Original subtitles

It's the transportation backbone of almost 200 cities around the world,

covering over 11 ,000 miles and carrying nearly 170 million

people every day.

But 150 years ago, the subway is a pipe dream.

He was laughed at. He was mocked. He was ridiculed.

People thought it was a joke.

To dig a tunnel underneath the streets of New York in 1869 almost boggles the

mind. As rival engineers search for solutions. If he can apply electrical

to a rapid transit system, this could bring millions.

Boston and New York race to be first.

Anyone who wanted to build anything big in New York City had to grease the right

palm. Let's do this.

New York shouldn't be following Boston.

Victory won't come easy.

Blowing up dynamite underground did not come without death and disaster.

It was an extremely violent event.

And when the dust settles, the American city will never be the same.

History's full of ideas that start out seeming radical.

To hell we go!

And then go to being indispensable.

Start her up!

This is Subway Wars.

In the mid -1800s, American cities are quickly becoming overcrowded, fueled by

massive wave of immigrants in search of a better life.

In the aftermath of the Irish potato famine and the German revolutions of the

1840s, American immigration population explodes and reaches four times its

previous rate by 1850.

Most immigrants tend to arrive in the major cities of the East Coast.

But cities like Boston or New York were never designed to be as large as they

were becoming in the 1830s and 40s. They were essentially hemmed in by the ocean

or by the rivers that formed them. They had nowhere to expand.

By the late 1840s, New York has become one of the most densely populated cities

on Earth, with over 65 ,000 people per square mile, more than double that of

today. These cities were almost impossible to move around in. It was

difficult to get from point A to point B.

We have not just pedestrians, but horses, carriages, pushcarts. So all of

things are sharing the road, and you have to also imagine that it's very

Wealthy New Yorkers can afford to spend five cents on horse -drawn streetcars to

move around the city. But the majority of people must walk.

among the 2 .5 million pounds of manure and 60 ,000 gallons of urine left behind

every day.

There's a story that a guy stood on a corner one day, and in the span of a

he counted 8 ,000 horses at that particular intersection.

You're seeing this human and horse gridlock.

It became clear that something new was needed for a lot of people to be able to

move across a metropolitan area.

After years of living through the daily grind of walking to his office, a 23

-year -old magazine editor becomes obsessed with finding a better way.

Alfred Beach bought this tiny little magazine called Scientific American, and

built it into this very important journal that was mostly about who was

inventing what and what patents were being issued.

This is a period when America was invention crazy.

Everybody wanted to be an inventor.

He's an innovator and a tinkerer. He's trying to make a name for himself. And

he's somebody who's actually trying to do that and make a difference at the

time.

When he looks at how people get around in New York, he sees chopped up streets

and sort of a mess of a sidewalk.

And that's what sparks his idea.

Beach decides to write an editorial in his own magazine proposing an unheard

concept, move thousands of people by rail beneath the city streets.

It's just such a good way to use urban space.

By moving this challenging transit underground out of sight, you allow the

to have the kind of circulatory system it needs.

But after Beach publishes his editorial...

and the public reads about his revolutionary idea, the response is not

expects.

Mr. Beach has proposed the preposterous idea of building a tunnel.

Broadway may be hell, but why would we descend into hell to alleviate our woes?

He was laughed at. He was mocked. He was ridiculed. People thought he was...

People thought it was a joke. At that time...

Underground, underneath the surface of the Earth, that was where you put people

who had passed away.

Remember, this is the 1800s, and people are, with very much sincerity, worried

about, like, are we going to be, like, disrupting the spirits down there? It's

truly beyond what people can wrap their head around.

The proposal goes nowhere, and Beach returns to running his magazine.

But across the Atlantic Ocean...

In one of Europe's largest cities, the first subway in the world opens to

passengers. The London Underground.

On its very first day, 40 ,000 people take the subway. This is proof of

concept. This shows that something that many people thought could never be

accomplished is a real thing.

The system launches with seven stations throughout central London.

carrying almost 10 million people in its first year.

But while an impressive engineering achievement, it has issues.

The underground was a coal -powered steam engine spewing black soot and

and sparks into the air. It was just a miserable experience, people coughing,

covering their mouths, just not fun.

But we have to remember, it was the only option.

The London Underground reignites Alfred Beach's dream for New York City,

inspiring him to work on a cleaner answer to London's coal -driven engines,

new innovative technology called pneumatics.

