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How Boss Tweed Killed New York’s First Subway!
In 1870, Alfred Beach secretly built a subway under Broadway, only to have Boss Tweed find out—and kill it.
Matthew Algeo, author of the new book New York’s Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit (Island Press), will tell the incredible true story of New York’s first subway, a giant pneumatic tube that ran 300 feet under Broadway. Built in secret because Tammany Hall would never allow it to be built otherwise, the Beach Pneumatic Railway took the city by storm in 1870, and remains one of America’s great feats of engineering.
Algeo’s book will be available for sale and signing at the event.
Thursday, November 13
6:30–8:00 p.m.
St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church
263 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024
Matthew Algeo is an award-winning journalist and author. He is also the host of Kansas Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Algeo has reported from four continents for NPR News and written for major publications including the Atlantic, New York Times, and the Washington Post. He is the author of eight books, including Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip, which Christopher Buckley called “utterly likable,” and the Washington Post named one of the best books of the year. In addition to reporting and writing, Algeo has held jobs as a convenience store clerk, a gas station attendant, a Halloween costume salesman, and a proofreader. He also worked in a traveling circus as a hot dog vendor. He holds a degree in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania.
A stereoscopic photograph of the Beach Pneumatic Railway, Rockwood & Co., New York, c. 1870; Credit: Photography New-York Historical Society, Stereograph File, PR 065, Box 29, PR 065-0292-002. New-York Historical Society, 101680d
Alfred Beach’s grandson, Stanley Yale Beach, inside the Beach Pneumatic Railway passenger car after it was discovered inside the tunnel in 1899; Credit: From the Collections of The Henry Ford
The interior of the passenger car; Credit: Public domain from Illustrated Description of the Broadway Pneumatic Underground Railway, 1870
Beach’s patent application depicting his pneumatic railway; Credit: United States Patent and Trademark Office
