>> throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring casper, wyoming. learn more about casper and other starts -- stops on c-span's cities tour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span 3. >> each week, american history tv's "american artifacts" visits museums and historic places. next we take you under the streets of brooklyn for a tour of the new york transit museum, by the museum's director, gabrielle schubert. >> this museum was organized in 1976, which was the year of the united states bicentennial. people who were working here thought, the new york city subway is one of our country's great engineering achievements, so let's put it into some sort of exhibit that people can enjoy in the year of the bicentennial.

so this station that we're standing in been mothballed, wasn't being used. cars had been squirreled away in a few yards. turnstiles were squirreled away in a few places. and so the people that worked here were able to organize bringing all of these cars into this station, and opened the facility as an exhibit called the new york city transit exhibit. it was only supposed to stay open from 4th of july until labor day of that year, 1976. but we've never closed. so it was obviously very popular, and we've grown it from then until now, into really a world-class museum that is very much about new york city's infrastructure and the history of its development as a world-class city. as you walk down the steps from our entrance, you find yourself in a 1936 decommissioned new york city subway station. how did that all come about? there were three general phases of subway construction. in 1900 was when it started, and the first line of the subway system opened in 1904. in that era, the design style was a beaux art design, so

you'll see beautiful, ornate decorations. the second phase of subway construction happened in the 1910's. at that time, the artistic style that was in fashion was the arts and crafts style. so you still see ornamentation, but it has more straight lines. beautiful colors, but straight lines and very clean angles. in the 1930's, when this station was built, we were now in the industrial age, so industrial design was what was in style. so the style of architecture you see in this station is very basic, very industrial. the mosaics that you see are not decorative, they're just all about giving you the facts. so the mosaics that you see are directional and instructional and informative rather than decorative. this station was built in 1936, and it was meant to be the first stop on new york's first attempt

at a second avenue subway. there have been three attempts. we're in the third right now, and i'm pretty sure this one is going to make it. but the first attempt, this station -- and i'll show you on the map here how it begins -- if you look here out to the rockaways in brooklyn, this is as far as this line extended, and this line went all the way to downtown brooklyn, right here. and then the next stop, which was going to be the first stop on the old second avenue subway, was the old court street station, and that's where we are now. the line was going to make itself a right hand turn and go onto the far east side of manhattan and become the second avenue subway. but as happens, the project ran out of money, so this station was stub ended, there's a cinder block wall downstairs that stops the system. so at one side we connect to a station which is still in service and on the other end the cinder block wall because that

second avenue subway never got built. we're standing in an exhibition called "steel, stone, and backbone" which is an introductory way that we explain to our visitors how the subway system was built. if you step this way you'll see some interesting facts about new york at the turn of the century. that's a picture of new york on the lower east side, where both business, residential, and all the population was concentrated when the subway system was about to be built. if you take a look at this here, which shows you the population in new york city, these red dots indicate where population was most concentrated and it's all concentrated below 14th street in manhattan. so if you lived and worked, which most people had to, on the lower east side, you couldn't move. the streets were filled with horses, they were filled with horse excrement, they were filled with people, tenement buildings, with really bad, unsanitary, terrible conditions. but this is where people had to

live and work, because there was no way to go and live somewhere else and get into the city to go to work, as we have now. so eventually, finally, it took a long time, but finally the city fathers agreed that politically there had to be a subway. it was the only way new york was going to be able to survive and thrive. and ultimately become the center of business, commerce, culture that it is today. so the first thing you have to look at is, what is new york city all about? how are we going to build a subway system? what are the topographical and geographical conditions to consider in order to be able to build a subway system? here's a topographical map of new york, which shows you there's a lot of rock, hills, cliffs in upper manhattan, in the middle part of manhattan it's relatively flat. but new york is a city of islands, and so if you're going to connect all of those islands

