Sep. 19, 2008 at 3:43pm
The MTA New York Transit Museum is insanely neat, featuring images, testimonies, and artifacts from the great subway dig in the first years of the 20th century.  The walk-through exhibit, held in an unused subway station full of heat and history, leads visitors to restored subway cars from each decade.  My favorite is from the 20’s, with cushioned woven seats, open aisles, and pictures windows that showcased…tunnels? Every black and white photograph showed hundreds of hot, dirty, tired immigrant workers.  Looking at them, you have to wonder, did they think what they were doing (dynamiting sheet rock, digging under rivers, getting sucked into earth and muck and suffocating under collapses) was insane?  Did they feel proud?  Was it hell, or just a job?

The MTA New York Transit Museum is insanely neat, featuring images, testimonies, and artifacts from the great subway dig in the first years of the 20th century.  The walk-through exhibit, held in an unused subway station full of heat and history, leads visitors to restored subway cars from each decade.  My favorite is from the 20’s, with cushioned woven seats, open aisles, and pictures windows that showcased…tunnels?

Every black and white photograph showed hundreds of hot, dirty, tired immigrant workers.  Looking at them, you have to wonder, did they think what they were doing (dynamiting sheet rock, digging under rivers, getting sucked into earth and muck and suffocating under collapses) was insane?  Did they feel proud?  Was it hell, or just a job?