Pneumatic technology harnesses the power of pressurized air to be converted into

mechanical work, and that air pressure provides the propulsive force to move

object. Beach is a born inventor, and he hears they're using an underground tube

in London to distribute the mail. And he thought, well, hey, if they're using a

pneumatic tube to move mail, I wonder if we could use a pneumatic tube to move

people. Beach begins working on models for a pneumatic -powered train car.

Okay, grab the streetcar, put it in the tube.

Switch it on.

But to build the real thing, he'll need to convince the one man who controls

every construction project in New York City,

Boss Tweed.

New York City is controlled by a political figure known as William Boss

Even though he's not the mayor, he's not the head of the city council, he

essentially runs the city.

Boss Tweed was at the center of what we today call machine party politics.

He instigates this patronage system.

whereby in exchange for me giving you jobs or contracts, you will kick off a

little bit. Tweed gets a cut from every fare passengers pay for all the horse

-drawn carriage rides in the city. So this idea of transportation that

potentially could take people off of the carriages and down underground, he sees

that as a threat.

Knowing Tweed would never sign off on an underground railway, Beach comes up

with a different approach.

I can build a small underground pneumatic tube that can transport mail

Hall to the Postal Service building.

Why are you suddenly interested in moving mail?

So what Beach does is he actually fibs a little bit that he's going to build a

pneumatic. mail moving system just the right size to move these little cars

carrying mail sacks, maybe about three feet, four feet across.

Moving mail underground will reduce the street traffic.

It will make your transportation system more efficient and lucrative.

We're only four foot wide.

Thank you, sir.

So you have really a sort of David and Goliath here, a matchup where you have

this powerful, corrupt politician against this sort of innocent but

entrepreneurial inventor.

Each puts up $350 ,000 of his own personal fortune, over $7 million today,

and begins building America's first subway in secret.

Instead of a small mail tunnel, it will be 8 feet wide and 300 feet long, big

enough to fit a train car.

Power will come from a 50 -ton fan used to ventilate mine shafts.

Beach thinks that if he can perfect this, the city will just approve this

network of underground tunnels, and Tweed will have to go along with it.

have no choice.

But as the work continues under the nose of Boss Tweed, And mere steps away from

City Hall, the danger of Beach's secret being exposed grows stronger every day.

Beach has complete confidence in his own moral worth.

And he goes ahead and does it. He's got one shot. It's a very high stakes

endeavor for him.

In February 1870, entrepreneur Alfred Beach, completes work on his dream.

He finishes constructing his underground pneumatic train in just 58 days.

Sometimes you've got to swing for the fences, and I would argue that a 300

tunnel literally underneath sort of City Hall on the way to the post office is

pretty courageous.

To hell we go!

Start her up!

In March 1870...

Beach unveils his secret subway to the public.

In its first two weeks, Beach sells the modern equivalent of nearly $60 ,000

worth of tickets.

In a year, 400 ,000 New Yorkers take a ride on his pneumatic train.

They're just overwhelmed.

He would turn the fan on and blow the car down the track.

And then he would reverse the fan and it would suck the car back. And it worked

like a marvel.

But it's just a prototype.

Now, Beach wants a shot at building the real thing.

Beach is convinced that his technology is really going to change New York City.

Seizing on his momentum, Beach proposes to Governor John Hoffman a plan to build

a five -mile -long pneumatic underground rail line from City Hall to Central

Park. I estimate the cost will be around $5 million, but with the current

excitement, we can raise the cash through private investments without

taxpayer money.

But he has a powerful opponent.

Boss Tweed says this is not going to happen as long as I'm here.

Tweed rushes out his own plan to the governor for an above -ground railway in

effort to beat Beach for the bid.

Boss Tweed's proposal would have come in at about $80 million, but Tweed had an

incentive to push it.

because he would get kickbacks.

What about Beech's underground trains?

My plan keeps us in business and your campaign funded.

Boss Tweed essentially promised the governor that if he stuck by his side,

could potentially be running for president in four years.

And so Beech's plan essentially dies on the desk of the governor and never goes

anywhere.

Tweed's plan is approved, putting the brakes on Beech's bold idea.

There are two reasons why Beech's pneumatic subway is lost to history. The

is Tweed does his best to torpedo it. But the second reason is pneumatic power

works for delivering the mail and packages, but it would have cost way too

in energy to have a full -fledged subway like this. So it's really not all that

realistic or practical.