together with a subway system, you've got to do a lot of underwater tunneling. so there are three methods of building the subway system that become prominent. one is blasting through rock. one is doing underwater tunneling to get between the islands of manhattan. this is an image of a sand hog underwater,to go live in compressed air, terrible conditions, possibly contracting the bends and putting his health at great risk to tunnel underneath the rivers of new york city. then the other method was called cut and cover, and that basically entailed digging a trench in the street, covering it over with wooden planks, building a concrete tube, which what is the subways would go through, laying track, and then ultimately replacing the street above, that's called cut and cover. those were the three major methods of subway construction. i like to show this picture, because this is an interesting example. this tailor had to have his building shored up, which was done by the subway system as

they were building it. but if he saw a crack the his in his building, he's likely to go to the board of transportation and say, "hey, you built the subway, there's a crack in my building." the builders were very shrewd, and had photographed all the buildings before they started the construction project, so they were able to say, "wait a minute. we have this photo, and it's got a date from before we started building. you had that crack before we started, so we don't owe you a penny, my friend." as a result, the new york transit museum has this fabulous document of what new york city looked like at the turn of the century, because all these photographs were taken for insurance purposes, but it leaves us with this terrific sense of what our history is like. our archive is used by filmmakers, advertisers, by students, by authors, because it

is a wonderful -- it really gives you a sense of the history of new york city, based on all the contract drawings that we have, the maps of how the subway was built and how it ultimately was extended, the photographs that show what the city looked like as the subway was being built, and after, and the attempts to expand the subway system. we have this terrific collection of documentation in our archives. this picture here shows you -- this was a labor march to get better conditions for the workers who were building the subway system. the subway was built mostly by irish immigrants, italian immigrants, and african-american immigrants. the irish and the italians were able to get jobs based on their connections to either tammany hall or the padrone system, which was a way that italians were getting jobs based on who they knew and who the bosses were. and the african-americans unfortunately were stuck with the worst jobs and the worst paying jobs. but it was agreed basically those three ethnic groups built

the subway system. this section shows a little bit about the equipment that our workers had to build the subway. the hard hats that they wore, the lunch pails and the canteens that they used to keep themselves going. but the subway system was built in 1900. there were not a lot of power tools. basically, the system was built with picks and shovels and really basic hand tools, and horses pulling away carts of debris and spoils. so it was a pretty basic operation. and yet was -- the first subway system, was built in just four years, so it's kind of astounding how that came together. here's a typical guy who was working on the subway system, with a shovel in his hand. what did he earn, and what was he able to buy with his earnings? here we have a chart of the different jobs that were involved in building the subway system. the teamsters and drivers made the most, the water boys made the least. and here's what they could buy with their wages. a beer was 5 cents, a hot dog was 5 cents, a hat was $2 and a

haircut was 10 cents. so that gives you little bit of a sense of what it was like to work on building the subway before there were strong unions, and what money could buy with your dollars back in 1900, 1902. in this section of the exhibition, we get to the final phase of construction, which is putting the finishing touches on the station. so you can see a lot of beautiful mosaics, you can see again this is the irt, the first line that was built. so check out all the ornate beautiful plaster decor in the ceiling, interesting light fixtures, beautiful tiles which don't just tell you where you are but also really decorate the station walls. the most beautiful station of all was the very first station on the line, which was the old city hall station in lower manhattan. it was just adjacent to the mayor's office in city hall. and the mayor in those days said, i want the station that's

right near my office to be the most beautiful, and show what civic pride is able to produce when you're doing public works projects. so this station had beautiful ornamentation. it has vaulted ceilings. it has beautiful colored tiles. it has leaded glass skylights to bring natural light into the station. it has a beautiful oak token booth with an ornate brass grill in front of it. and it has really, even though they're simple railings, there's a really nice design element to these, they are quite charming. the city hall station was closed because as the trains got longer and longer and there's a very, very extreme curve on this station, which you can see from this photo, and when trains expanded from six cars to 10 cars, there was not enough room for that train to come into this station. and it was not safe, because the curve was so strong, so between those cars there was a big gap

