The New York Transit Museum, one of the city's leading cultural institutions is the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban public transportation history, and one of the premier institutions of its kind in the world. The Museum explores the development of the greater New York Metropolitan region through the presentations of exhibitions, tours, educational programs, and workshops dealing with the cultural, social, and technological history of public transportation. Since its inception in 1976, the Museum, housed in a historic 1936 IND subway station in Brooklyn Heights, has grown in scope and popularity. As custodian and interpreter of the region's extensive public transportation networks, the Museum strives to share, through its public programs, this rich and vibrant history with local, regional, and international audiences.