New York Transit Museum - Teacher Resource Center

Lesson Ideas:

• Before Visiting the Museum
• After Your Visit to the Museum

Before Visiting the Museum

• Our Journeys
  Ask students to keep a record of their observations while riding public transportation, focusing specifically on the following:
  
  • architectural and decorative elements of subway stations, such as mosaics, plaques, tile work, and station layout and size
  • turnstiles and customer service booths in subway stations
  • signs and advertisements, both in subway stations and on trains and buses
  • lights and seats on trains and buses
  • similarities and differences between older and newer train cars and older and newer buses
  • similarities and differences between trains that run on different lines (such as the F train compared to the 2 train)
  • passengers and workers on both trains and buses
  
  Encourage students to share and discuss their thoughts and observations. Students will be comparing what they notice about today’s public transportation with the vintage items they see and learn about in the museum.
  
  
• Their Journeys
  Invite students to interview parents or grandparents about their memories of travel on public transportation when they were children.  How do their parents’ or grandparents’ remembrances compare to the students’ own experiences?  As a class, research statistics on public transportation ridership, automobile use, bicycle use, and the use of other forms of transportation in New York City, such as taxis and ferries – for both today and when students’ parents or grandparents were children (such as forty or seventy years ago).  Compare and discuss the findings.
  
  
• Many Ideas
  In an attempt to ease Lower Manhattan’s street congestion in the late 1860s, many inventors proposed ideas for various forms of transit.  We now know that the subway was the best solution, but it is interesting to consider other possibilities that were proposed at the time.  Have small groups of students research and present information on the transportation ideas or inventions of Alfred Beach, Alfred Speer, Dr. Rufus Gilbert, and Charles Harvey.  Ask students to explain the inventor’s proposal or creation, how the invention [would have] operated, its practicality, and whether they consider it to be a success.
  
  
• Picturing the Past: Using Primary Sources
  Show students photographs of the crowded streets of Lower Manhattan in the late 1800s.  What problems do they see?  What do they notice about transportation and traffic conditions?  What risks and challenges do travelers and pedestrians face?  How could these problems be solved?  Ask students to imagine living in Lower Manhattan during this time.  Have them write letters or proposals to the mayor, stating reasons why New York City needs to alleviate street congestion by creating an underground rapid transportation system.
  
  
• MetroMath
  During the span of just over a hundred years, from the opening of the subway in 1904 to today, the fare for riding public transportation in New York City has increased in various increments, from five cents to two dollars.  Have groups of students research fare costs during each decade of the 20th century.  Have them also research the average costs of various items (such as a movie ticket, candy bar, slice of pizza) and the average salaries earned for various jobs.  Ask them to create a chart or graph to record their findings.  Compare the findings by decades.  What has increased the most/least?  How does fare for riding public transportation compare with the costs of items and salaries earned?  Use the findings for various math exercises, such as calculating percentages and ratios.
  
  
• Public Transportation in New York City
  Divide students into small groups and assign each group a mode of transportation in New York City’s transit history (omnibus, elevated train, trolley, commuter trains, etc.).  Have each group research and present information on the mode of transportation and the time period during which it was used.  Groups should consider:
   
  •  how, when, and where their particular mode of transportation operated
  •  source of energy needed for operation and the resulting environmental impact
  •  cost of construction, operation and maintenance
  •  number of workers required for operation and maintenance
  •  number of passengers served by the mode of transport
  •  fare
  •  changes (if any) to the actual vehicles or to the mode of transit over time
  •  how the mode of transport affected the physical nature of New York City 
  
  Groups should also incorporate aspects from the time period during which the mode of transport was used, such as the population of New York City, political happenings, as well as any significant events of the time.  Information can be presented on posters and displayed in the classroom for use and reference throughout your study, or students can create digital presentations to share with the rest of the class.  Analyze the information presented.  Consider:
  
  •  What do students think are the advantages/disadvantages of each mode of transportation?
  •  Which has the largest/smallest capacity?
  •  Which travels the fastest/slowest?
  •  Which is the most cost effective?  Environmentally effective?
  •  How do/did various modes of transportation affect one another?
  
  Conclude this lesson by asking students to write a short reflection on the impact various modes of public transportation have had on New York City over time.
  
  
• What’s Going On Down There?
  There’s a lot going on underneath the streets of New York City.  Begin with a look at New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City (by Julia Solis), a good introduction to this topic.  Then help students further research information on what is underground, considering both natural geography (rocks, sand, water) and “man-made” additions (pipes, wires, cables).  Discuss the impact these things had on the various methods of building the subway system.  What challenges did engineers and workers face?  How did they solve these problems?
  
  
• Archaeological Finds
  It might also be interesting for students to research things that were unearthed by subway workers digging underground – such as mastodon bones, a sunken merchant ship, and items from Colonial times!  Information on urban archaeology can be found on The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission website:  http://nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/about/arch_about.shtml and in the book Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City (by Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall).
  
  
• Lay of the Land
  Find a profile or cross-section map showing the elevation of Manhattan (one can be found in A Subway for New York).  What do students notice about the lay of the land?  To keep the subway level and safe, engineers had to plan for subway construction through various terrain.  Core sampling was used to help engineers determine what kinds of tools and explosives would be needed in certain areas.  Give students an opportunity to explore the process of core sampling.  Fill a plastic box with various layers of earth (clay, gravel, coarse sand, and soil – you may want to vary the depth of the layers or leave some layers out in sections).  Give students clear, plastic tubes (plexi tubes) to take core samples.  Discuss what can be learned from the samples and how this information was useful to engineers mapping out subway routes.
  

