Figure 30. — Contemporary illustrations of Tower Subway works used as basis of the model in the 

 Museum of History and Technology. {Illustrated London News, 1869.) 



Subway, that it is unlikely that there was any in- 

 fluence from that source. Beach had himself patented 

 a shield, in June 1869, a two-piece, sectional design 

 that bore no resemblance to the one used. His 

 subway plan had been first introduced at the 1867 

 fair of the American Institute in the form of a short 

 plywood tube through which a small, close-fitting 

 car was blown by a fan. The car carried 12 pas- 

 sengers. Sensing opposition to the subway scheme 

 from Tammany, in 1868 Beach obtained a charter 

 to place a small tube beneath Broadway for trans- 

 porting mail and small packages pneumatically, a 

 plan he advocated independently of the passenger 

 subway. 



Under this thin pretense of legal authorization, the 

 sub-rosa excavation began from the basement of a 

 clothing store on Warren Street near Broadway. The 

 8-foot-diameter tunnel ran eastward a short distance, 

 made a 90-degree turn, and thence southward under 



Figure 3 1. Excavation in front of shield, 

 Tower Subway. This was possible because of the 

 stiffness of the clay encountered. MHT model — 

 front of model shown in fig. 29. (Smithsonian 

 photo 49260-A.) 



228 



I'.l II ETIN 24n: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



