New York's Secret Subway
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- Опубликовано: 17 июл 2022
- The London Underground had been completed - the world’s first subway system - was completed in 1863, but it was plagued by the dirty soot of its steam-powered trains. Alfred Beach promised something similar, and yet entirely different for New York City. But his dreams for the future of transportation would be mired in the politics and economics of the present.
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Script by JCG
#history #thehistoryguy #newyorkcity
everytime I decided to watch a history guy video despite feeling like the subject won't be interesting I end up loving the video.
I call it the history guy paradox "the less interesting the topic appears the more interesting the episode actually is"
yup, me too😁
@@johntabler349 I think that's called trivia. 😉
@@johntabler349 He is good at it, though.
Actually maybe even *very* good, I'd say.
@@KittyStarlight great events are built upon a succession of trivial ones
A similar pneumatic railway was built underground at Crystal Palace in South London in 1864. It was more a demonstration line, only 600 yards long, and was closed within two months of opening. Oddly, the line may (or may not) still be there, but the exact location of the tunnel is now unknown. Wiki has an interesting article about the Crystal Palace Pneumatic Railway.
Hey, it took 500 years to find Richard III's burial place under a car park in Leicester. "Not known" may be only a temporary condition.
Digging up random streets in a major metropolitan area is usually discouraged.
Well, this explains the drawings I saw on the walls of the sandwich shop chain Subway. I couldn’t figure out why the passenger tube” fit the walls of the tunnel so tightly. LOL - I was looking at Mr Beach’s invention.
I saw those too,thanks for the story
I always wondered what the pneumatic transit referred to in Ghostbusters II was. Thank you History Guy!
Good call!
Vigo the Carpathian wants to know your location!
@@TheCimbrianBull Nah, he just misses his kitten
@@TheCimbrianBull Vigo!!!
Yea, that was my first introduction to the term 'pneumatic transit system'. History in the movies; love it!
My man back here in the 1800s inventing the hyperloop like it's no big deal
@Amy Taylor hello robot person. How are you? Beep boop.
Go spam some other nigga and gtfo
History Guy: While working in NYC design and construction trade I came across old Building Dept record drawings of little known but still extant East River tunnel crossing. Connected the Con Ed Hell Gate substation to Big Alice, the giant generating station in Astoria Queens. It's s wide enough for truck traffic between the two sites.
Isn't that the Men in Black headquarters? 🤔
@@christophervandenberg4830 ya think that Hell Gate was a clue ;>)
Stop telling lies
@@joseywales4638 This channel doesn't have any content
@@joseywales4638 lol
"We can go half way to Philadelphia in the same time to go down Broadway" NOTHING has changed
Now that's funny!
Some things never change.
Well, there's less horse poop on the streets these days. Not saying they're cleaner, just that it's not horse poop you're walking in.
@@boobah5643 in LA, San Francisco, and Seattle the city workers wash the homeless excrement off the sidewalks early each morning. I'd be happier with the horse stuff.
@@boobah5643 That's definitely a change.
Just don't walk where the police ride.
Or right behind them, either.
I love any stories about old Boss Tweed. One of the biggest crooks that ever lived who pretty much got his just desserts.
I think any story in this time period of NYC will always eventually somehow connect to Tweed. Just because he had his corrupt fingers in every pie in the city.
yep ... change the name to TRUMP and the story is the same. Tweed is the idol of diaper-don-the-lyin-commie-con
If I was writing a movie full of bad puns and need a bad guy I can't think of a better name than boss tweed
I think by now biden has taken over as the biggest crook, and he does love his ice cream desserts.
@@jetsons101 No one asked you to politicize this. Go away.
Looks different without the slime. Good thing the Ghostbusters took care of Vigo the Carpathian!
It’s old pneumatic system, it’s still here!
I grew up in New York City. The description of crossing the street is quite accurate, even today.
"Dirty and filled with brutal ruffians" still describes the buses too.
