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BART’s 50th Anniversary Party w/ Free Arcade Games (Sept 3-9)

Play free, vintage arcade games at Powell St. Station
By - posted 8/26/2022 No Comment

Happy Birthday, BART! BART celebrates 50 years, and in September, BART is hosting a series of free, family-friendly events to celebrate its golden anniversary and thank patrons for riding.

Powell Street Station Video Games

Saturday, September 3–Friday, September 9, 2022
Powell St. Station concourse level between BART secondary Station Agent booth and Muni agent booth (4th and Market entrance/exit)

Come celebrate BART’s 50th anniversary and travel back in time to the 70’s when BART started carrying passengers. This throw-back event revisits 1976 when BART partnered with Atari to place a 6-game, 6-sided console on the platform level to promote the gaming company’s new games and bring revenue to BART through the 25-cent per play cost. To commemorate our 50th anniversary:

  • BART has rented 4 vintage full-size arcade games for the event, including: Pac-Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders and Galaga
  • All games will be set to free play at all times
  • Games will be available for play from 9am–5pm each day

BART Museum

Lake Merritt Station will become a veritable BART museum with areas usually reserved for advertising filled with archival photos, historic BART maps, and a timeline of BART milestones. Be sure to visit both the platform and concourse levels at Lake Merritt to take in displays of BART’s past, present and future. Displays will be posted September 1 through 30.

50th Birthday Party and Family Fun Festival

Saturday, September 10, 2022
Lake Merritt Station and Plaza, 11am–4pm

The festival will feature food trucks, live music, games, prizes and more. Special guests will join BART to deliver remarks and open a time capsule buried in 1992. If you have suggestions for objects to place in the new time capsule submit them on Twitter here.

The event will include:

  • Food trucks
  • Music, including Taiko drummers
  • Kid’s zone with games
  • The opening of a time capsule and then putting a new time capsule together
  • The BARTmobile
  • The front of a train cab serving as a photo booth
  • 10 feet of train tracks to show people the components and how they work
  • Film archive booth where you can watch historical BART films
  • Transit-themed booths and partners – learn more about BART projects, upcoming HO scale model trains, the Western Railroad Museum and more!

Sound Tracks Free Concert Series

BART is turning up the volume with three concerts at stations across the system. Sound Tracks concerts are free and open to the public. Bands to be announced soon. In addition to music, the October 7 event will feature a Litquake reading with some of the finalists from our BART Lines Short Story Contest.

September 21
5:00pm – 6:30pm
Downtown Berkeley Station

September 28
5:00pm – 6:30pm
El Cerrito del Norte Station

October 7
5:00pm – 6:30pm
Glen Park Station

50% Off BART Fares All September

BART is also thanking its riders and encouraging more people to return to the system by offering a 50% discount for the entire month of September. Riders using Clipper will get half off all published BART fares in September. That includes 50% off already discounted fares for youth, senior, Regional Transportation Connection, Clipper Start, and Gator Pass riders.

For special 50th anniversary merchandise, visit railgoods.com. Learn more about BART history in a series of historical lookbacks at bart.gov/about/history/50years.

Read more about 50 Years of BART

 

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