He built a tunnel lined with brick and concrete and a sumptuously decorated waiting room for passenger comfort. Enter Alfred Ely Beach, an admirer of “newfangled notions.” Working in secret, he created an underground train powered by an enormous fan in a pneumatic tube. Many solutions were bandied about, but nothing was ever done. The congestion at intersections threatened the lives of drivers and pedestrians alike.
In mid-19th-century New York, horses and horse-drawn vehicles were the only means of transportation, and the din created by wheels as they rumbled on the cobblestones was deafening. A long-forgotten chapter in New York City history is brilliantly illuminated.
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