History: New York’s First Subway Was a Spectacular Tourist Attraction

In the summer of 1870, no visit to New York was complete without a trip to see the city’s newest marvel, a pneumatically-powered subway that ran for 300 feet under Broadway between Warren and Murray Streets.

Built by Alfred Beach, publisher of Scientific American magazine, it was the first operational subway in the United States. Beach dreamed of extending the line the length of Manhattan, and his dream might have come true if not for William Tweed, the notorious boss of Tammany Hall.

A giant fan blew the passenger car down the tunnel and sucked it back. Thousands paid a quarter apiece to ride it. (Beach donated the proceeds to an orphanage).

“The conductor touched a telegraph wire at the side of the tunnel, there was a whistling as of wind careering through a field of dry corn stalks, and off we shot, yet so gentle was the motion that the passengers scarcely felt it,” a visitor from Iowa marveled.

This was nothing like the filthy, crowded stagecoaches and horse-drawn streetcars that the city’s commuters were resigned to. This was a clean, comfortable ride.

The station was nothing like they’d ever seen either. Beach had built a lavish waiting room for his passengers, complete with a grand piano, plush settees, and a fountain stocked with goldfish. Today’s straphangers would be gobsmacked by such luxury.

Beach collected thousands of signatures on petitions urging the state legislature to give him permission to extend the line the length of Manhattan. But “Boss Tweed” received kickbacks from the city’s stagecoach and horse-drawn streetcar operators (and was himself on the board of one of the streetcar companies). He would never allow a competitor.

After Tweed was finally toppled, Beach did win a charter. But then, an economic downturn known as the Panic of 1873 came along, making it impossible for Beach to secure further financing. The tunnel was bricked up.

In 1898, a fire destroyed the magnificent waiting room, and 20 years after that, the new City Hall subway station obliterated any trace of the old pneumatic tunnel. The only acknowledgment of the Beach line today is a small brass plaque affixed to the letter box in the foyer of 258 Broadway, the co-op that now stands above what was once the site of the waiting room.

It reads: “The first underground subway in New York City was secretly dug on this site in 1869. Beach Pneumatic Transit ran under Broadway from Warren Street to Murray Street and back, and cost 25 cents.” To see the plaque, you’ll have to ask one of the building’s residents to let you in.