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The Bulletin will continue to come to you monthly!

We heard from many of you saying that you really enjoy receiving The Bulletin monthly. So we will continue to publish it monthly!

2021 Meetings

As many of you may have heard by now, the historic Roosevelt Hotel will be closing at the end of the year, another sad casualty of the depressed Covid-19 economy. The Roosevelt has been ERA’s meeting venue since 2014.

We will be looking for new venues for future in-person meetings. In the meantime, meetings will remain virtual on our highly successful Zoom venue until further notice.

With each speaker’s approval, all meetings are recorded and posted here (see below). ERA’s Zoom meetings have had spectacular attendance (148 in September!) and made it possible for our many non-NYC-area members spanning Australia, Japan, North America, the UK, and Germany to participate!

We’ve made donating easier

Thank you very much to those of you who have already made generous contributions to support our programs along with your dues renewals! The membership’s response to date has been outstanding!

As we explained in our 2021 dues renewal letter, even with our streamlining program and dues adjustments, our expenses are projected to exceed revenues by approximately $40,000 per year, making it difficult for ERA to continue beyond the 2023 membership year.

If you have not already done so, please consider a donation this year to help ERA continue its 86-year record of traction education and entertainment. Our new online Donation Form makes it much easier to donate! ERA is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt corporation. Your donations are fully tax deductible and can be made using the new donation form on our website.

As of March 2020, the CARES Act allows individual taxpayers to deduct donations to charity of up to $300 on their 2020 federal tax return, even if they take the standard deduction.

Forthcoming Brooklyn El Books by Eric Oszustowicz

Barring any extraordinary circumstances, the first volume of this long-awaited multi-volume work is targeted for distribution to our paid-up members by the end of 2020.

Volume 1 will represent Headlights for 2019 and 2020, though at over 400 pages it is equivalent to five typical annual Headlights issues! There are ultimately plans for three volumes, and each volume will be extensively illustrated with complete histories.

Volume 1 covers the history of the BMT and its predecessors from 1864 to the 1940 takeover by the NYC Board of Transportation. Volume 2 will cover BMT post-1940 to 1969 and will include photographs of every former BMT elevated station in route order. Volume 3 will contain a plethora of high-quality color photographs from the 1950s and 1960s and a detailed roster for all equipment in existence from 1864 to 1969.