All language subtitles for The Engineering That Built the World s01e05 Race to the Underground

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.