Beach Pneumatic Transit
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The Beach Pneumatic Transit was the first attempt to build an underground public transit system in New York City, USA.
In 1869, Alfred Ely Beach and his Beach Pneumatic Transit Company of New York began constructing a pneumatic subway line beneath Broadway. (Beach had earlier demonstrated the basic system at the American Institute Exhibition in 1867.) Its single tunnel, 312 feet long, 8 feet in diameter, was completed in 1870 and ran under Broadway from Warren Street to Murray Street.[1] The line was built as a demonstration of a pneumatic transit system, open to the public with fares donated to charity. It remained little more than a curiosity, running only a single car on its one-block-long track to a dead-end at its terminus. (Passengers would simply ride out and back, to see what the proposed subway might be like.) Although the public showed initial approval, Beach was delayed in getting permission to expand it due to official obstruction for various reasons (see Alfred Beach article). By the time he finally gained permission in 1873, public and financial support had waned, and the subway was closed down.
In 1912, workers excavating for the present-day Broadway Subway dug into the old Beach tunnel, where they found the remains of the car and the tunnelling shield used during initial construction. The shield was removed and donated to Cornell University, which has since lost track of its whereabouts. The tunnel was demolished to build the BMT City Hall station. Beach's original station, built in part of the basement of Devlin's clothing store at the corner of Warren Street and Broadway, had long since been reclaimed for other uses.
A very similar but longer pneumatic system operated in 1864 on the grounds of The Crystal Palace in London.[2] See Crystal Palace pneumatic railway for more information.
[edit] References in popular culture
The Beach Pneumatic Transit has achieved the status of an urban legend in New York subway lore. Fictional portrayals (and some apocryphal nonfiction) suggest that it was an operational subway network, and that abandoned portions of it still exist.[citation needed] Such is not the case in fact.
In the 1989 movie Ghostbusters II, it is referred to as the New York Pneumatic Railroad (NYPRR). The film depicts the fictional Van Horne Station beneath the intersection of East 77th Street and First Avenue, where a subterranean river of supernatural slime flows through its tunnels toward the fictional Manhattan Museum of Art. (Interesting note: the building used for the Manhattan Museum's exterior is the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which now houses the National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center. Its location as presented in the film would have placed the museum within a mile of the original Beach Pneumatic Transit's location.)[citation needed]
The song Sub-Rosa Subway on the eponymous first album by the Canadian rock band Klaatu is about Beach's subway.
The image shown at the top of this page is featured on the New York subway-themed murals of many Subway Restaurants.
The film An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island involves the main characters Fievel Mouskewitz and Tony Toponi exploring a series of caverns directly beneath one of the abandoned terminals for the Pneumatic Transit system.
[edit] References
- ^ Brennan, Joseph (2005). They found the tube in excellent condition. Beach Pneumatic. Retrieved on 2008-01-17.
- ^ Delaitre, Frédéric (2002-07-10). Crystal Palace Atmospheric Railway. Lost Subways. Retrieved on 2008-01-17.
[edit] External links
- Article by Joseph Brennan
- www.nycsubway.org
- New York's Secret Subway
- PBS documentary about the subway in the American Experience strand entitled The Secret Subway.
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