2-358-679 - Keystone Archives/Heritage Images

First New York Subway, USA, 1870. In 1869, Alfred Ely Beach began the construction of a pneumatic subway line beneath Broadway. The single tunnel was 312 feet long and 8 feet in diameter and was intended to demonstrate Beach's proposed pneumatic transit system. Beach hoped to get support to extend his subway, but despite an initially positive reaction, by the time he gained permission in 1873, public and financial interest had waned.