to get to the platform, plus the entire train couldn't fit into the station at one time. so basically it stopped being used, and it was mothballed. at some point the transit museum hopes to restore it and make it a historic site, because it is quite beautiful and worth seeing. people love to get in there. the transit museum runs tours of that station for members, but you have to become a member before you can go on one of those tours. here we are on the lower level of the transit museum, where we have our really magnificent and unparalleled collection of vintage subway and elevated cars. again, what makes the transit museum unique, there are many railroad museums and when you visit a railroad museum generally to get to the car you have to walk up about eight steps to get to the height of the wheel to get into the car itself. but here we are in a station, so the cars are actually in the environment where they were running, where you would have accessed them, where you still access them if you're in new york.

so it makes it very realistic. we've got cars here from many different eras. i'm going to show you the oldest one. they range from about 1900 up until the 1960's. so here we are with one of the jewels of our collection, this is an elevated car that was running in 1900 before the subway system was even built. this was an elevated car, it's made of wood, and if you want to just take a step inside here, i can show you some of the features of it. here is our air conditioning system. what is it? it an open platform that you can stand on in the very, very hottest days of the summer and get the cold breeze to cool you off. because there were no fans, no air conditioners in these cars, just a lot of people on a hot summer day. these are very elegant and beautiful cars. you can see here that the glass on the conductor's cab is etched with the letters brt, which

stands for brooklyn rapid transit. the seats are made of rattan, there was not plastic or fiberglass in those days and i think people may have behaved a little better then than they do now. so the upholstery on the seats is made of rattan, which held up fairly well in those days. these are handholds. they're made of canvas. and if you look at these, you can sort of understand where the term strap hanger came from, because now they're made of metal, or they're just a metal pole, but in those days they were leather or canvas straps that people could hold onto. the lighting is incandescent. the ads are really old and evoke

another era of time, when life was simpler and perhaps people thought themselves more innocent in some way. but it's very interesting to see the ads. you'll see some products that you recognize. campbell's soup -- that's still around today. and a lot of products that have now gone. heinz is still a product that we use today. also, the configuration of the seats is interesting. people actually faced each other and didn't seem to mind. whereas today we're all absorbed in our electronic devices, books, and newspapers, and we're not looking at anybody. but in the 1900's, that seemed to be not much of an issue, and people gladly faced one another, and maybe even talked to each other, who knows. this car was built in 1888. it's one of the oldest vehicles that runs on electric power that still exists in north america. it's called the derby car, because as you can see the line was ansonia-derby and ran in

birmingham. it ran in connecticut. we bought it to compliment the exhibit we did on electricity, to show the earliest pieces of electricity in mass transit. this is the only part of the exhibit that represents the two railroads that are also part of the history we talk about here, the long island railroad and metro north railroad. that caboose is from the long island railroad. it ran for quite a long time and had many, many, many years of service. you'll see as you look inside that it's got a number of amenities for the crew that was running the train. there's a bed where somebody on a long run could rest, there's a sink, a bathroom, a little cook top stove, and a table to sit for when the people running the train were taking their breaks. so it's a wonderful part of the collection. and represents, again -- we'd love to have railroad vehicles here at the transit museum, but because we're in a subway station and our ceilings are so low, we can't fit railroad cars into the site because they have higher ceilings.

but this little caboose helps us remember the railroads that we also represent. this is what we call the motor truck. this is what runs one of our subway cars. there's usually two of these trucks underneath the carriage of each car. if you see that hole in the middle, there's a stem on the bottom of the carriage of each car that fits into that hole, and that's what connects the motor to the carriage. you can see the wheels right here. these are the wheels that ride along the running rails, we call them, which are the actual railroad tracks. so those are the running rails. then right here, this is what we call the third rail. it's power that runs through the third rail, and there is what we call a third rail shoe, which is right here. and this plate takes power from the third rail and pulls it into the motor to run the train. so that's a very, very simplified and basic explanation of how a subway car actually runs.