@@hobbified ..depends on the time of day, day/night of the week and from where to where..
..but some busses at times of their route aren't so good with whom get on.
@@hobbified There was a very funny episode of the Honeymooners where Alice is describing her commute on about a dozen buses to Trixie. Trixie asks why she doesn't just take the subway, it's just one transfer. Alice replies, "You meet a higher class of people on the bus!"
Describes crossing the street in Mexico. Only, you've got to hold your 'NO!' hand up and look the driver in the eyes and imply you're looking forward to eating his spleen. 👋
I doubt that the hyperloop will amount to anything. What I do know is that we need more cats on this channel.
As a native of New York, I knew part of this story (that someone had developed an air-powered subway that existed before the system we now know) but I didn't know the details. Must say, though, I'm not surprised to see W.M. Tweed's fingerprints on this.
The Post Office Museum in Washington, D.C. (next to Union Station) has a good exhibit about the underground pneumatic mail system that was used in various cities. That is where I first learned about it.
This video has added to that knowledge. Thank you.
Goodness Gracious!
How absolutely extraordinary!
This thoroughly captivating story kept me enthralled throughout my dinner, such that I hardly remember eating it, and searched the table for more sustenance. The History Guy is now causing me to put on weight 😳
The first time I heard about these pneumatic tubes I was a kid, there was an animated movie that came out staring fivel and part of the show was then adventuring in the old tubes after they had been built and abandoned. It seemed like a novel idea so I did some googling which back in the day wasn't as easy as it was now and stumbled upon this story that you're telling me now.
I used to think it was fake. Made up for the movie. I had no idea air was that powerful.
The Canadian rock band Klaatu had a song about Albert Beach and his subway on their first album "3:47 EST" called "Sub-Rosa Subway". It's the same album that has their sing "Calling Occupant of Interplanetary Craft" that the Carpenters covered. The sing begins "Back in 1870/just beneath the Great White Way/ Alfred Beach worked secretly/ risking all to ride a dream - his wind machine".
For those who've never heard of the band Klaatu, it was named after the robot in the classic science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. "Klaatu barata nikto"! were the instructions given to the robot to stop it from carrying out previous orders to destroy Earth.
@@goodun2974 And there was a short-lived rumour that they were actually The Beatles in disguise.
@@GallifreyanGunner , I remember that. And later, we got the Rutles! 🤣
@@goodun2974 And there was a lot of speculation at the time that they were the Beatles.
I was just visiting Terry Draper, the drummer for this band a couple of days ago. We talked at length about the Klaatu days and this song in particular.
I especially appreciated the "gaining traction" mention in your closing statement.
So if a pneumatic system is gaining traction, does that mean it is failing?
@@derekmills5394 if so, it's gone off the rails!
Thought this was about Grand Central Station. 😃Enjoyed your video. Today you can still see traces of the trolley tracks.
Cheers.
The subject of one of my all time favourite songs: "Sub Rosa Subway" by Klaatu.
". . .As for America's first subway,
The public scoffed, 'It's far too rude.' [It's far too rude!]
One station filled with Victoria's Age,
From frescoed walls, and goldfish fountains [clap clap]
To Brahmsian tunes, Brahmsian tunes, Brahmsian tunes. . .
Brahmsian tunes, Brahmsian tunes, Brahmsian tunes. . .
Brahmsian tunes, Brahmsian tunes, Brahmsian tu-u-uunes. . .
Supe, supe, supe, supe!
[clangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclang/rushing, whooshing sound, with Doppler]
Brahmsian tu-u-uunes, Brahmsian tu-u-uunes, Brahmsian tu-u-uunes. . ."
😄 it's awesome that so many of their fans are here today! Whoda thunk it?
@@HM2SGT Sorta think there's a common thread there, wouldn't one?
The point of the omnibuses being rejected because they were "dirty", and filled with "ruffians" shows how often we've been able to solves some of the worlds biggest issues, but only if it suits our individual day-to-day lifestyle. If the buses are racing each other and grazing the side posts, the issue isnt with public transport its with your hiring of bus drivers.
