In the nineteenth century, Manhattan鈥檚 streets were so choked with pedestrians, horses, vehicles, and vendors that a trip from City Hall to Central Park could take hours. Alfred Beach had the perfect solution: build a giant pneumatic tube underneath Broadway from the Battery to Harlem. Air pressure would shoot passengers up and down the island in clean, quiet carriages. But Beach was up against the operators of the horse-drawn streetcars and the politicians in their pay, most conspicuously William M. Tweed, the notorious 鈥淏oss鈥� of Tammany Hall.
New York鈥檚 Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit tells a classic story of good versus evil, pitting the mild-mannered Beach, a visionary inventor and entrepreneur, against the oafish tyrant Tweed, the exemplar of corruption in the Gilded Age. It also tells the story of one of the most astonishing feats of engineering in American history, the surreptitious creation of the nation鈥檚 first operational subway.
New York seemed destined to become the second city in the world with a comprehensive subway system, after London. Unfortunately, political lethargy and greed would conspire to deny the city a subway for another thirty years.
Yet Alfred Beach still proved conclusively the feasibility of underground railways in Manhattan, and paved the way for modern mass transportation systems.
Richly illustrated and populated with larger-than-life characters, New York鈥檚 Secret Subway will captivate readers and provide historical context for today鈥檚 clashes between public interests and powerful business and political groups. Algeo tells this amazing true story in full for the first time, and although it took place more than a century ago, it will at times sound surprisingly familiar.
"[An] engrossing chronicle... an immersive view of 1860s New York as a hotbed of innovation and corruption."鈥�Publishers Weekly
"Alfred Ely Beach's pneumatic subway was a dead-end in the history of subway technology, but it is a delightful and revealing episode in American history, and Matthew Algeo's deeply researched book lucidly sets Beach and his project in context. The secret, unauthorized tunnel was both a feat of cutting-edge engineering and a poke in the eye of New York's brazenly corrupt political establishment. In telling Beach's story, Algeo leads us on a colorful tour of the political and religious tensions of late nineteenth century New York. At the core is the tale of one remarkable visionary who, before the age of specialization, excelled simultaneously as a magazine and newspaper publisher, inventor, science, advocate, and promoter."鈥擩ohn E. Morris, author of 'Subway: The Curiosities, Secrets, and Unofficial History of the New York City Transit System'
"In New York's Secret Subway, Matthew Algeo reveals a fascinating and intriguing piece of history hidden right beneath every New Yorker’s feet. Featuring larger-than-life characters, ambitious engineering, and the kind of smoke-filled-room political corruption that still accompanies modern transportation projects, this is a book every city lover, transit fan, and history buff ought to read."鈥擠oug Gordon, co-host of 'The War on Cars' podcast and co-author of 'Life After Cars'
"New York’s Secret Subway paints a vivid portrait of the inventive New Yorkers who came up with engineering ideas that have stood the test of time (and some very interesting ideas that haven’t!), and the Boss Tweed-era political operators who resisted transit innovations that are still with us. The competing visions of what a city should be, and how we travel around it, resonate today."鈥擱ay Delahanty, creator of CityNerd
"Decades before the subway as we know it, New York City had the Beach Pneumatic Railway – an improbable Victorian hyperloop. Below Lower Manhattan, Beach’s railway used compressed air to propel a cylindrical passenger car along a track through a subterranean tube. To tell the story of Alfred Beach’s daring project and its untimely demise, Matthew Algeo weaves an engineering adventure that intertwines experimental technology, business strategy, and power politics. New York’s Secret Subway is a revealing work of untold engineering history. It is also an instructive parable for our own age of mobility innovation, promotional hype, and venture capitalism."鈥擯eter Norton, Associate Professor of History, Department of Engineering and Society, University of Virginia and author of 'Fighting Traffic' and 'Autonorama'