It was sad, but in a lot of ways, what he represented was New Yorkers' hope.

that there was a future beyond what they were living at that point. It was just

going to have to come another day.

Although Beach's dream may have hit a dead end in the United States,

travel is thriving across the pond.

By 1882, the coal -fired steam engines of the London Underground have been

operating for almost two decades, carrying 40 million passengers each

But despite these achievements, a 25 -year -old naval engineer imagines a

different future for underground travel.

An American named Frank Sprague.

Frank Sprague is a really bright young man.

He is an engineer at heart. He is someone who, very much like Alfred

loves to tinker, loves to work with his hands.

And when he was in London, he got to ride on the London Underground.

He's struck by the fact that it really moves people quickly.

But gosh, this experience is miserable.

He looks at the Underground Railway. He sees how filthy it is. The smoke fills

the passenger compartments, too.

That's when Sprague is struck by a spark of inspiration.

He couldn't help think there has to be a better way for trains underground to

move. He essentially decides that he's going to turn his attention to

an electric motor.

Only a few years after Thomas Edison shocked the world by perfecting the

incandescent light bulb, scientists and engineers are looking to go bigger.

People are figuring out ways to use electricity and applying it to small and

large motors as mechanisms for powering our lives.

Sprague spends almost a year working for Edison, but unable to focus on his

electric motor.

He quits.

Sprague starts his own company in 1884 and pours his life into building an

electric motor that will revolutionize urban transportation and solve a problem

still plaguing New Yorkers years after Alfred Beach saw the need for change.

New York City has 100 ,000 horses stomping on its streets every day. And

a great health hazard. And if you told people that there's a way to replace

those horses with a...

Clean running motor. It would be mind -blowing to say the very least.

He spends the better part of three years just tinkering and tinkering and

tinkering. His wife almost never sees him, and eventually their marriage does

fall apart because he just can't find a way to balance his obsession with this

motor with anything else in his life.

Okay.

Switch it on.

Let's see how the motor copes with the bumps.

The insides of that motor are sensitive to a certain amount of jostling. Too

much vibration, you're going to lose electrical contact, and the motor will

function as intended.

But soon, Sprague cracks the code using wheelbarrow suspension.

Sprague's solution is taking the electric motor and mounting it directly

wheel. This creates a system that isolates the vibration from the train

wheel and eliminates that problem.

The motor and the wheel work as one.

Now Sprague needs someone else to believe.

He essentially needs what we know of today as an angel investor.

Somebody to sort of come along.

and say, I like what you have, I think it's got promise, I'm going to invest in

your idea.

Like Alfred Beach before him, Sprague creates a test track, this one in a New

York alley, 200 feet long, with a flat car.

He invites the man who owns more railroad routes than anyone else in

Tycoon Jay Gould.

He is right up there with Cornelius Vanderbilt and many other kind of robber

baron figures in the era.

I hope you brought your checkbook.

In this moment, if Frank Sprague is able to advance the interest in

electrical power to a trolley or a train, this could bring him billions.

Let's get on with it.

The flat car starts to roll down the tracks, and Sprague is undoubtedly

this is going to work, and Jay Gould is going to give me money, and this is

going to succeed.

After three years of effort, Frank Sprague is showing investor Jay Gould,

new electric motor.

Sprague pushes the lever forward, the car starts to move.

It looks like it's going to be a successful demonstration.

And all of a sudden, sparks fly out from right where Jay Gould is standing.

At this point, Sprague is in big trouble.

He's just driven away the number one railroad guy in the country, and he

have any customers for his breakthrough electric motor.

But New York is in desperate need of new transportation, as traveling through

city streets becomes unbearable.

People today have no idea how challenging and unpleasant, really, it

been to get around a city like New York in the mid -19th century.

Everything was moved by horses. There was manure everywhere.

And sometimes the streets were a foot deep in horse manure.

Animals would die and just be left, you know, where they lay.

The unsanitary conditions lead to disease.

Thousands die in earlier outbreaks of cholera and typhoid.

Dirty city streets means the threat of another outbreak continues with each

passing day.

It doesn't really have a very good sanitation system by any measure, so

a big public health crisis that looms with so many people and so much waste on

the streets.

But while a working subway system could help alleviate the filth left on city

streets, in 1886, New York is nowhere near building one.

Meanwhile, 200 miles to the north, another city has its eyes on a safer,

sanitary future.

and seizes the opportunity.