this car, 6095, is a triplex. it's actually three cars connected together. and i can show you how they connect, right here. but these doors would close at one time. you can see they swivel around on that disk in the floor there. so three cars connected, less power potentially that it takes to move them along. but it's interesting because this technology is now coming back, and there's now discussion about having doors that connect the trains so that passengers can move between one car and another. now, you can't do that. but there's talk of changing the technology and the design of the cars to allow that in the future. in service from 1928 to 1965. so that's a 40-year run that these trains had. so this stainless steel car, as you can see, looks very different and a little more modern than the other cars we've looked at so far.

this car was built in 1949 in anticipation of the second attempt at the second avenue subway. and this was going to be the car of the future, this modern car. its price tag was $100,000 per car, which was unheard of. and so it was dubbed the million-dollar car, because if there were 10 cars on this train, it would cost $1 million to build. it had various interesting new-fangled modern elements to it, the stainless steel walls of the car, ventilation systems, fluorescent lights, stainless steel hand holds, these round, sort of funky, porthole windows. so there are all these modern elements to the car. this 10-car train ran as a prototype for about a year, and then they opted not to go ahead and build the car to these specs. so this is a rare vehicle that we're standing in here now, because this car was never built. so there are only one or two of these cars left, and one is

right here in the transit museum. so, it is a very interesting attempt at modernization that ultimately went in a different direction as the technology for car building changed over the years. so this steel car was built in 1961, and you can again see some of the elements from that car of the future, experimental car. again fluorescent lights, the ventilation systems, the aluminum hand holds. so you can see that some of the elements from that car did carry over. but the seat configuration is different. the seats are made of fiberglass, so they're not made of rattan any more, they're more utilitarian looking, not as cozy as they were in the older cars from the earlier years. and my guess is that more of the differences have to do in the propulsion of the car and the way the motors work, which i probably can't explain to you, but that's my guess. as you know, there were two world's fairs in new york city, one in 1939, one in the 1960's. and there were two subway cars

specifically to take people out to the world's fair. and this was one, it was a refurbished elevated car, it made of wood and it's painted with the world's fair colors, which were orange and blue, which are now the colors of the mets of course. so this car would take you on the number 7 line out to queens for the world's fair. so it's a refurbished elevated car, and it's kind of beautiful in its way. then i'll show you another world's fair car down there for the 1964 world's fair. this car is called the bluebird and it was used to take people out to the world's fair of 1964. it ran along the flushing line and took millions of people out to the world's fair in queens. again you can see the colors, basically the blue and orange, which were again colors of the world's fair. this wonderful streamlined logo, which again was indicative of the design sense of the time.

and we've got a modern car here with fiberglass seats, fluorescent lights, with air conditioning, with metal hand holds. with a very streamlined industrial kind of look to it. >> ♪ part of the fun of the world's fair is the subway that takes you there it's a good time feeling in the air ♪ special toe subway the world's fair ♪ >> ♪ trains are easy to catch anywhere, any time, night or day. just pay 15 cents, hop aboard, and you're on your way ♪ >> these ads are kind of 1960's looking, late 1950's, early 1960's looking, because again that was when these cars were being used. this is a wonderful series that were designed by a woman who worked for the subway system and she created the series called

"the subway sun." and they were cartoons that she drew that were basically about etiquette, that were trying to get people to behave better, but coaxing them very gently and kindly. so she had this whole series of terrific little cartoons that tried to get people to use better manners when they were riding the subway. this is another typical element of a 1936 ind station, the signal tower. you may wonder why it's called a tower when it's underground, but that's what these things are called. and it's because signal towers were originally for railroad yards. but a lot of times in the subway system they have to be underground, as they are controlling a railroad which also functions underground. so you'll see a signal board over the interlocking system, which actually is in real time showing you where trains are in the system that connect to this station. the blue lights indicate cars that are in stations. the green lights indicate cars that are in motion.

