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What if New York City had built a subway 30 years earlier? Imagine they did and took mere minutes to ride across the city in a pneumatic tube.
Award-winning author and public radio host Matthew Algeo’s new book, “New York’s Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit” (Island Press, Sept. 30, 2025, $35), explores the riveting, real-life story of Alfred Beach, a visionary inventor who constructed America’s first operational subway, in secret, beneath the streets of 1860s Manhattan.
He joined Railfanning Review to discuss the plan and New York City of the era.
Music
- Intro: “Waiting on My Train to Come,” recorded live at the Southeastern Railway Museum on August 2, 2020. Written by Todd DeFeo, (c) 2006, 2020 by Todd DeFeo (ASCAP). From “A Guy Walks Into a Train Museum.”
- Outro: “All That We Left Behind (Live, In Studio Version),” recorded in July 2025. Written by Todd DeFeo, (c) 2006, 2020 by Todd DeFeo (ASCAP). Original version from “All That We Left Behind.”
Show Notes
- This conversation snippet has been slightly edited.
Podcast produced by Joe Nevark.
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