In the late 1800s, New York City was by far the biggest city in America.

Boston at the time was arguably the sixth biggest city, but an investor, a

named Henry Whitney, had become sort of the big player in Boston.

He ends up owning the largest single street railway system in the world, over

225 miles of streetcar track.

Whitney has 1 ,600 horse cars.

carrying 48 million people a year.

So Whitney sets a meeting with a young entrepreneur, Frank Sprague.

I am ready for a bigger opportunity.

And New York isn't showing any interest.

Henry Whitney sees what Sprague has accomplished down there and had

sort of put Boston on the map.

Let's do this.

But the most daring and bold thing Whitney proposed was, I'm going to build

subway tunnel for you under Boston Common.

The idea of a tunnel for trains in Boston had never been dreamed of.

Boston Common is the first piece of land designated in colonial America for

perpetual public use. It was essentially sacred ground.

So there was a lot of controversy around it.

You had businesses that were worried that if you dig up the street in front

my business, no one's going to be able to come in. I'm going to lose revenue.

Despite that opposition, Whitney and Sprague forge ahead.

Back in New York City, it's a cataclysmic event that ends any debate

need to build a subway.

That comes in the form of the Great White Hurricane in March of 1888.

For two days, a blizzard paralyzes the East Coast.

dumping up to 60 inches of snow and producing drifts more than 50 feet high,

killing more than 400.

The blizzard of 1888 ultimately buried the Northeast.

When it was over, cities recognized their transit systems were paralyzed.

The snowstorm becomes a defining moment for New York. City officials put

together a transit commission. And finally, in 1894...

one man is put in charge of building a subway for the largest city in America,

bringing to life the vision of Alfred Beach.

And like Beach, 35 -year -old railroad engineer William Parson faces a

monumental task.

Parson is from a New York family.

He is schooled both here and abroad. He spends a good amount of time in Europe,

and he is intrigued by what is happening in the larger world.

In the course of his young career, Parsons took on a number of railroad

projects. He was always thinking about something bigger, better, and grander.

And so changing the New York transit system would be as big a project as any

that he could take on.

But almost immediately, Parsons is caught in the slow -moving gears of the

York political machine.

I'm honored that you chose me to be your chief engineer.

But, um...

With all due respect, I'm not sure why it's taken so long to start building.

It is almost impossible to get a major infrastructure project done anywhere,

in particular, New York. It's a massive bureaucracy.

It's a massive undertaking.

Right now, I'm betting that Boston starts before us. And that should

everyone in this room.

While waiting for the official go -ahead, Parsons devises a plan for an

electrically powered system from City Hall all the way up to Harlem.

But actually building it won't be easy.

The geology of New York City is complicated, and it's only being

the planning and surveys for the subway take place.

You're essentially digging on an island, a giant rock.

And that rock is hard in some places, softer in other places. One of the

challenges Parsons faced is figuring out how to dig a tunnel into a rock.

Parsons finds the answer in the same method used to construct the

Transcontinental Railroad across the Sierra Nevada in the West.

Dynamite.

But his solution is fraught with danger.

It was a risky, risky proposition to blow up dynamite underneath a city

As William Parsons waits to get started in New York City, on March 28, 1895,

Boston breaks ground.

and becomes the first city in America to build a subway.

Workers begin construction on a 1 .3 -mile line under Boston Common, between

stations, with three more to come shortly thereafter.

Construction of the Boston subway was mostly through former Tidelands. Most of

the subway in Boston was dug by hand. They had some primitive steam shovels,

it really was laborers and horses and carts moving dirt every day.

It's an advantage over New York.

Engineers aren't blasting over 100 feet deep through bedrock.

The majority of track will be laid using a method called cut and cover.

Starting from the surface, you excavate down to the level that the subway is

going to be and then cover it with material that people on the street can

over. So it's safer than digging a tunnel, but more destructive to people

surface.

People above ground aren't the only ones unsettled, as digging begins in the

sacred ground of Boston Common.

More than 900 bodies dating to the colonial era are discovered and then

reburied.

For the next two years, construction moves forward at a rapid pace.

But as the first phase is within months of completion, on March 4, 1897, Local

residents and businesses complain of a smell in the air.

What nobody knew is that the night before, a worker who had been

nicked a pipe, and that pipe had caused a gas leak. The gas builds up for hours,

until the next day, when sparks from the wheels of two streetcars rounding the

corner on Boylton Street ignite hell on earth.

