Matthew Algeo is the author of the new book New York's Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit. It focuses on the first operational subway in the United States. Algeo's other books include Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
Q: What inspired you to write New York’s Secret Subway, and what initially intrigued you about the work of Alfred Beach (1826-1896)?
A: A song, actually. During the pandemic I discovered a Canadian prog rock band called Klaatu. They wrote a song called “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” (which the Carpenters later covered).
The flip side of that single was “Sub-Rosa Subway,” which tells the story of Alfred Beach and his secret pneumatic subway. Not typical subject matter for a prog rock song, but it sent me down the proverbial rabbit hole and the next thing I knew I was writing a book about Alfred and his secret subway!
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: A lot of the research was done online using newspaper and historical archives. I also did a lot of research in New York, of course, at the New York Public Library, the Museum of the City of New York, and the New York Transit Museum. Also at the Stratford Historical Society in Stratford, Connecticut, where Beach lived.
I was fortunate to find many fantastic images in old periodicals online at the magnificent online archive HathiTrust.
One thing I learned that surprised me: a horse can produce more than 30 pounds of feces and four gallons of urine every day! Since the omnibus (stagecoach) and horse-drawn streetcar companies employed more than 10,000 horses, there was a lot of poop and pee on the streets.
Q: The author and scholar Peter Norton said of the book, “New York’s Secret Subway is a revealing work of untold engineering history. It is also an instructive parable for our own age of mobility innovation, promotional hype, and venture capitalism.” What do you think of that description?
A: I like it! It’s always interesting to hear what others think about a book I’ve written. Often they articulate things I felt but didn’t really know how to say. I mean, I didn’t even realize I’d written a parable. But I guess I had.
Peter is a superb historian and writer, so I’m not surprised he was able to capture the tone of the book so well.
Q: What do you see as Beach’s legacy today?
A: Beach’s plan to build a network of pneumatic tubes for passenger vehicles under New York did not come to fruition (spoiler alert, I guess). But he did prove conclusively the feasibility of building a subway in New York. He proved that the street wouldn’t cave in, that buildings wouldn’t collapse.
Beach’s other legacy is Scientific American, the magazine he edited for 50 years, which is still very much alive and important today.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: No books, but I have a few projects going. I’m trying to solve an unsolved murder in Philadelphia. I’m trying to get a small Mississippi town to change its name (sort of). And I’m working on a musical version of Gaytopia, a story I published a few years ago.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m sure there is but I can’t think of anything right now!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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