and the yellow lights on the far right are these cars that are here in the transit museum. this is an interlocking -- when trains switch from one track to another, the driver, the motor man, is not making that happen, rather it's happening with a tower operator who actually controls the switches and controls when a train goes from one track to another. now we're in an exhibition called "on the streets," which is about surface transportation, which to us transportation geeks means transportation that's not underground. we have a timeline in this section that takes us from the early 1800's, when mass transit first came about and the first form of mass transit was a horse-drawn trolley. so it's really a carriage with eight or 10 seats in it and a driver and a horse, and somebody is running that and charging you a fare to get on and get from one place to another in new york city. so that's our first form of mass

transit in new york. very interesting. and what we've developed in this section is a traffic intersection where kids can play and sort of see what it might look like if you were a bus driver. so there are two busses that kids and adults, because plenty of adults like to do it, can sit in the driver's seat and see what it's actually like to drive one of these big busses. our bus fleet is gigantic, it's probably close to 5,000 vehicles, and it's a really well-maintained and a fleet that has worked very hard to be conscious of pollution control and the environment. so when you ride mass transit, whether you're taking the train or a bus, you are contributing to sustainability because you are not using your car and you're taking up far less of a carbon footprint than somebody who is in an individual form of transportation.

so that's another reason why we are champions of mass transit here. >> in new york city people have a choice of several arteries of transportation. certainly the most important means within the city is the subway. almost any section of the city is within easy walking distance of a subway station. and by subway, one can travel to most points in the city, quicker and cheaper than by any other way. >> the subway system is the circulatory system of new york city. new york would not have become the world-class capital of the world that it is today without its subway system, because it allowed the city to expand and to develop. as you built the subway system you got more real estate, so the city was able to create beautiful residential neighborhoods, and people had a way to get into our two central business districts in order to get to work. so without the subway system you couldn't have skyscrapers, you couldn't have a concentration of culture and business that you have in new york city without the subway. and so to look at these old cars and to see how basic technology

was, but how based on the neighborhood it was, is a really, i think, heartwarming aspect of what we do here. is that the subway, the busses, the trains that we take are part of our lives, part of our neighborhoods, they're part of the fabric of what it means to live in an urban environment. and it's a very important way also to teach people about sustainability. again, if you're taking a train or bus, you are reducing your carbon footprint. that's an important lesson that kids and adults need to learn. so i think the history we see here at the transit museum is very basic to what new york city is all about and to how new york city developed. >> the new york transit museum is a nonprofit organization administered but not funded by the mta, or metropolitan transit authority. you can view this and all other american history tv perhaps at

rograms at c-span.org/history. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> 200 years ago, british forces came to burn the u.s. capitol. you can learn more this thursday from author and historian hosted pitch at an event by the smithsonian associates. our live coverage starts at 6:45 p.m. eastern. next saturday, august 23, as we take you to bladensburg waterfront park. that is live at 1:00 p.m. c-span 3.ere on

>> with live coverage of the that, we complement coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. on the weekend, c-span3 is the home to american history tv, with six unique series. the civil war, visiting battlefields and key events. american artifacts, touring key events and historic sites to see what is revealed about america's past. history bookshelf. the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies. and our new series, real america, featuring archival government and educational films through the 1970's. c-span 3, funded by your local cable and satellite provider.

watch us on facebook and follow us on twitter. tv,ext on american history the architect of the capitol, hishen ayers, talks about role as builder and steward of iconic buildings including the supreme court, library of congress, and the many house and senate buildings no caps off. he discusses his team's reservation projects, including the current capitol dome work. this event was hosted by the smithsonian associates. it runs an hour and 15 minutes. this evening, we are a short distance away from one of our city's most iconic areas, capitol hill. for many of us who live in washington, it is a neighborhood -- a place to live, go out to eat, relax. what we sometimes overlook is that it is sometimes -- it is truly