After Your Visit to the Museum

• Then and Now: Using Primary Sources
  Look at photographs of neighborhoods before the elevated train/subway reached the neighborhoods, and then look at photographs of the same neighborhoods today.  How are they similar/different?  Discuss changes that have been made over time.  Why do students think these changes have occurred?  Discuss the impact rapid transit has had on urban development.
  
  
• Is it Fare?
  Discuss the various methods of fare collection that have been used over the years by passengers paying for public transportation: tickets, coins, tokens, and MetroCards.  What were the advantages and disadvantages of each?  Why have methods of fare collection changed over time?  You might also want to talk about “slugs” – objects the same shape and size as subway tokens – used by passengers to cheat the system and get a free ride.
  
  
• On the Job
  If possible, invite an MTA employee to come speak to your students.  They may especially enjoy hearing from someone who works “behind the scenes,” such as a train or surface line dispatcher, a subway car inspector or other employee from a maintenance facility, or a rail or signal inspector who works in the tunnels.  Have students prepare questions for the guest speaker in advance, focusing on gathering information particular to your study.  Throughout your study, your students may also enjoy hearing tales from Transit Talk: New York’s Bus and Subway Workers Tell Their Stories.  Hearing these stories may inspire your students to write their own autobiographical transit tales, recollecting a memorable trip on a bus or train – or lack thereof, as was the case during the City’s blackout of 2003 or the transit strike of 2005.  Compile the writings to create your own version of a “transit talk” class book.
  
  
• Take the Bus
  Buses have traveled on New York City streets for one hundred years.  Have students research and compare early and modern buses.  How has bus design changed?  What factors have influenced design changes?  How are today’s buses designed to be more environmentally friendly than buses of the past?
  
  
• Read All About It: Using Primary Sources
  Help students find news coverage of the construction and opening of the New York City subway.  After reading some articles to get a sense of peoples’ perceptions of the new subway system and the general goings-on at the time, ask students to complete one of the following activities:
  
  •  Design an advertisement for the grand opening of the subway.  Take into consideration such things as the idea of traveling underground for the first time; the speed, ease, and low cost of traveling on the subway; and where the train can take passengers.
  •  Select a photograph that shows people riding the subway on opening day.  Write an original news account describing the experience of these passengers “riding in a hole in the ground.” 
  •  Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper that conveys your opinion (pro or con) of New York’s new subway system.  Consider such things as cost, efficiency, and capacity, but be certain to clearly state your thoughts and opinions.
  
  Compile students’ work to create a Transit Times newspaper, complete with advertisements, articles, and editorials all depicting the grand opening of New York City’s new subway.
  
  
• Map It: Using Primary Sources
  Divide students into small groups and provide each group with copies of the following elevated train and subway maps:
  • a map showing just the elevated train lines, before subways were constructed
  • a map showing both elevated train lines and subway lines
  • a map showing just subway lines, after elevated trains were all removed
  • today’s subway map
  
  Give students some time to compare the maps and discuss observations.  Then discuss as a class.  Consider:
  
  • How are the maps similar?  How are they different?
  • How do elevated routes compare to subway routes?  Consider the physical layout and location of routes, boroughs served, and numbers of stations.
  • Compare maps 2 and 3.  Discuss the noticeable changes in rapid transit service once all elevated lines were removed.  How do you think the changes affected riders of public transportation?  Consider especially Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
  • Compare maps 3 and 4.  How has the New York City subway map changed over the years?  Why might these changes have occurred?  Identify stations that were part of the system in the past but that are no longer in use today.  Why might these stations have closed?
  
  Extension: Students might also enjoy studying and discussing other transit maps, such as bus maps or commuter train maps.
  
  
• Changing the System
  What was New York City like in 1900, when subway construction began?  Research population density, traffic patterns, and the built environment (including important areas and sites).  Compare to present-day New York City.  How does the subway meet the needs of the city?  What would make the system better?  Ask students to design changes or improvements to the NYC subway system.  Give each student a current subway map.  Have them mark proposed changes on the map and write an explanation or proposal as to how these changes would better the system.  Once students have drafted their own thoughts on changing, expanding, or improving the system, have them research the MTA’s future plans for the system (information on capital projects can be found on the MTA website).  Compare and discuss how the MTA’s plans for the future compare with the current system and with the students’ own ideas for change.
  
  
• From the Drawing Board
  Ask students to imagine that the MTA has hired them to design a subway car for use in the future.  Have them think about the changes they observed in the design of subway cars they saw at the Museum as well as consider:
  
  •  who uses the subway
  •  how subway design meets the needs of passenger comfort and safety
  •  how the design would be durable and low maintenance
  •  how the design would discourage vandalism
  
  Encourage students to create sketches accompanied by written descriptions.  Share and discuss the designs.
  
  
• Worldwide Transit
  Have students research the transit systems of other major cities such as London (the world’s first subway), Boston (America’s first subway), Chicago (elevated trains still dominate the system), Moscow, Tokyo, and Paris.  How do the transit systems of other cities compare to New York City’s subway system?  Consider number of passengers, fare, length of routes, methods of construction, train design, and present-day technology.  Share and discuss the findings.
  
  

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