Downtown Brooklyn Arts Festival returns
Will feature dance, art, and more near the Barclays Center
New York Transit Museum reopens in Brooklyn
After a nearly 18-month temporary closure for the pandemic, the New York Transit Museum finally reopened its doors to the public on August 14.
The museum first opened in 1976 to celebrate the country’s centennial, and has since become a favorite among locals and tourists who love its unique collection of vintage cars, photographs, and paraphernalia.
Located underground in Downtown Brooklyn’s old Court Street station at 99 Schermerhorn Street, the New York Transit Museum’s varied exhibits celebrate the stories of construction workers, transit workers, and commuters who created and sustained the city’s transportation system.
Museum director Concetta Bencivenga discussed the continued significance these stories hold during the pandemic, as well as the museum’s own experience over the past year and half.
“Not all museums are designed equally,” Bencivenga said during an interview. “We may not have the square footage of the Met or even the Brooklyn Museum, but more importantly we don’t have the same constituents.
“We have been part of our downtown Brooklyn neighborhood for 45 years, so for a lot of folks we’re the museum around the corner,” she added. “We are also a de facto children’s museum and are very well known in the international community.”
The museum stayed closed longer than many other museums in the city, yet as Bencivenga explained, this was a conscious decision.
“We wanted to make sure that everybody, our staff and visitors alike, had ample opportunity to get vaccinated,” Bencivenga said. “I am 100 percent fine with waiting as long as we did, because we did the right thing for our institution and the communities that we serve.”
Like any institution in New York City, the Transit Museum was fundamentally challenged by the pandemic. While museum leadership was successfully able to keep its entire staff intact for a full year, they finally had to lay off a number of employees earlier this year.
However, the pandemic has also proven just how vital and contemporary the Transit Museum’s work is.
“We have been very, very cognizant of the fact that we’re actually living in an historical experience,” Bencivenga explained. “So we actually have been collecting the mask verbiage, the signage, the social distance markers that have been produced by the MTA. We are basically saying everybody don’t throw anything out.
“The Transit Museum believes that you experience New York the way you do because of mass transit, you just don’t know it yet,” she added. “This is a historic experience for the entire world, but it certainly has a significant impact on mass transit.”
In addition to expanding the collection, the pandemic has also presented the museum with an opportunity to reflect on the larger history of mass transit in New York.
Some stories that museum staff tell on tours have found greater meaning, such as the Malbone Street Wreck of 1918 — the biggest subway accident in history — which was caused in part by a grieving motorman who had recently lost relatives to the Spanish flu.
Many of the other stories, however, are more familiar to the museum’s current visitors.
“We have the 20th anniversary of 9/11 coming up,” Bencivenga said, “and one of the most remarkable stories is that transit workers continued to show up. Whether it’s figuring out how to do it during the two world wars, the Spanish flu, the demise and resurgence of the system in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, or even Superstorm Sandy, transit workers are there. They are truly some of the most unsung heroes in the city of New York.”
The Transit Museum honored these dedicated employees during the city’s recent “Hometown Heroes” parade for essential workers, rolling out cars from its antique fleet to travel down the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan.
Yet on any given day, the museum is consistently dedicated to celebrating the way mass transit has shaped the ways New Yorkers work, play, and live.
“One of my favorite pictures in our collection is of Willets Point,” Bencivenga explained. “Queens is the way we know it because of the 7 train. That relationship between the people who live there and mass transit is so clear.”
The New York City Transit Museum is currently open Fridays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. All visitors, including members, must reserve tickets online in advance. Proof of vaccination and masks are also required for entry.
“If you’re interested in the artistic inspiration that people have derived from the subway or mass transit since its inception, we have a show for you,” Bencivenga said. “If you want to just come and sit in a car that maybe your parents or grandparents or you yourself used to commute or go to the World Fair in Queens or get to school, then we have a fleet for you.”
St. Francis moving to new Brooklyn campus
On Tuesday morning, St. Francis College announced its plans to move to a newly designed campus in the center of downtown Brooklyn.
The relocation will move St. Francis a few blocks away from its current location and into a new 254,699-square-foot space across the fifth, six, and seventh floors of the Wheeler Building at 181 Livingston Street.
St. Francis College has offered a Franciscan education to New Yorkers for 162 years, and previously expanded from a small campus on Butler Street to an interconnected set of buildings on Remsen Street.
The new Livingston Street campus is expected to open in September 2022, and will help St. Francis welcome an ever-increasing number of students. In fall 2020, the school welcomed its largest first-year class ever.
“For more than 160 years, St. Francis College has demonstrated a commitment to providing an unmatched private education in the heart of New York City,” college president Miguel Martinez-Saenz. “This is a historic moment to completely re-envision our campus and meet the needs of our community, and we are thrilled to continue offering a first-rate, affordable education in a modern, flexible and welcoming learning space.”
Located above the art deco Macy’s on Livingston Street, the new campus was purposely designed to drive community engagement and innovation.
The facility includes flexible labs and classrooms, a 300-seat auditorium, a 260-seat cafeteria with kitchen, screening room for films, 6,600-square-foot library, and outdoor terraces with views of the city.
Although the new building contains no athletic facilities, St. Francis has confirmed that its athletic programs will continue without interruption and that the school is currently developing partnerships with nearby institutions for practice and competition space.
The new campus is a component of the school’s larger SFC Forward initiative, a long-term plan to modernize and make St. Francis competitive in the 21st century. Under SFC Forward, the college will offer new master of science degrees in exercise and sport science, special education, sports management and public health.
The school also plans on modifying its undergraduate education to offer more global perspectives and to allow for more remote learning options.
“Our students deserve nothing less than an education that meets the demands of the 21st-century economy,” said Jennifer Lancaster, vice president for Academic Affairs. “SFC Forward ensures that we are immersing our students in global perspectives and learning experiences, expanding into emerging fields, and reinforcing students as critical thinkers, leaders and lifelong learners.”
The campus announcement also marked an opportunity for St. Francis to celebrate its longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Self-identified Black and Hispanic students continue to make up the majority of St. Francis College’s student body, and the college also enrolls international students as 10 percent of its student body.
“We are incredibly proud that the St. Francis College community increasingly reflects the rich diversity of this city and of our world,” said Monique Moore Pryor, Chief Engagement and External Affairs Officer. “Through an academic curriculum attuned to diverse voices, recruitment and retention of the very best employees of different backgrounds, and ongoing programming that promotes open dialogue, the college will continue to champion and grow our inclusivity with intent and thoughtfulness.”
Many of Brooklyn’s elected officials have expressed their support for the new campus.
“For years, SFC has provided topnotch educational opportunities to students from Brooklyn and beyond, helping to set them up for a lifetime of success,” said Borough President Eric Adams. “This move underscores that the future of higher education in our borough and our city is bright.”
“St. Francis College has propelled social mobility and created an excellent academic environment for students seeking to take advantage of all the opportunities New York City has to offer for more than 160 years,” added Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. “I am excited for all that is in store for the College and its future students at their new campus in Brooklyn.”
