Alfred Ely Beach

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Alfred Ely Beach bigraphy, stories - Inventors

Alfred Ely Beach : biography

September 1, 1826 – January 1, 1896

Alfred Ely Beach

Early years

Beach was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and was the son of a prominent publisher, Moses Beach. Alfred Beach worked for his father until he and a friend, Orson Desaix Munn I, decided to buy Scientific American, a relatively new publication. 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 designed for use by the blind. After the Civil War he founded a school for freed slaves in Savannah, the Beach Institute, which is now the home of the ."Scientific American", Jan 11, 1896.

Popular culture

  • The 1973 novel The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by Morton Freedgood (under the pen name John Godey) features a character speculating on Beach’s tunnel as a possible escape route for four men who have hijacked a subway car and demanded ransom for its passengers. The history of Beach’s project is briefly described, but is ultimately unrelated to the criminals’ escape plan.
  • The song "Sub-Rosa Subway", from the 1976 album 3:47 EST by Canadian progressive rock band Klaatu, tells the story of Alfred Beach building his subway.
  • The second noted appearance was in the 1989 comedy Ghostbusters II.
The set featured artistic features (Specifically the vaulted arches and replica Guastavino tile featured on the set) which were inspired primarily by the 1904 City Hall station. The main inspiration from the real pneumatic railroad (excluding the history) was the tunnel entrance, featuring keystone dedication of "Pneumatic 1870 Transit".
The history of the station would have been included in a deleted scene of dialogue between Dr. Peter Venkman and Dr. Egon Spengler as Dr. Ray Stantz began to descend into the tunnel.
Peter: "NYPR?"
Egon: "The New York Pneumatic Railroad, fan forced air trains, built around 1870."
It is not known if this scene was filmed as Ray entered the station, or, as suggested by The Real Ghostbusters in Ghostbusters II when Ray removed a manhole cover bearing the initials: "NYPRR".
  • Beach’s Subway also makes an appearance in the fictional anthology Wild Cards by George R. R. Martin. In the episode "Down Deep" by Edward Bryant and Leanne C Harper, the character Sewer Jack has refurbished one of the ornate subway stations as a private abode.
  • Alfred E. Beach High School, located in Savannah, Georgia, is named in honor of Alfred Ely Beach.
  • A recent appearance of the Beach Subway was within An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island. In the film, Fievel Mousekewitz and Tony venture into the disused ‘Beachs pneumatic railroad’ (sic), visiting the station; looking at the car and traveling into the tunnel. A brief and accurate description of the system was given by Tony, however due to the lack of surviving photographic reference of the real railway some artistic licences in design was taken by the artists, including a station entrance on the street which resembled the cast iron kiosk entrance used on the IRT Subway in New York.
  • It was mentioned on CSI: NY on 9/27/2006, as one of the many unused tunnels under the city.
  • Alfred Ely Beach and a fictional version of his subway work is a prominent feature in Neal Shusterman’s young adult novel, Downsiders.

Death

Beach died of pneumonia on January 1, 1896 in New York City at the age of 69.

Subway

Beach’s most famous invention was New York City’s first subway, the Beach Pneumatic Transit.

By the 1860s traffic in New York was a nightmare, especially along the central artery, Broadway. 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 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 tunnelling shield 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.