New York’s secret subway…blown up

NYC streets in the 1860s were filthy, bumpy, and fiercely crowded. Then an ingenious guy built a working demo of a wind-driven underground railroad…the first subway. But corruption let the air out of his idea.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New York City in the eighteen sixties. Yet traveled by
horse or by foot, that's it. Then somebody builds an
underground train precursored subways, using giant fans to literally blow
you from station to station. But then a legendary political
blowhard blows it up. I'm Patty Steele, New York City's

(00:21):
secret subway. Next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Okay,
dreaming about making the impossible possible is how we carve
out the future. For instance, getting around New York City
in the eighteen sixties was a frustrating, filthy affair. Thick mud,

(00:44):
bumpy cobblestones, horsecrap literally everywhere. So to get somewhere, you're
either riding horses or riding in horse pulled carriages or trolleys,
or you're walking in all that disgusting mess. But in
eighteen sixty nine, along comes Alfred Beach, who wants a cleaner, faster,
more comfortable way to travel in the city. Who wouldn't

(01:07):
want that? He gets the idea to build an underground
pneumatic railroad powered by air. Just imagine getting blown by
a mighty wind to your destination. Now, how tough could
that be well, As Beach said, a tube, a car,
a revolving fan, little more is required. So he plans

(01:28):
to build a demo, sinking his own money into it.
It's a one block long, single track single car line
below Broadway in Tribeca. Beach dreamed of it eventually connecting
Manhattan to Brooklyn across the East River, and Manhattan to
New Jersey across the Hudson. It would carry passengers as

(01:48):
well as packages, mail and merchandise. But one thing stood
in his way. One of the most corrupt men in
New York City history, William Tweed, better known as Boss Tweed,
who ran the infamous Tammany Hall political machine. Now Tweed
wants to torpedo his company, Beach Pneumatic Transit. Why because

(02:10):
his fingers are in every development project in New York
City and his money is on the plan to build
the l trains that eventually crisscross the city on elevated tracks.
Stuff only got done if Tweed wanted it done. So
Beach tells Tweed his tubes will only be used for
mail and banking purposes, and the project gets the green light. Secretly,

(02:35):
though Beach was building a passenger subway, his men actually
worked in the dead of night so they wouldn't be noticed,
and it worked like a charm. The New York Times
said the propulsion method was relatively simple. A massive steam
powered fan forces air into the tunnel to push the
car along, and when the current is reversed, a vacuum

(02:58):
is created, propelling the car in the other direction. Simple right,
But politics kept shutting it down. Here's the problem. Each
time Beach petitioned the city to make it a transit line,
Tweed veted it, so Beach never got past the first
three hundred feet of his subway tunnel. Beach's original plans

(03:18):
for the subway had it extending all the way up
to Central Park, at least another five miles, but it
died thanks to Tweed's vetos since he saw it as
competition for his plans. Since it only ran for one stop,
it simply became a major attraction that people could ride
for twenty five cents a seat on a trip that

(03:40):
blew them one city block and then sucked them back
again one city block. Over four hundred thousand visitors rode
Beach's subway in its first year of operation just for
the joy of it. They enjoyed also the station platform
with its gas lit chandeliers, grand piano, and huge coy

(04:00):
pond with a sparkling fountain in the center. Now are
you wondering what finally happened to that? Well, after three
years of locking horns with tweed, Beach finally got the
state to support the project. But months later there was
a stock market crash, tanking the economy. Beach's dream ended
when his investors walked. He bricked up his subway tunnel

(04:24):
and walked away himself and never went back. Forty years later,
in nineteen twelve, the tunnel was uncovered and Beach's station
was found intact, the train car, the piano, and the fountain.
Now today it's mostly gone or hidden, but bits of
the Brickline tunnel are said to be visible in Lower

(04:44):
Manhattan through a manhole cover on Reid Street. And Beach's
technology well about one hundred and fifty years ahead of
his time. It has inspired SpaceX and Elon Musk in
their evolving plans for the hyperloop new underground train. Funny enough,
the hyperloop actually has more in common with beaches design

(05:06):
than you'd think. It uses highly pressurized air to shoot
a train car at an astonishing speed. Sounds familiar right
the hyperloop. In many ways, he's sort of like the
grandchild of Beach's subway. Timing is everything. I'm Patty Steele.

(05:35):
The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions.
Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve
Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're out with new episodes twice
a week. Thanks for listening to the Backstory, the pieces
of history you didn't know you needed to know.