Learn about New York’s secret subway in Library's virtual presentation

posted on 3/19/2026

In the nineteenth century, Manhattan’s streets were so crowded with people and horses that a trip from City Hall to Central Park – six and a half miles to be exact – took hours. But Alfred Beach had a solution: an underground tube.

Discover the fascinating true tale of “New York’s Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit” on Monday, March 23 at 7 p.m. virtually with Dover Public Library. The program is in partnership with Ashland Public Library. Register to receive a link to the live stream.

Author Matthew Algeo shares the story of Beach, a Springfield, Massachusetts native, whose dream of creating a giant pneumatic tube underneath Broadway from Battery to Harlem was staled by corruption in the Gilded Age.

Beach, a mild-mannered, visionary inventor and entrepreneur, designed his invention to use air pressure to shoot passengers up and down Manhattan Island in clean, quiet carriages. Unfortunately, Beach was up against the operators of the horse-drawn streetcars and the politicians in their pay, most notoriously William M. Tweed, the notorious “Boss” of Tammany Hall.

Undeterred, he made one of the most astonishing feats of engineering in American history, secretly creating the nation’s first operational subway, proving the feasibility of underground railways and paving the way for modern mass transportation systems.

Alego is an award-winning journalist and author of eight books including “Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip”, which was named one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post. He holds a degree in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and currently hosts Morning Edition on Kansas Public Radio. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with his wife and daughter.

For more information, visit the library’s website or call 603-516-6050.