The Perfectly Intact Secret Subway Under New York City That Time Forgot

A secret underground railway concept for New York City was proposed soon after the American Civil War, aiming to place transit underground rather than above ground. Alfred Ely Beach promoted the idea publicly with strong optimism, describing a railway underneath Broadway and a new kind of urban movement. Powerful political forces opposed Beach’s secret project, creating obstacles that threatened progress. Beach used clever workarounds to keep the effort alive despite resistance. Early enthusiasm suggested the plan could succeed, but economic realities later became decisive. The project ultimately failed to advance into a built system, and New York’s proper underground transit arrived decades later than the proposal.

"“Nothing less than a railway underneath, instead of one above-railway life down stairs, instead of railway life up stairs.” The article, titled “ An Under-ground Railway in Broadway” is reproduced in Matthew Algeo's recent history of Beach's underground endeavor, New York's Secret Subway. It's written with the kind of “the future is here” entrepreneurial optimism that suggests just how ambitious such an idea was at the time."

"“What is it?” Alfred Ely Beach rhetorically asked in a column he wrote in a November 1849 issue of his magazine, Scientific American. “Nothing less than a railway underneath, instead of one above-railway life down stairs, instead of railway life up stairs.” The article, titled “ An Under-ground Railway in Broadway” is reproduced in Matthew Algeo's recent history of Beach's underground endeavor, New York's Secret Subway."

"It’s hard to imagine New York City without its robust and bustling underground transit system. Today, the twisting web of the New York City subway can feel like a second, albeit subterranean, city of its own. But that wasn’t always the case. New York City wouldn’t have a proper underground transit system until October 1904, just over 40 years after London opened its famed Underground."

"In the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, a man sought to secretly revolutionize urban transit. Doing so put him in the crosshairs of one of the most infamous power brokers in American history. Powerful political forces opposed his secret project, but he found clever ways to work around them. Despite early public enthusiasm, unexpected economic forces ultimately determined the project's fate."

Read at Popular Mechanics