Alfred Ely Beach (September 1, 1826 – January 1, 1896) was an American inventor,

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

, and patent lawyer, born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is most known for his design of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

's earliest subway predecessor, the

Beach Pneumatic Transit The Beach Pneumatic Transit was the first attempt to build an underground public transit system in New York City. It was developed by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869 as a demonstration subway line running on pneumatic power. The subway line had one sto ...

. A member of the

Union League The Union Leagues were quasi-secretive men’s clubs established separately, starting in 1862, and continuing throughout the Civil War (1861–1865). The oldest Union League of America council member, an organization originally called "The Leag ...

of New York, he also patented a typewriter for the blind and a system for heating water with solar power.

Early years

Beach was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and was the son of a prominent publisher,

Moses Yale Beach Moses Yale Beach (January 7, 1800 – July 18, 1868) was an American inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist and publisher, who started the Associated Press, and is credited with originating print syndication. His fortune, as of 1846, amounted to ...

. Alfred Beach worked for his father until he and a friend, Orson Desaix Munn, decided to buy ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'', a relatively new publication. He also brought in the venture Salem Howe Wales, President of the New York City Department of Docks and co-founder of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. They ran ''Scientific American'' until their deaths decades later, and it was carried on by their sons and grandsons for decades more. Munn and Beach also established a very successful patent agency. Beach patented some of his own inventions, notably an early

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...

designed for use by the blind and an engineering first for the Americas, designed and built one of the world's first

tunnelling shield A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the pro ...

s in the same year as famed engineer

James Henry Greathead James Henry Greathead (6 August 1844 – 21 October 1896) was a mechanical and civil engineer renowned for his work on the London Underground railways, Winchester Cathedral, and Liverpool overhead railway, as well as being one of the earliest pr ...

. After the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

he founded a school for freed slaves in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...

, the Beach Institute, which is now the home of th
King-Tisdell Cottage Foundation
"Scientific American", January 11, 1896.

Invention of a subway

Beach's most famous invention was

's first subway, the

. This idea came about during the late 1860s, when traffic in New York was a nightmare, especially along its central artery of

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

. Beach was one of a few visionaries who proposed building an underground railway under Broadway to help relieve the traffic congestion. The inspiration was the underground Metropolitan Railway in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

but in contrast to that and others' proposals for New York, Beach proposed the use of trains propelled by pneumatics instead of conventional steam engines, and construction using a

of his invention to minimize disturbing the street.James Blaine Walker, "Fifty Years of Rapid Transit / 1864 to 1917". New York: The Law Printing Company, 1918. Beach used a circular design based upon

Marc Isambard Brunel Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Born in Franc ...

's rectangular shield, which may represent the shift in design from rectangular to cylindrical. It was unclear when or who transitioned tunneling shield design from rectangular to circular until ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote an article describing the original Beach tunneling shield in 1870. Beach was also interested in

pneumatic tube Pneumatic tubes (or capsule pipelines, also known as pneumatic tube transport or PTT) are systems that propel cylindrical containers through networks of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, ...

s for the transport of letters and packages, another idea recently put into use in

.Alfred E Beach, "The Pneumatic Dispatch". New York: The American News Company, 1868. He refused to blackmail "Boss" Tweed to have his proposal approved. He set out a way to bypass the politician by building furtively his tunnel. With a franchise from the state he began construction of a tunnel for small pneumatic tubes in 1869, but diverted it into a demonstration of a passenger railway that opened on February 26, 1870."Scientific American", March 5, 1870. To build a passenger railway he needed a different franchise, something he lobbied for over four legislative sessions, 1870 to 1873. Construction of the tunnel was obvious from materials being delivered to Warren Street near Broadway, and was documented in newspaper reports, but Beach kept all details secret until the New York Tribune published a possibly planted article a few weeks before opening."New York Tribune", January 11, 1870. Beach Pneumatic plan

In 1870 New York state senator

William M. Tweed William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878), often erroneously referred to as William "Marcy" Tweed (see below), and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany ...

introduced a bill to fund construction of Beach's subway which did not pass."New York Herald" and "New York Tribune", March 11, 1870. By the end of 1871 Tweed's

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

political machine was in disgrace and from then on Beach, in an effort to gain support from reformers, claimed that Tweed had opposed his subway.Alfred E Beach, "The Broadway Underground Railway". New York: Beach Pneumatic Transit, 1872. The real opposition to the subway was from politically connected property owners along Broadway, led by Alexander Turney Stewart and

John Jacob Astor III John Jacob Astor III (June 10, 1822 – February 22, 1890) was an American financier, philanthropist and a soldier during the American Civil War. He was a prominent member of the Astor family, becoming the wealthiest member in his generation and ...

