NYC's world-famous mass transit system can provide more than 1.5 billion rides over the course of a year, as well as hundreds of arenas for breakdancing battles between living statues. Learn more about the city's once and future trains with a membership to the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn Heights. Choose one of following one-year membership levels:

• $20 for an individual/friend-level membership ($40 value)
• $27 for a family membership ($55 value)

A individual/friend-level membership to the Transit Museum provides:

• Free admission to the museum for one adult
• Advance notice of all museum activities and early reservation options for off-site tours and special events
• Free admission to participating science and technology museums throughout the U.S. and abroad
• A 10% discount at the museum stores on purchases of more than $10 (excluding MetroCards and limited edition merchandise)
• Discounts to museum-sponsored tours and events for the individual membership owner
• Complimentary subscription to the museum's newsletter
• Invitations for two to museum exhibition opening receptions

A family membership includes all the benefits of the friend-level package, with the addition of:

• Free admission for two adults and up to two children under 18
• Discounts for both adult members and up to two children for museum-sponsored tours and events
• Two membership cards at the same address
• A 10% discount on birthday parties held at the museum

Housed in a decommissioned subway station, the New York Transit Museum lets riders too young to remember Pauly Shore movies learn of a bygone age of trolleys, turnstile tokens, and subway mosaics from a source other than cranky, nostalgic relatives. Permanent exhibits include Steel, Stone & Backbone: Building New York's Subways 1900-1925, which chronicles the history of building the city's first subway line and the people who made it happen, while Moving the Millions: New York City's Subways from Its Origins to the Present demonstrates the mind-exploding magnitude and complexity of the New York rapid transit system. On the Streets: New York's Trolleys and Buses lets you wander a simulacrum of a traffic intersection from yesteryear, but for a more vintage experience, members can roll up their sleeves, put elbow grease on their riding pants, and ride a bus or subway car from an earlier time with the upcoming To the Rockaways, by Rail and Bus! nostalgia ride ($30 for adult members, $15 for children members) on Saturday, August 21. Even tourists can out–New York the most jaded New Yorker by learning the arcana of the underground with today's Groupon to the New York Transit Museum.

Valid for new memberships only.

Reviews

Frommer’s recommends the New York Transit Museum, and Yelpers give the museum an average of 4.5 stars. TripAdvisors give the museum an average of 4.5 owl eyes and rate it as the No. 5 most popular attraction in Brooklyn:

• Housed in a real (decommissioned) subway station, this underground museum is a wonderful place to spend an hour or so. The museum is small but very well done, with good multimedia exhibits exploring the history of the subway from the first shovelful of dirt scooped up at groundbreaking (Mar 24, 1900) to the present. Kids and parents alike will enjoy the interactive elements and the vintage subway cars, old wooden turnstiles, and beautiful station mosaics of yesteryear. – Frommer’s
• This place is a hidden gem. If you are remotely interested in history, trains or things which are pretty cool, this is the place to check out. – NorthCarolinaRoy, TripAdvisor
• You probably never thought about these things, but do you know why, say, you'll never see a numbered and a lettered subway line run on the same track? Or why some lines [lettered] have four doors per side, per car, while other lines [numbered] have only three? I always learn a lot when I visit the Museum, and with new exhibits I return every year. – RoadTripToSFO, TripAdvisor