PICTURED here is the annual Transit Museum subway trivia quiz held in downtown Brooklyn each January, which attracted hundreds of participants every year for several years, with the last one held in 2020. I assembled teams to participate every year (teams could be from two to six members) and took the crown once, along with several second and third place finishes. In all but one year did my team fail to make the top ten out of 35 teams. Questions often concentrated on pop culture such as music and movies, so I tried to have younger people on the team aware of modern pop items. The meat and potatoes of the quiz, though, concentrated on knowing transfer points and subway line nomenclature; “foamer” items such as subway car models and makes were largely avoided. Prize swag included items from the Transit Museum store.
I was also an initial participant in the annual Panorama Challenge, a NYC geographical quiz held each March at the NYC scale model Panorama at the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows. After my team won the initial year I was recruited to help out with vetting questions and answers and scoring. Similar to transit trivia, participants split up into teams.
With the Covid Virus running wild each winter, who knows when large indoor quizzes of this sort attracting hundreds will ever take place again? It was an annual tradition that so far, ground to a halt in 2020.
Were you a participant in either? Comments, as always, are open.
12/12/22