On the Move: Transportation Toys from the Permanent Collection

On the Move is a special installation of toy and miniature vehicles from the Museum's Permanent Collection that not only suggest the lives of the children who played with them but also reveal how transportation evolved and changed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The transportation toys on view are modeled on vehicles once commonly recognized throughout our city: Boats for traversing New York's rivers and harbors; horse-drawn carts and wagons used for local transport, conveying goods throughout the city, and enabling police and fire departments to get where they were needed; and the gas-powered automobiles and trucks that were traveling the city's streets and crossing its great bridges by the early 20th century.

Featured image: Locomotive and Coal Tender, ca. 1900. Painted wood and tin. Gift of Edward G. Pinney, 48.358.3a-b