Lack of control over private companies is also a culprit. The omnibus/bus companies were not subject to government control. If the government dictates where companies can operate, it eliminates the competition on the same routes.
The establishment of regulating agencies and enforcement of rules goes far to prevent such shennanigans.
Pretty sure the current DA of NYC is working on restoring the ruffian population in the NYC subways. He hopes to make it a safe haven for them.
Busses are still filthy and full of creeps, don't know what government control has to do with it.
London buses today are filthy and full of ''ruffians''.
Hahaha. I initially found out about this when it was mentioned in Ghostbusters II. I immediately did some research after seeing this in the movie as i was very intrigued by it. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was actually a real thing. Too bad it wasn’t preserved for people to see it in modern times.
Vigo the Carpathian wants to know your location!
"Pneumatic message tubes", aka "Bunny Tubes". In my Navy days, 1970s, Navy ships were equipped with bunny tubes, for sending paper communications between radio room, bridge, radar room, etc. In the radio room, we'd here a "woosh!" and a "plunk" as the bunny arrived. Certainly a quaint system of sending messages.
Makes a difference from the "dit"s and "dah"s 😂
It hasn't exactly been forgotten. There have been numerous articles since the anniversary of the New York City subway system in 2004. But I doubt people from outside of the city have heard of it
Anyone who has seen Ghostbusters 2 has heard of it.
@@vaikkajoku I completely forgot about that scene.
@@ronmaximilian6953 Indeed you did. 😛
I've loved this story since I first read it in a book my father had, and wrote a research paper on it for a "History of New York City" course in 1989 at Brandeis U. Beach's subway and the role of Tammany really sparked my love of New York City history in the decades since.
Another excellent episode. Thankyou for your awesome content THC.
Thank you for the lesson.
Several years ago I worked on the replacement for Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas.
They installed three separate pnematic systems from the main hospital to a facilities building across the street.
One carried trash, the second used medical garmets and third medical waste.
Happy History Monday!!!!! Thank you THG!
A downtown dress shop in Williamsport PA was still using a pneumatic tube system in the late 1970s when I was attending college there. The old Kaiser medical center in Santa Clara (built in the 1950s) sent medical samples etc. through a tube system hither and yon, until the facility closed about ten years ago. And I’ve seen photos of Beech’s little rail car in the tunnel where it was found in the 1980s by (you guessed it) another construction crew.
The Southern Pacific railroad yard in Klamath Falls, OR had an elaborate pneumatic tube system at one time too. I only know about it, because it was in the background of a photo shown to me by an old man I used to know who was a steam engineer there in the 50s and 60s. I asked about it and he told me what it was.
Thank you for sharing your efforts and love of history. You have fascinated me many times, I hope my children will someday listen to history narrated by your voice.
5 am pst and all is good this Monday. Thanks THG!
I thought you were going to talk about the president's (I think it was FDR at the time) personal train under Grand Central terminal. In fact that would be a good video.
i also came in with that expectation. i was pleasantly surprised to find a story i didn’t know!
@@NUTZJ98 well in that case a video is indeed in order. I think there's also a massive generator room way underground to power the train under Grand Central terminal. Also did you know on the Eastern base of the Brooklyn bridge there is a nuclear shelter under the base?
I read a book about the creation of the tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan. That was quite an engineering effort; the story of the "sand hogs" and the machinery they worked with is extremely interesting. It would make a good subject for the history guy to cover.
I'm glad you finally got around to the Alfred Ely Beech pneumatic subway.
I knew a little bit about this story, but a lot of what I thought I knew was apparently wrong. I was led to believe the pneumatic system failed outright, _"things that work at small scale don't always work at larger scale, and this was an example of that."_ I wasn't aware _Boss TWEED_ (that really should be a slur in its own right) had basically *EVERYTHING* to do with it.
