__1870: __Inventor Alfred Ely Beach opens New York City's first subway line, a pneumatic demonstration project in a 300-foot tunnel under Broadway.

Beach first demonstrated pneumatic transit at the 1867 American Institute Fair, and sought to build a pneumatic transit system underground to relieve surface-level congestion with a system consisting of, in Beach's words, merely "a tube, a car, a revolving fan!"

Beach obtained permission in 1868 to build a large package-delivery tunnel under Broadway, but secretly began work on a demonstration passenger-transit system, complete with a luxuriously appointed station and passenger car.

Like the deposit tubes at bank drive-through windows, the car was propelled by a rush of air from a blower, in this case a massive one. "When the blower is in motion, an enormous volume of air is driven through the tunnel, which drives the car before it like a boat before the wind," Beach wrote in 1870. The blower was built by Roots, whose successor company, Dresser, still builds smaller units for pneumatic tube systems.

After only 58 days of construction, Beach's subway opened as a demonstration project on Feb. 26, 1870. Passengers entered the railway through a station in the basement of Devlin's clothing store and offered as a fare a small donation to a home for orphans of Union soldiers and sailors from the Civil War.

The railway wasn't actually operational on its opening day, because of an engine failure, but within a week passengers began taking the short journey under Broadway from Warren to Murray Street and back. The tunnel alone was fascinating to New Yorkers, so daytime hours were reserved for tunnel tours and evening hours for passengers.

Beach envisioned a larger network of underground railway tunnels and gained support from the state legislature in 1871 and 1872. Both measures were vetoed by Gov. John Hoffman, on the grounds that they gave too much power to the Beach Transit Company.

Beach himself publicly contended that infamous Tammany Hall ruler "Boss" Tweed killed the Beach Pneumatic Subway, even though Tweed had first introduced the bill to the state legislature. More to the point, wealthy Broadway landowners favored elevated transit, fearing that underground tunnels would damage the foundations of their buildings.

What ultimately caused Beach's railway to cease operations in 1873 was the financial panic that led to the Long Depression. After years of rapid postwar economic expansion, a series of financial blows led to bank failures and dried-up credit markets, which would have prevented Beach from expanding his subway, even if the governor had approved it.

The situation is eerily reminiscent of the modern economic crisis and current debates about high-speed rail. Beach himself offered a warning to future railway builders:

Everybody in New York wants rapid transit, but, strange to say, the moment that any body sets to work with a definite plan for its realization, they are vigorously opposed and the work prevented.

Elevated lines eventually gained popularity because of their lower cost. Thus the Interborough Rapid Transit Company didn't begin underground public transit service until 34 years after Beach's demonstration line first opened.

Despite its appearance in Ghostbusters II, no elements of Beach's subway remain. The station was lost to fire in 1898, and the tunnel was destroyed during construction of a Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit tunnel in 1912. Today's City Hall station occupies the former tunnel's footprint.

Source: Various

Image: Photographs and magazine illustrations show Beach's pneumatic subway.

Courtesy Joseph Brennan