John M. Mossman Lock Collection

The collection is of locks that were mostly used on bank vaults. The cost is $ 10 per adult and you can purchase the collections catalogue, The Lure of the Lock, for an additional $ 20.
The Lure of the Lock is a great book and describes the entire collection. If you happen to walk in off the street then some knowledge about locksmithing, lock picking, or metal work would be helpful to enjoy the collection beyond just the aesthetics.
In the room there is also two pieces of iron girder from the collapsed WTC as well.
Photography is not allowed although there is an NPR Science Friday piece (7÷5÷2013) which has photos of the collection.

This place is a collection of hundreds of locks, housed in one room which sits above a library in this building. Many of the locks are partially disassembled, so you can see inside them.
By now, I suspect you have a pretty good idea of whether or not you’d enjoy it.
They gave us a book which cataloged every lock in the collection. I found the book fascinating, not so much for its contents, but more for the fact that, despite having been published in the 1920s, it still describes the collection precisely, listing each lock by its shelf and case! There’s even a picture in the front of the book of the room you’re standing in, and it looks… the same.
We were the only ones there when I went; I don’t think the collection gets many visitors. They did charge us $ 10. You should call ahead to find out when they’re open.

I visited this place after looking for free museums on Unilocal.It really is hidden. It also isn’t free. I paid $ 10 to view the collection. (The librarian gave me a copy of the book which explains the collection as well.)
The collection is housed in seven cases upstairs in the building. Long story short, there are 300 locks up there, with small cards. The cards refer you to a page in the book which explains a bit about the lock. Unfortunately, the explanations are usually just the dimensions of the lock, and the combination (in the case of combination locks).
It’s an amazing collection, but as someone without any experience with locks, it was impossible to make sense of what I was seeing. The book was hardly helpful, although there were a few stories in there about the history of locks as well as a few famous bank robberies.
In conclusion, it’s a lock collection, not a lock museum. If you’re at all interested in locks, this would be heaven — it’s a huge collection of (probably historically significant) locks. Without a guide or a locksmith, it wasn’t worth my $ 10.

I am not surprised that there isn’t a review for this or that it wasn’t already in the Unilocal database.
This lock collection is on the second or third floor of The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York. My friend Mark and I went to the museum a few years ago, when we worked in the nabe. We asked the security guard for the collection, and were asked to sign in. The last people to see this exhibit came three months ago before us! Yeah…
The guard brought us up to the second floor and let us into a large, airy room. The collection has almost 400 locks and keys, the oldest of which dates back to 4000 B.C. Amazing and eclectic exhibition of locks (some of them as large as a frying pans!) And of course, the atmosphere was eerily quiet because we were the only people on that floor and it felt like we were the only people in post-​apocalyptic New York. We were there for an hour and fifteen minutes. It’s quite small, the exhibit.
This room is hidden New York. No one tells you about it because almost no one knows about it. Scary, yet reassuring that something like this still exists in New York.
There are no frills, no gift shop. And it’s free!