Navy ships use a pneumatic tube system, Radio Central being the Central starting point. Going to the bridge, Captain's cabin, Combat Information Center, etc...
Yep, my ship had it, 1970s.
@@lancerevell5979 What ship did you serve on? I served on USS Semmes DDG 18 1983-84, USS Cape Cod AD 43 1984-86, USS Kinkaid DD 965 1987-89, USS Whidbey Island LSD 41 1993-96 and USS Wasp LHD 1 2000-03.
Coles Supermarkets in Australia use Pneumatic Tubes to send money from the register desks to the safe whenever the tills exceed a certain amount.
If you have eaten in Subway restaurants over the years some had interesting wallpaper that showed people riding in cylindrical rail cars dressed in mid 19th century clothing.
I think it’d make a great movie to show how someone put one over on Boss Tweed. A comedy maybe?
Great video
to think I used to calmly sit and eat at Subways...I value my life and not getting shot too much now to risk that again.
@@joejones9520
Why?
What city do you live in?
Detroit, Chicago, NYC?
@@robertdragoff6909 The main problem is the demographics where i live, with that goes danger, always, but I do live near an incredibly murderous city that I try to never visit.
Bit of a correction: The London "Tube" is the deep trains that have always been electrified. Although "Underground" covers both the Tube and non-Tube lines, it is properly used for the original cut and cover steam powered lines.
Whilst technically correct, it should also be noted that in common colloquial usage "the tube" usually refers to everything in a blanket sense, sometimes even the above-ground light rail infrastructure like the overground.
@@Hannah_Em The Tube was a marketing term (introduced by London Transport - or was it UERL ?) on the Face of the Map. The Metropolitan Railway always considered itself a form on main line company that happened to run sub surface. I think the first usage was the Central Line that referred to itself as the Tuppenny Tube (flat fare of 2d). I am note sure if the City and South London Railway ever was know as the Tube officially. The second 'Tube' Line was the Waterloo and City Railway, know to its friends as The Drain.
@@highpath4776 and now we also have RUclips and RedTube!
Awesome video. I remember being quite fascinated by this as a teenager and having very little information about it available at that time. It is really sad that nothing of Beach's pneumatic people-mover was preserved for history's sake. I believe the tunneling shield was rescued and later sent to Cornell but that has long since gone missing. Just a few photographs and concept drawings are all that remain of what was a truly innovative idea.
Pneumatic railway sounds exactly like the Hyperloop. It was a just novelty fairground ride, same as it was today.
Back then it was a novel idea worth exploring. It didn't work out as intended, but we only learned that from actually building the thing and testing it.
Do we need to build the hyperloop to figure out that it's just a pipe dream? THIS is the difference.
most "hyperloops" use magnetic "propulsion", not pnuematic method
No mention of the "Crystal Palace Pneumatic Railway" of 1864? Although very short-lived (only 3 months) it predates Beach's exhibit at the American Institute by about 3 years.
The CPPR was much longer than the Beach Pneumatic Transit (600yds vs 100yds) and the tunnels were slightly larger (10ft x 9ft vs 8ft x 8ft).
Both railways have Wikipedia pages:
--> Crystal Palace pneumatic railway
--> Beach Pneumatic Transit
Well . cuz this was about NYC .. not London #DUH
As a child I used to love watching the sales staff in big department stores take your money and receipt and send it by Numatec tube to the billing department and watch the copy of your receipt and change come back down the tube.
HYPERLOOP!
What's old is new again, even if it's impractical.
Alfred Beach's subway was immortalized in a song by Canadian "Prog Rock" band Klaatu in the song "Sub Rosa Subway".
When Klaatu's debut album was released, there was a widespread rumour that Klaatu was actually *The Beatles* reunited and working together anonymously.
It is so wicked shiny that there are actually two other fans here today!
I became a fan thanks to Paul Gross CBS series from the mid-90s due South. He was really good about including Canadian artists, and their song Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft who was featured in an episode
I thought I'd be the first, or only, mentioner of Klaatu. Happy to see that's not true.
