Bus Festival

This Sunday, during Brooklyn's Atlantic Antic, you can check out the Transit Museum's Festival of Buses, where "A collection of vintage buses dating all the way back to 1917 will be on display and ready to board, and visitors can enjoy free admission to the museum, one block away on Schermerhorn Street."

The Brooklyn Eagle has more info here.



I visited the Bus Fest a few years ago, when I took these photos. At the time, I had an odd and fleeting fascination with the vintage Green Bus that ran to and from Rockaway. I liked its pistachio and cream-colored skin, and to think of it hustling along a scruffy, wide open, un-developed stretch of highway toward the beaches.


1950s

Turns out, a lot of the city's buses used to be green--actually, two-toned with creamy yellow.



At the Bus Fest, it's pleasant (when packs of kids aren't screaming like monkeys) to climb aboard and sit. In fact, as I recall, a lot of people do that, just sit on the antique buses, looking out the windows as if they are rolling through a lost city of another time.

One of the buses (shown below) sports a backseat that curves into a horseshoe like a banquette in a romantic restaurant.



I don't know where the buses go when they're not at the Festival of Buses. You can't see them at the Transit Museum. So this is your one chance to "ride" them--until next year.