Brooklynites will get a chance to step inside some of New York City’s most memorable buses next month when the New York Transit Museum brings its annual Bus Festival to Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The museum, together with MTA New York City Transit, will host the 29th annual event on Sept. 19 at Emily Warren Roebling Plaza. The free festival will run from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., rain or shine.
The event will showcase buses spanning more than a century of New York transportation history, giving visitors a look at how the vehicles that carried generations of New Yorkers have changed over time.
Attendees can board the vintage buses, explore their interiors and exteriors and meet members of the workforce responsible for the city’s transit system.
Brooklynites can board and explore carefully-preserved historic buses. Photo courtesy of NYC Transit Museum
“For 50 years, the New York Transit Museum has called a historic subway station home, but our buses are much too big to come inside,” Regina Shepherd, the museum’s acting director, said. “[The] Bus Festival allows us to bring these extraordinary vehicles into the spotlight and welcome the public aboard for a celebration of bus history.”
This year’s lineup will include several notable vehicles, one of which is making its Bus Festival debut.
Bus 303, built in 1918 for the Fifth Avenue Coach Company, is a wooden open-air double-decker that once operated on Manhattan routes. Following a restoration completed this year, it is now the oldest restored bus in the Transit Museum’s collection. It will appear alongside “Betsy,” the museum’s 1931 double-decker.
Another standout will be Bus 3100, a 1956 experimental vehicle built by the Fifth Avenue Coach Company. It became the first air-conditioned transit bus in the United States and features details including fluorescent lighting, wraparound seating and a rear exit door operated by pushing it open.
Visitors can also see Bus 100, a 1959 General Motors “New Look” bus. The model became known as the “Fishbowl” because of its large, rounded windshield and was among the first group of 190 buses to bring the design to the city.
Bus 5227, built in 1971, represents another chapter in the city’s bus history. The vehicle was part of a fleet of GM New Look buses rebuilt by the Blitz Corporation in the 1980s. It has been restored to its early-1990s look, complete with its blue-and-white color scheme. The bus holds another distinction: it was the final NYC Transit bus without a wheelchair lift to continue carrying passengers.
Bus 5227, one of several vehicles that will be on display at the festival. Photo courtesy of New York City Transit Museum
The festival will also feature Bus 3865, a 1993 example of the Rapid Transit Series, commonly known as RTS. The buses, recognizable for their curved shapes and sloped windshields, first entered service in 1979 and remained in operation until 2019. The bus spent years serving Queens — including under Queens Surface Corporation, Jamaica Buses and MTA Bus Company.
A more solemn piece of the collection will be represented by Bus 2185, a 2001 MCI Commuter Cruiser nicknamed “Pamela.” The 45-foot vehicle sustained extensive damage at the World Trade Center in 2001. It was later rebuilt at NYC Transit’s East New York Central Maintenance Facility and returned to service in 2005.
Today, the bus carries a memorial livery featuring American flags and a “9/11/2001: Never Forget” graphic. The vehicle will be displayed as the city approaches the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Beyond the buses themselves, the festival will feature interactive activities through the New York Transit Museum mobile app. Visitors can compete in trivia aimed at both children and adults and take part in a scavenger hunt that sends them around festival grounds to find and photograph the historic buses.
Completing the scavenger hunt will earn participants a transit-themed temporary tattoo.
The Transit Museum Store will also set up a temporary shop at the festival, with merchandise ranging from vintage us models and toys to apparel, books, posters and other transportation-themed items.
Those planning to attend can RSVP through the museum’s website for a chance to win a Dual/Household membership — which includes a year of free museum admission, discounts on vintage train rides and more.
The museum cautions that the vehicles and equipment on display may change.