PLANET CHOCKO – art/music/movies/beyond

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Thanks to the folks at the New York City Mass Transit Authority (MTA) and the NY Transit Museum, we get a special treat every Sunday during the month of December with the annual holiday tradition of the blast from the past rides via NYCs antique fleet of buses and subway trains! The holiday nostalgia fleet includes trains from the 1930s and buses from the late 1940s to the 1980s. I didn’t get a chance to ride the retro buses but we did get to hop on the throwback subway trains today! The antique subways ran on the M Line, from Second Avenue to Queens Plaza and then back again! What a treat it was! From the vintage signs/advertisements, rattan seats, ceiling fans, & boxy design of the cars to the solidly built straphangers, the oldie but goody subway trains are definitely a design deal shaper and pioneering game changer in engineering of the first generation fleet of modern mass transit! What made the day truly special were the folks that got dressed for the occassion for riding in a train that ran in the 1930s-1970s! You’ll see what I mean with the photos below! You have one more chance to hop on the nostalgic subway train ride on Sunday December 27! Click here for more info from the MTA on schedules and stop locations where you can hop on this “Special” train!

Visit the New York Transit Museum
Boerum Pl & Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

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“For four consecutive Sundays in December, subway customers can catch the “Shoppers Special,” a train consisting of eight cars from the 1930s that ran along the lettered lines until the late 1970s. The cars, which were ordered for the Independent Subway System (IND), were the first subway cars to be identified by their contract numbers, hence the R1/9 designations. R1/9 cars, known as ““City-Cars,” have rattan seats, ceiling fans, incandescent light bulbs, and roll signs for passenger information. Their design of more doors that were also wider and faster, plus increased standing capacity to accommodate crowds, served as the model of modern subway cars, and their dimensions are identical to the latest R160 cars. They were retired from service in 1977.” –NYC MTA

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(Check the ceiling fans,rattan seats, & straphangers!)

(Love the dapper look and an even better smile!)

(Classy and sassy!)

(At the Queens Plaza stop)

(Check Rockaways’ Playland)

(say “Once Upon a Time in America”)

(Last Train Home)

(what a photogenic bunch)

(We rode in this R6 type car – Her train number was 1000 – She was born in 1935 – She operated in passenger service till the 1970s)

(While New York Sleeps – Their men check the trains!)

(Naughty Santa was celebrating Xmas early by hitting that bottle!)

(Peter Pain – brilliant!)

(Photoshoot in between cars)

(a bottle of Imperial Whiskey please!)

(a little bit of homekraft bread to soak up the spirits?)

(Of course some Planters peanut butter to go w/ the bread)

(Give that seat up to Grandmama or else she’ll whoop that ass!)

(say “Gangs of New Yawk”)