The last Redbird subway car has sold for $235,700 at a recent New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services auction. Redbird subway car #9075 was retired in 2003 and is currently displayed outside Queens Borough Hall, at the corner of Queens Boulevard and 82nd Avenue.
The 50-foot, 40-ton car was used to transport visitors to and from the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The Redbirds were the last of the painted passenger trains, and the last to have tear-shaped metal hand grips for straphangers.
Starting in 2001, the Redbird subway cars were replaced with newer stainless-steel cars and many of these subway cars ended up in the Atlantic Ocean to form a reef barrier.
