Va-va-va-vroom.
The New York Transit Museum put visitors in the driver’s seat when it set up shop at the Atlantic Antic, Sunday, with demonstrations about how to drive the Tunnel Wrecker, operate the Patcher and even make repairs on the subway’s sizzling third rail.
The green-and-yellow vintage buses and guest vehicles were parked alongside other eye candy at one of New York’s largest, most happenin’ street festivals, stretching approximately a mile along Atlantic Avenue — from Hicks Street to Fourth Avenue — and featuring more than 600 artisans, merchants and food vendors, hawking everything from clams on the shell and jerk chicken to hand-tooled belts from Ruby Zaar and Rockstar Revolution’s punk rock toddler and adult T-shirts.
Cat Rhinehart from Downtown Atlantic, between Hoyt and Bond streets, even tempted passers-by with free samples of gazpacho while bon vivants kicked up their heels to life performances, including one by Les Sans Culottes outside Last Exit Bar and Lounge near Henry Street.
The diversity of it all bowled over Sheepshead Bay reveler Regina Stern.
“It was my first time there and it was a lot of fun, not like your country-style fairs, but very ethnic and very unique,” she marveled.
Looming clouds did little to dampen the 36th annual fair, presented by the Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation. They were closely monitored by one in the know: Brooklyn-born WPIX News at Ten weatherman Irv Gikofsky, better known as “Mr. G,” who shared a stage with Borough President Markowitz and helped extend a warm borough welcome to the hordes who came to enjoy the avenue’s sights, sounds and surprises.