Six people were killed. At least two horses immediately incinerated. There

three streetcars that were demolished. Windows were shattered for blocks in

every direction.

It was an extremely violent event.

After the explosion, a weary public wonders if the subway is a death trap.

Even though the London subway had been around for 30 -plus years, people still

were not convinced that underground travel was safe.

Fingers were pointed everywhere.

People were livid. They thought the subway construction caused this.

After six years of red tape and delays, at the dawn of a new century,

construction begins on the New York City subway.

Boston may have started first, but New York's will be much more ambitious.

Nearly 8 ,000 workers, primarily immigrants and African Americans, will

subway system almost three times the size of Boston's. There would have been

bragging rights to beat Boston.

The original subway, they start at City Hall. They go up the east side of the

island. They cross over at 42nd Street and go up the west side of Manhattan to

145th Street, which is North Harlem, Washington Heights area.

New York has rapidly grown in the decades since Alfred Beach first

subway from City Hall to Central Park. As the population moves further away

downtown to escape overcrowding, the city plans the subway route to make it

possible for people to now travel to their jobs miles away from their homes.

The transportation system is now spreading its tentacles out into the

parts of the city to allow people to live in a nice little home, yet jump on

that subway and zip their way into their place of work. With the advent of

electricity, for the first time in history, that work can be 24 hours a

The need to efficiently move people to and from their jobs at any time makes

subway imperative.

Electricity had a major impact on the way Americans lived, primarily by

nighttime. Factories can operate around the clock if they want to now because

you can light up the workplace.

And what sets New York subway apart from any other in the world, it will provide

24 -hour -a -day service.

And a revolutionary idea by William Parsons. Parsons designs intentionally

track, local and express, both ways.

So this four track system really is a game changer for mass transit.

For Parsons, building that system means using dynamite in some popular and

populated areas of the city.

Murray Hill is our problem.

It's home to Grand Central Terminal, the Murray Hill Hotel, and almost every

millionaire in the city.

You worry too much.

This is serious.

One bad blast could ruin New York City. Look what happened in Boston.

Soon after blasting begins, Parsons' worst fear is realized.

Dynamite for the project is being stored in a shed.

and somehow, accidentally, a candle in the shed falls to the ground.

Someone comes running out of the shed seconds before it blows up, yelling, run

for your life, and it's devastating.

More than 500 pounds of dynamite are detonated. The explosion levels

impacting nearly a half mile from 35th to 45th Street.

Six people are killed.

And soon, like Boston, the media begin pointing fingers at the engineers

tunneling beneath their city.

Parsons said, I can't stomach this business anymore.

The project has taken such a toll on him. He's ready to be done.

For William Parsons, the disaster could be enough to end his career, derailing

his and New York City's quest to build their first subway system.

In the days after a devastating gas explosion rocks downtown Boston, many

if the tragedy also means the death of the subway.

The city of Boston had to work hard to convince people that this accident was

just that, just an accident caused by a gas leak. There was nothing else to

worry about.

In the end, the investigation didn't really put the blame on the subway

They were close to being done, and the work went on.

Six months later, by December 1, 1897, construction is complete, and Frank

Sprague's electric motor helps Boston claim the title of America's first

Over 100 ,000 passengers climb on board opening day, and more than 50 million in

its first year.

The opening of the Boston subway in 1897 sent ripples across public

transportation forever.

New York and Paris still didn't even have a subway system.

But Boston isn't finished yet.

Digging is underway to add three more stations within a year.

Boston is first, and they get to say that they're first for time immemorial.

But it's also true that Boston is first because theirs was a much more

straightforward build.

It was a simpler construction, did not require as much engineering finesse as

New York did.

As the 20th century begins, engineer William Parsons faces challenges

the New York subway.

A lot of attention is on him. A lot of spotlight is being shown directly on his

work. After having invested so much of his life, he realizes that this project

is going to be his legacy, for better or for worse. And so he's determined to

see it through to the end.

The northern areas of Manhattan, which used to be farmland, are now booming

new residents.

In 20 years, the population will grow from just 8 ,000 to 110 ,000 residents.

and they need transportation.

But as construction resumes, Parsons faces his most daunting obstacle.

The last few miles of underground track to build there are made up almost

entirely of bedrock.

Northern Manhattan requires an entirely different construction technique than

most of the rest of the subway.

