Alfred Ely Beach's Pneumatic Subway

Alfred Ely Beach - inventor, publisher, and patent lawyer - proposed a pneumatic subway system in the mid-1860s, basing it off London's Crystal Palace's experimental subway demonstration a few years prior. He was an inventor that was heavily invested in creating the city's first pneumatic subway tunnel. He secretly worked with a crew underground, building the tunnel, and the elaborately fancy subway station. When it finally opened in 1870, the subway was a hit with the public.

By 1873, the p...