The First Subway

In 1868 Alfred Ely Beach, the 44-year-old publisher of Scientific American magazine and avid part-time inventor built New York's first subway. Its site was 21 feet beneath Broadway, between Warren and Murray streets. The tunnel itself was 9 feet in diameter, 312 feet long, and held one cylindrical car capable of going about 10 miles an hour. A giant 100-horsepower blower propelled the vehicle along a track until it reached the far end, where the fan, reversed by a trip wire, slowed the car to a stop and then pulled it back the other way.

The elegance of this first subway will probably never be surpassed. The decor of Beach's tunnel platform included fine paintings, frescoed walls, a grand piano, a fountain, and a goldfish tank—bringing the total private expenditure for the tunnel to $350 000. Overshadowed by all this was Beach's substantial contribution to engineering, his method of tunnel construction: a hydraulic shield at something like an open-ended tin can and was propelled by pistons that drove it through the earth. Dirt removal and bricklaying went on inside the shield, affording the workers complete protection against cave-ins. The shield would later be used for construction of London's Thames, Glasgow's Clyde, and New York's Hudson tunnels.

After the stock exchange collapse of 1873, the subway was sealed up and forgotten. From then on Beach devoted himself to publishing and did not live to see New York achieve his dream. In 1912, workers digging a new subway tunnel unexpectedly broke into Beach's subway and found the little car sitting on its tracks, the whole tunnel still remarkably intact. Today the Beach tunnel is part of the City Hall subway station, where a plaque commemorates Beach's pioneering and maverick achievement.