Subways: The Tracks That Built New York City

Manhattan, 1870. As overcrowded horse carts and weary pedestrians push through the clogged city streets, a man named Beach secretly works by candlelight 2112 feet beneath Devlin’s clothing store on Broadway, carving out New York’s very first subway tunnel.

In the years following the Civil War, New York City experienced unprecedented growth. Commerce boomed as immigrants and tourists poured onto the tiny island in huge numbers. But at a time when commuting distance was measured by the strength of one’s legs and the soles of one’s shoes, the city was unable to expand alongside its population. All of that would change with a few miles of track and a nickel fare.

In Subways, her highly anticipated follow-up to The Automat, Lorraine Diehl sets off on another sentimental journey, recounting the true story of a city transformed by underground passageways. Through archival photographs, interviews with New Yorkers who “remember when,” and an assortment of rare memorabilia, Diehl introduces us to the entertaining characters who conceived, built, and rode the city’s subways, then travels to the familiar destinations shaped by their tracks.

From the last days of the horsecars to the remarkable excavation and construction of the tunnels, from an age of elegant wood-and-brass cars to the streamlined stainless-steel rolling stock of the 1940s, from the once-remote reaches of the boroughs to the bustling metropolis of today, to tell the story of the Subways is to tell the story of New York City.

LORRAINE B. DIEHL is the author of The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station and coauthor of The Automat, and has contributed to the New York Daily News, New York magazine, the New York Times, Travel & Leisure, and American Heritage. She grew up and still lives in New York City, with her husband, Bill, an entertainment correspondent for ABC network radio.