@@HM2SGT Nice "Waitresses" reference in your username, fellow Browncoat.
@@dougp6664 I thought I was going to be the same lol It helps it is a pretty good song as well.
@@markallen2984 😳🙀😹👍 Nigh on 20 years, so I’m mildly surprised somebody picked up on firefly. Nearer half a century than not, I’m flabbergasted and gobsmacked anybody picked up on the waitresses!
The wallpaper that decorates Subway Sandwich shops is of the pneumatic tube subways proposed for New York. History, that deserves to be consumed.
Just don't let Jared lure you down any secluded tunnels. You might get a different type of boring.
@@stvdagger8074 You made me laugh,, Thanks !! I HAVE always marveled that the drawn plans are of a Subway that both did not work,, and still exists hidden beneath the streets.
Thanks! I do love character-based history tales and find the tech visionaries of the past more interesting than the often juvenile and puerile examples we too often have today 😉
All of human history is character based. :)
@@oldsguy354 Fair point but too often history is told as a collection of facts and event sequences, alas. Or, as one person bluntly put it, "History is just one damned thing after another." 😂
@BlueBaron3339 Not to be too pedantic, but I believe the word you were looking for was "puerile" vs "purile," but could also be a type-o. Its the old teacher in me - old habits die hard. Be well.
@@v.e.7236 Yep, you're right but at least it didn't come out as purell...as it might well have given the past couple of years.
@@BlueBaron3339 LOL
As someone who actually works in the pneumatic tube industry (yes, folks, it's an "industry"), I find it interesting that "some" hospitals use them. Actually "many" if not "most" larger hospitals, especially in the US, couldn't function without them. They don't send paper, but rather send lab specimens, blood products, and medication throughout their buildings.
Great info I was unaware of! Thank you
Bigger hospitals here in Sweden used pneumatic tubes for journals past new millennia. Now it’s of course computerized systems, but still not connected between all hospitals due to legislation.
Wow! This is a mass version of the air tubes in Futurama
Bedlam on wheels you quoted, I only know that term for the video you made! Learning used to be such a chore but I’m so grateful that I wake up with a fire to learn
Always a pleasure watching these forgotten tid-bits of forgotten history with you. Thank for another interesting story of our past!
instantly thought of ghostbusters 2
One of my absolute favourite RUclips channels. Keep up the good work!
Well done. I really enjoyed this.
That has to be the best video I have ever seem on Beach's Pneumatic Subway. Great work History Guy!
Thank you for sharing your research
Great piece.
The History Guy does it again! Excellent video!
Great story I had never heard before, thanks.
Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!
And thus was born the expression "going down the tubes".
A Pneumatic Subway was constructed at the Crystal Palace in London. It only lasted a few months and didn't catch on. Also there is speculation that the waiting area for the NYC pneumatic still exists and could possibly be accessed through a ventilation shaft located near City Hall, but do to concerns about Terrorism no one has been allowed to search for it or what might be left of it.
Was that before or after Brunel's pneumatic experiments at Brixham ?
Please excuse my unwarranted help... "allowed."
@@patricksanders858 Well a Hue and Cry search would be noisy
I'm not sure how comparable vac-trains and hyperloops are to Beech's folly. The only thing the modern systems do with air is make it go away; they don't use it as a motive force. Vactrains are just maglev trains in a vaccuum tunnel while hyperloops shoot trains on a ballistic trajectory through a vaccuum tunnel. In both cases, the proprosed propulsion is magnetic rather than pneumatic.
Others: Well technically...
Me: Thank you THG for more great content!
The hyperloop is here now. Love your videos
A visionary before his time
!
thanks for that, very interesting!
The hyperloop!
Thanks History Guy!
Wow, i cannot believe that he thought of such things that far in the past. Thank You for an outstanding History Lesson.
check out the atmospheric railway, it was immensely wasteful and inefficient yet was a pneumatically driven train before even steam engines were that good
Thanks again!
