. These buses all had wheelchair lifts, making MTA the first agency in the United States to have a fully accessible bus fleet.
  #8928 (built 1969) was one of 133 buses that replaced an earlier, 1956 fleet. Thirteen buses were operated on Staten Island express buses and were later used as buses between John F. Kennedy International Airport and the JFK Express at Howard Beach–JFK Airport.
  Some bus artifacts are present in the station. A revenue bag, one of many provided for use for bus drivers with the Third Avenue Transit Corporation, was used during the 1950s to transport money out of the buses. It is part of the interactive "Show Me the Money: From the Turnstile to the Bank" exhibit, where visitors could "see an image of the vacuum that attaches to the fare box and sucks the coins out."
caption: The 26th Annual Bus Festival in Brooklyn Bridge Park
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