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1st New York City subway OPENS...
1st New York City subway OPENS...
Item # 716824
February 27, 1870
THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 27, 1870
* The very 1st (?) NYC subway's opening announced (1st report)
* Alfred Ely Beach Pneumatic Transit begins
Page 5 has one column headings: "The Broadway Tunnel" and "Opening the Bore to Public Inspection -- Success of the Undertaking--Great Crowd of Visitors". See photos for 1st report coverage on the opening of the Beach Pneumatic Transit subway. This was New York City's very 1st underground transit and was invented by Alfred Ely Beach. It's power source was pneumatic. Historic! Great to have in this famous NYC title.
Complete in 8 pages, nice condition.
Note: The was not considered an official subway system. The first in the U.S. to receive this distinction was Boston's Tremont Street Subway which opened in 1897.
background: On February 26, 1870, Alfred Ely Beach unveiled New York City's first underground transportation system, the Beach Pneumatic Transit, marking a visionary—if short-lived—precursor to the modern subway. Built in secret beneath Broadway between Warren and Murray Streets, the system featured a single luxurious car propelled by air pressure through a 312-foot tunnel, demonstrating the feasibility of subterranean transit in a congested and rapidly growing city. Financed privately by Beach for around $350,000, the project was both a technological marvel and a political maneuver to sidestep opposition from the powerful Tammany Hall machine. Outfitted with velvet seats, chandeliers, and a waiting room complete with a fountain and piano, the system was more a showpiece than a viable mass transit solution, yet it attracted thousands of curious riders. Despite its popularity, the project was ultimately stymied by political resistance and lack of expansion funding, and the tunnel was eventually sealed. Still, Beach’s Pneumatic Transit laid the conceptual and technological groundwork for what would become, decades later, the vast New York City subway system.
Category: Post-Civil War
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