New York’s Oldest Subway Cars, Beautiful Symbols of a Sad Decline

Though now a symbol of the New York City subway system’s state of disrepair, the R32 cars are genuinely a marvel of mid-twentieth-century engineering.
"In 1964, the New York City Transit Authority introduced the shiny, stainless-steel R32 subway car. 'There was a very special inaugural trip that took place on today’s Metro-North line into Grand Central Terminal, welcoming the trains into New York,' James Giovan, an educator at the New York Transit Museum, told me recently. The R32s were dubbed Brightliners. By 1965, six hundred had been built. With their brilliant corrugated bodies, they bore little resemblance to other cars. They were praised for having the clearest intercom system. Their plastic benches marked the end of gritty rattan-wicker seats. ..."
New Yorker