, who feared that tunnelling would damage buildings and interfere with surface traffic.For example see "New York Herald", March 21, 1871, and "New York Tribune", March 29, 1871, and "New York Times", March 30, 1872. Bills for Beach's subway passed the legislature in 1871 and 1872 but were vetoed by Governor John T. Hoffman because he said that they gave away too much authority without compensation to the city or state. In 1873 Governor

John Adams Dix John Adams Dix (July 24, 1798 – April 21, 1879) was an American politician and military officer who was Secretary of the Treasury, Governor of New York and Union major general during the Civil War. He was notable for arresting the pro-Souther ...

signed a similar bill into law, but Beach was not able to raise funds to build over the next six months, and then the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the ...

dried up the financial markets. During this same time, other investors had built an

elevated railway An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train for short) is a rapid transit railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks ...

at Greenwich Street and Ninth Avenue, which operated successfully with a small steam engine starting in 1870. This elevated railway gave an Idea to

for the Docker's Umbrella in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

which, was a similar idea for an overhead railway for the purpose of easing congestion on the ground in England. The wealthy property owners did not object to the New York City railway well away from Broadway, and by the mid-1870s it appeared that elevated railways were practical and underground railways were not, setting the pattern for rapid transit development in New York City for the remainder of the 19th century. Beach operated his demonstration railway from February 1870 to April 1873. It had one station in the basement of Devlin's clothing store, a building at the southwest corner of Broadway and Warren Street, and ran for a total of about 300 feet, first around a curve to the center of Broadway and then straight under the center of Broadway to the south side of Murray Street. The former Devlin's building was destroyed by fire in 1898."New York Times", "New York Herald", "The World", "New York Tribune", December 5, 1898. In 1912 workers for Degnon Contracting excavated the tunnel proper during the construction of a subway line running under Broadway. The tunnel was completely within the limits of the present day City Hall station under Broadway.Walker (above), and "Scientific American", February 24, 1912 and September 7, 1912, and "New York Times", February 9, 1912. The British pneumatic tube also failed to attract much attention and eventually fell into disrepair and disrepute in spite of the fact that Royal Mail had contracted to use the tunnels. Ultimately the English experiment failed due to technical issues as well as lack of funds. Much of the Beach subway story was recalled as precedent by Lawrence Edwards in his lead article of the August 1965 issue of Scientific American, which described his invention of Gravity-Vacuum Transit."Scientific American", August 1965. The Beach

Tunnelling shield A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the pro ...

, similar to the 1864 English patent idea of Barlow's, was used in the construction of the

Grand Trunk Railway The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rail ...

, headquartered in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

, Canada's first St. Clair Tunnel between Port Huron, Michigan and

Sarnia Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes w ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. This tunnel opened in 1890. In January 1887, Beach allowed his son and six other men to start a yacht club on his property in Stratford, Connecticut. The Housatonic boat club is the oldest operating

Yacht club A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting. Description Yacht clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations. Yacht or sailing clubs have either a mar ...

in Connecticut. The club purchased the land from the Beach estate in 1954.

Death

Beach died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

on January 1, 1896, in

at the age of 69.

References

External links

Alfred Beach's Pneumatic Subway and the beginnings of rapid transit in New York
by Joseph Brennan

Klaatu's detailed background article, explaining the technical and political details of the project.
NEW YORK’S SECRET SUBWAY
– American Heritage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beach, Alfred Ely 1826 births 1896 deaths 19th-century American inventors Beach family Businesspeople from Springfield, Massachusetts American patent attorneys American magazine publishers (people) 19th-century American newspaper publishers (people) Scientific American people American railroad pioneers 19th-century American journalists American male journalists