The City Beneath Us: Building the New York Subway

by New York City Transit Museum, Vivian Heller (Editor)

A newly discovered cache of magnificent historical photographs. There have been, and will be, other books on the New York City subway system, but none have had access to the wonderful photographic prints from the collections of the New York Transit Museum that are presented in this volume. Made from 8 x 10-inch glass negatives after the turn of the last century, and reproduced here in glorious duotone, over 175 images show the incredible construction techniques and details involved in creating the underground marvel we enjoy today. From "cut and cover" and deep tunneling to sinking under-river tubes and disastrous cave-ins, these photographs are nothing short of awe-inspiring. The book is accompanied by an engaging, illustrated history of the subway system. Published in honor of the New York City subway's centennial, The City Beneath Us will fascinate anyone who's ever been amazed by the gigantic undertaking that is New York City transportation. 175 duotone and 40 black-and-white photographs.

Genres: New York, Nonfiction, History

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 13, 2004

Reviews

[Wes Hazard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The City Beneath US: Building the New York Subways
The New York Transit Museum with Vivian Heller

Beginning in my freshman year of college I rode the Boston trolley & subway system more or less every day for over a decade. I finally got my driver's license relatively late in life and once that happened I rarely looked back. After all those years waiting in the cold, running down the steps of stations trying to beat closing doors, falling into the endless random strangers surrounding me, etc. etc. I was pretty thrilled to start traveling from point A to point B solo in a warm climate controlled cabin DJ-ed according to my own personal preference and departing when I damn well felt like it. It was nice. Sure parking tickets and post-blizzard shovel-outs were annoying but they were a small price to be paid for the freedom and comfort.

Then I moved to New York City this year and all that went up in smoke like a trash fire on the A Train tracks. I'd thought I'd earned my subway stripes years ago but I'm in the belly of the beast *for real* for real now. Here the subway is more necessary, more complex, more crowded, & more crazy. It's actually a hell of a lot more of those things. But it also runs 24 hours and is better integrated into the very nerve structure of the city so there are some undeniable upsides. I haven't been here long but the subway takes up way more of my mental space than it ever did in Boston. Given the sheer geographical spread of NYC and the unholy number of people in it the average trip between any two places you need to be is usually much longer and more crowded than I'd been used to back in the day. But you CAN get pretty much *anywhere*, and you can do it at 3am, and there's probably going to be synth pop/mariachi/breakdancing concert at some point on the trip (either on the platform or in the actual train car) and dammit that's worth something!

So far I can't really complain. I do miss piloting my own private ship down freeways and side streets while blasting my favorite podcast and sitting in an chair worn to the exact contours of my ass, but then I walk through the parking apocalypse of my Brooklyn neighborhood or observe the traffic jams on the Williamsburg Bridge as my train rattles by unimpeded and I thin that $2.75 and the ability to read while I commute ain't so bad. Sure there are delays, and very bold rats, and more delays, and a man peeing in that staircase over there, and bus replacement shuttles which are themselves delayed, and I'm not sure why this seat is wet, but when you stop and think about it IT IS A MIRACLE THAT THIS SYSTEM EXISTS AT ALL. PERIOD.

665 Track miles, 472 stations, 5.58 Million average weekday ridership, 1.72 BILLION average yearly ridership, 6,418 cars on the roster, 24 hours a day, $2.75 a trip, built & running either underneath the largest metropolis in the country or in the sky above it. I do not want to hear a single complaint from anyone about how yet another delay made you 15 mins late for work until you acknowledge how fucking insane it is that any of that is happening at any time on any schedule. Insane. An Absolute Unmitigated MARVEL is what that is.

As this book's title remind us, there is literally a city beneath this city that is buzzing and humming along at all times. It's full of trash and sometimes pieces of it catch on fire but dammit it is buzzing and humming along. I ride it every day now and I can never stop thinking about how massive of an undertaking its creation and upkeep is. I mean, just imagine you're in charge of large city with millions of people in it (like New York in 1903) and then you decide to create a system whereby anyone in it will be able to affordably get from any point in it to any other point in it, rain or shine, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year...and oh yeah that shit is going to be either underground or above the street. I would shoot myself because that project would be astronomically expensive, would take decades to complete, would run into an impossible number of political roadblocks, and is probably technologically impossible. And during the course of it the city itself would get physically bigger and add millions of new people. Hell no, I'm just not doing it, it can't be done.