It is 180 feet below the street surface, and the construction problems there are

serious. It is very solid. It's very difficult to get through.

Parsons handles the challenge of dealing with the bedrock in Washington Heights,

for better or for worse, by blasting his way through it. That's the only way

that this is going to happen.

The tough bedrock will cause delays, and Parsons' bosses are getting impatient.

Only a few hundred feet remain, and the tunnel will be complete.

The Board of Rapid Transit wants it done. So the contractors are under

to finish this part of the subway as quickly as they can. And so they are

cutting corners, sending workers in almost around the clock.

But after the deadly explosion in Murray Hill, William Parsons is still gun

-shy. What's it looking like?

Not good.

Reinforce every timber frame.

We take no chances.

In order to hit the board's deadlines, crews are forced to pick up the pace,

blasting three times a day instead of two.

With each blast of dynamite, they were really taking their lives into their own

hands because they did not know how strong and how stable the rock that was

directly above them was.

Then, on October 24, 1903, with only a few hundred feet of tunnel left to dig,

Manhattan's unpredictable bedrock revolts.

A crew of workers sets off a dynamite charge. They found the clear, meaning

it's safe to come in and clear out the loose rock.

As they descended into the tunnel, a huge rumble could be heard from above.

Construction crews are racing to dynamite 180 feet beneath the surface

some of Manhattan's hardest and most unpredictable bedrock.

What happens in 1903 is that the workers are on a speed up. The contractors are

pressing them to finish the contract so the subway can be open.

But after one particular blast, the workers were a little hasty in going

in.

Without warning.

a massive 300 -ton boulder comes crashing down on more than a dozen men,

trapping them in a horrifying scene of blood and chaos.

Ultimately, ten men lose their lives.

The Washington Heights cave -in would wind up being the worst single accident

building the New York subway.

It was really a tragic moment. When Parsons showed up at the scene, the

was you could almost sense him breaking.

But being so close to finishing the largest subway system in America,

knows he must carry on.

Parsons had a calling for rapid transit.

And calling, I think, is an appropriate word because calling comes from beyond

the everyday world of work.

It's from the world of religion. It speaks to a higher purpose.

Months later, the tunnels are complete.

The New York subway was momentous for a lot of reasons. The size, the scope, the

breadth of the project.

It was a really big deal, dwarfing what Boston had opened.

On October 27, 1904, four and a half years after breaking ground, New York

subway is finally unveiled.

When the turnstiles open to the public at 7 p .m., more than 100 ,000 New

Yorkers pour into stations across the city for their first ride.

In a year, it will be over 100 million.

The emergence of the subway literally forever transforms New York City.

And what we saw in 1904 is how connected the city becomes because of mass

transit. After years of delays, the city comes together to create an engineering

marvel. At just over nine miles and 28 stations, New York can now claim it's

largest subway system in America, in large part thanks to William Parsons.

I think it's safe to say that the New York City subway cements William

legacy as perhaps the greatest engineer in the city's history.

The subway was by far his greatest contribution.

For the man who gave power to Boston's subway, Frank Sprague, the electric

cements his legacy.

You think of Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone.

You think of Edison and the light bulb.

Frank J. Sprague is in that series of innovators and inventors.

What Sprague's invention of the electric motor does is make high -capacity, high

-speed transportation possible.

The New York subway's original prophet, Alfred Beach, never sees his vision come

to life.

He dies at age 69 of pneumonia on New Year's Day, 1896, four years before

construction begins.

But in 1912... While workers are digging a subway extension beneath lower

Manhattan, they rediscover his legacy.

The construction company is building a line right at Broadway, which follows a

lot of the same track that the pneumatic subway did, and they come upon the

remnants of Beach's line. They stumbled upon the original car that Alfred Beach

had built that still existed and still was sitting down underneath the streets

of New York.

150 years ago, Beach's revolutionary idea of a railway beneath a city, once

dismissed as a joke, is now an essential part of life in 180 cities around the

world, speeding through the depths.

Today, the Boston subway transports 1 million people a day through 133

over 65 miles of route.

While New York...

Both 472 stations, the most in the world, over 248 miles, carrying

over 5 million riders a day, over 1 .7 billion a year, nearly 10 %

of the more than 20 billion people who ride subways around the world every

The idea of creating something like a subway was audacious to begin with. But

you add in the idea of doing it under, a city that was functioning and bustling

and vulnerable, makes it that much more ambitious and audacious.

What was achieved was extraordinary.