Updated, 8:16 a.m.

Good morning on this cloudy Thursday.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently released its roughly $800 million plan to fix our beleaguered subway system.

Among the proposals: seatless subway cars.

That’s right. To accommodate more passengers, subway officials will remove seats from a few trains on certain lines, possibly later this year, starting with a pilot program on the L train between Brooklyn and Manhattan and the shuttle train between Times Square and Grand Central Terminal.

The prospect of losing seats encouraged us to visit the New York Transit Museum to understand the evolution of the seats inside New York’s subway, and to sit in them, too.

In the early 1900s, wooden armrests lined springy, cushioned seats covered with rattan, a material similar to bamboo. Sitting in the bench-length seat — with its surprising lumbar support — was like sinking into a well-worn rocker, musty smell and all.