But oh it was done! Somehow. And it's still standing. And if you live within 20 miles you probably use it every day, and if you don't you still rely on it indirectly because it's how your co-worker, or your server, or your trash collector, or your doctor got to their job. And it used to not exist. But now it does, and it boggles my mind.

As such I was really eager and happy to check out this book which is both a solid overview of the subway system's history and a worthwhile photography book consisting of images culled from the New York Transit Museum. The text portion is more or less just the first third, the rest of it is almost entirely photos. I think it does a great job of detailing what things looked like before there was a subway, the political/economic wars between the competing private systems before they were brought under the direct control of the city decades later, the engineering wizardry required to make it all happen, and the evolving relationship between the public, the politicians, and the mechanical backbone of the city. (Sidenote: Robert Moses can eat a dick). And don't doubt that it's the backbone. NYC as we know it does not exist without the subway. Think about how close we'd be to The Walking Dead if the trains and trash collection stopped for 1 week. And the whole thing cost A NICKEL TO RIDE FOR THE FIRST 44 YEARS! What?!

The New York Subway. You don't have to use it. You don't have to like it. But you damn sure need to respect the fact that it exists at all.

[Kruip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary book on the history of the New York subway. From the first mass transit operations, "el" for elevated structure to provide congestion free commuting to and from downtown. IRT, BMT, IND, the differences between the three operators, the impact of the divide on the "needed expansion" for the city 100 years ago. The way that divide hindered the further development of the system, as it became an underlying factor in the struggle against automobile commuting, city politics, city economics. Further on, how it transformed into the nowadays MTA. How decline and slump were tackled. Once again, the emphasis is on being the motor of the city.
That the subway came of age can only be confirmed, after more than a hundred years of operating the largest commuting railway of this globe. Be it the first heavy accidents on the "el", the decline of the seventies and eighties, or the story of accurate decisions, made on september 11, by re routing trains instantly, just seconds after the first impact. The falling of debris that day, through steel and concrete tunnel deck and flooring, to remain under those tunnel floors forever, as some kind of remembrance.
Not knowing and not aware of that latter story, to me it's a very clear illustration of the humane focus on situations "above ground", "above surface level" might even be stronger. Though a lot of people share my interest in this very world under the surface, most of us just wouldn't either care, or even find the "underworld" scary, or downright frightening.
Not so surprisingly of course, what lies underneath is too often associated with our collective destination. In such a sentence the subway is just like a metaphor. Maybe that's the best reason to love it, and this excellent book about that world beneath us.

[Anthony Bracciante · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a treasure trove of photographs documenting the construction of the NYC subway system while providing a brief historical overview of the decisions and policies that led to its creation. A delight for any fan of NYC Transit.

[Carl · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing book with nice photos but a terribly shoddy text that raises more questions than it answers. It mentions people, organizations, and locations without providing context, it spends paragraphs on side-stories without addressing key parts of the subway’s history, and reads like it was a first draft that never saw an editor (one person dies twice, for example). A hugely frustrating read.

The photos are better, but the book does not do them justice. Their captions hint at incredible stories that are largely left untold — how did the early 20th century subway engineers tunnel between Manhattan and Long Island? — and don’t bother to provide updated location references. Captions refer to subway lines’ original names, which are no longer in use and thus require extra research on the reader’s part to locate. What current MTA line is IRT Contract 2?

Relatedly, this books screams for maps. But it has none, not even one.

I could go on. This book could have been so much better.

[Jim Blessing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very read about the building of the New Your Subway.

[Brian Stump · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expected it to be a little more engineering, a little less politics, but was pleasantly surprised how much I still enjoyed it.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up at the library while browsing the stacks, expecting a detailed study of the New York subway system. Instead, I found a well reasoned study of the beginnings of the subways in NYC, including insight into the politics involved. The last section of the text discussed work and repairs after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Finally, the last 200 or so pages were historical photographs taken during the subway construction in the early 1900s. This was actually the most interesting part of the book for me. Overall, I quite enjoyed the book and plan to check out some of the author's other works.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read and view for any subterranean dwellers like so many New Yorkers. The old timey photos are fascinating. It's not my favorite coffee table book ("Skyscrapers" currently holds that title) but anybody who rides the subway should give it a once over.

[Hardeep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about the history of the NY Subway system. What makes this book are the wonderful photographs documenting the creation of the subways.