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New Yorkers love to talk about transit—to complain about it, to joke about it, to express their love for it. So it’s only fitting that The New Yorker magazine would cover transit in exactly the same way. Since the magazine began a century ago, it has featured cartoons that both rib and extol public transportation.
A new exhibit, “Commentary on The Commute: A Century of The New Yorker's Transportation Cartoons," explores how the magazine’s famed comical drawings have explored this subject over the past 100 years. The exhibit is free to visit through October 26, 2025; find it at the New York Transit Museum’s outpost inside Grand Central Terminal.
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New York Transit Museum Curator Jodi Shapiro had the enviable task of sorting through riches of The New Yorker's cartoons to select pieces for the show. She discovered some themes that haven’t changed—packed trains, nosy fellow commuters, and admiration for Grand Central’s architecture. But she also identified what has evolved in the city's transit landscape, from trolleys to double-decker buses.
“This was a really cool way of showing that New York changes and stays the same at the same time,” Shairpo tells Time Out New York on a tour of the exhibit.
In all, you'll see work by 57 artists spanning 100 years. Even the very first edition of The New Yorker back in February 1925 featured a transit cartoon, and you’ll get to see that image on display. “Commentary on the Commute” is divided into several sections, including Commuter Behavior, Service Changes, The Wait, Critters, Moving Millions, and Uniquely New York. Each section captures the surprise, absurdity, and delight found in The New Yorker—and in the transit experience itself.
“New York changes and stays the same at the same time.”
For example, in the Critters section, you'll see a cartoon of two pigeons waiting on a subway platform asking “wouldn't it be faster if we flew to Brooklyn?” Other featured critters include monkeys, rats, a minotaur, an alligator and an alien.
Fittingly given the location, an entire section focuses on Grand Central. In one stark image set, you’ll see a New Yorker cover showing a packed train station from December 1978. Next to it is a cover from March 2020 showing an empty train terminal amid the COVID-19 pandemic; the only person there is an essential worker mopping the floor.
The exhibition highlights some of The New Yorker’s most famous cartoonists, such as Roz Chast, a Brooklynite who has published more than 1,000 cartoons in the magazine, and Peter Arno, who contributed illustrations from 1925 until his death in 1968. Shapiro made sure to feature lesser-known artists, too.
“There's a there’s a type of humor for everybody. There’s a bunch of different styles of art,” Shapiro says. “There's some things that don't exist anymore—and some things that are very familiar and right outside the door of the museum gallery.”
Next time you’re waiting for a train or passing through Grand Central, it’s worth taking the time to stop and explore this free exhibition. Find it in the shuttle passage next to the stationmaster’s office. It's open on weekdays from 10am-7:30pm and weekends from 10am-6pm.
“A love letter to both our transit and to The New Yorker, two institutions in our city that grew up together.”
“People are always being bombarded with things that are moving really fast. Transit moves really fast. Time moves really fast. In here, it’s kind of slow,” Shapiro says about the exhibit. They capture a moment in time in history. It’s great art. It’s also a love letter to both our transit and to The New Yorker, two institutions in our city that grew up together.”