Pirate Boss Tweed, obviously no open seas, but certainly some plank walking of some sort. Thank you, Lance!
Believe it or not the first time I ever saw a picture of Beach in his rail car was on Subway sandwiches wallpaper in the early 90s
I continue to enjoy all your episodes.
Still really wish you'd do one on Harry Ferguson and the Ferguson system...it revolutionized agriculture, and is still pretty much still in use today with modern 3 point hitches on the majority of tractors....
I forgot I was subbed to this absolutely amazing channel quality content!
And happily many decades later we would enjoy a chain of sandwich restaurants
🤣🤣🤣
That particular Subway line has been contracting in recent years, verging on a tunnel collapse. Having a spokesperson convicted of child porn, plus some fudging of facts around measured sandwich length and actual tuna content didn't help.
@@goodun2974 And let’s not forget the “Rotisserie Chicken” that had a disclaimer that it wasn’t 100% chicken…
That was too bad, I actually enjoyed that until I wondered what the rest of the percentage was.
@@stuartriefe1740 half rotisserie, half chicken
Fascinating!
This one was particularly fascinating. It is no surprise to see a good idea blocked by politics and money grabbing among leaders but this one truly hurt the people. Luckily the value was seen later.
They destroyed the Tunnel when they expanded the New York Subway. What a wonderful piece of history, almost poetically.
Jennifer Snow Wolff loves your channel, so do I. We prefer reality over reality television.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Thank you history Guy
DUDE! That new intro is killer!!!!
When I was a kid, the Capwells in downtown Oakland, CA still had the pneumatic tunes for making change at the various cashier stations around the large 3 story building. They were not in operation, as far as I know, but they were still there.
great video
While in the real world the pneumatic subway was destroyed, it still managed to play an important role in Ghostbusters II.
Many years ago I saw an article accompanied by some fascinating photos taken at the time that they discovered the tunnel. The rail car was still in place, and they took pictures inside of it.
Great video.
Amazing!
I have a few original 1870s issues of "Scientic American" magazine. Each comes with one or more home blueprints, sans restroom, of course.
Oh that’s so cool 😎
Always learn lots of neat, yet obscure, facts,,,
those AI upscale don't do justice, just keep the original with 1/2 zoom pls, great content!
Alfred Beach and his efforts are mentioned in the song "Sub-rosa Subway" by Klaatu.
There is a fantastic song by Klaatu called Subrosa Subway that is about Alfred Beech
Ah, Klaatu! The band everyone thought was The Beatles! 😜
Once more an incorrect comparison is made between this form of atmospheric vacuum transport and the proposed hyperloop. Hyperloop does not use the partial vacuum as propulsion and braking as Beach's invention, and pneumatic messaging/money tubes do. Instead the lower pressure in the hyperloop reduces the air friction to a minor level. Then an even lower friction support, now generally using magnetic levitation is used in place of wheels.
The efficiency of electric propulsion is, and was far superior to pneumatic at the larger scale, and though I imagine Beach wanted the surface blower to ensure good ventilation, when deep tube subways were made using electric motors, the cars themselves moved enough air through the system as if they were pistons. Beach's system is actually inverted. The one car was driven more by the 14 lbs per square inch of air pressure coming in behind the slight pressure reduction produced by that gigantic steam driven fan. Reversing it not only would stop it, it made the same car go the other way at a higher than atmospheric pressure. The system was not likely to be able to use more than one car vehicles, i.e. trains.
Andrew Hallidie's San Francisco cable cars were able to do both short trains, Chicago and NYC both had them, and might have been used for tube/subways, had not the electric tram technology been invented just a while later that was simpler to build and also doesn't foul underground air while using combustion steam power plants at the surface back then because those had to.
luv your vids !!!!!!!!!
Loved it. Driven visionary with some distasteful qualities . A package
The description of how to cross the street in New York City, I think is still applicable today.
There will never be a "Hyperloop"
Another great video :)