My daughter and I went to NYC yesterday (my wife had to go into work), and one of our stops was to the New York Historical Society Museum. The main purpose was to see the Jerni Collection (after all these years of buying 50's music from Jerry Greene's company, I had no idea he was such a train collector!) Apart from the Jerni Collection, the museum itself is quite nice, with a lot of artifacts from all periods of history!
First, after entering, make sure to look on the first floor, in the small foyer area near the museum store. There is a wonderful case containing a Marklin elevated station, with all kinds of accessories with a steam train and double-car tram on the elevated tracks! Quite a beautiful scene!
The collection is on the top (4th) floor of the museum, in an area that was set aside for sculptures, but has been changed to hold the trains temporarily.
It's a small area, and if you're expecting a vastly huge area, you will be surprised. What's on display is in a small area, but I was really happy seeing what was there.
Almost everything there were things I've only seen photos of in my tinplate books or heard about, so seeing these in person was really interesting!
One really gorgeous example is a large metal arch bridge made by Marklin. It was made for display, but never made it into production. Thus, it was the only one ever made.
The trains on display were quite beautiful and in fantastic condition, given that some of them were live steam toys (I didn't see much burn, if at all, from someone overfilling a locomotive during it's time as a toy)
Some of the locomotives and sets were the ones Marklin, Bing or others made for the American market, with the US style cabs, stacks and cowcatchers.
If you're a fan of stations, the back wall is for you. It is full of stations by the known (and some not so well known) makers in the 1800's to the turn of the 20th Century. One on display was called a "garden station", in that it had a garden courtyard and a water fountain that can operate!
One Marklin set my daughter liked was one for FAO Schwarz, after I told her that the G gauge one I got this year from Toys R Us was by Marklin, made for FAO Schwarz!
If you're going just to see the trains, you may find the admission steep ($15.00 for adults), but since we walked through other exhibits there and saw all it had to offer, it was worth supporting the museum.
To me, it was worth it to see some toy trains that I may never see again. So for a once in a lifetime experience, it was worth it.
Also, word of warning: they don't allow the Jerni Collection to be photographed, so just an FYI. I was bummed at that, but I didn't complain. It was a nice time with my daughter, and she got to see toys from a time before her iPod, phone with apps and countless TV shows were around to hold a child's attention. In fact, she was happy she saw it and wants to see more of my tinplate trains run at home!
