Q. When was the first New York subway opened? A. The first New York subway train was built in 1869-1870 by Alfred Ely Beach. It ran for one block between Warren and Murray streets, and became a popular attraction, ridden by 400,000 people in its first year of operation! Beach was convinced that a pneumatic (air-pressure driven) subway train system was the right answer to New York's overflowing traffic problems, but he was unable to obtain funds for the project. He resorted to building the subway secretly, disguised (and funded) as a mail-delivery project. Unfortunately, a stock market crash made it impossible to continue development of the project, and it was 25 years before New York was to plan a practical subway system. Beach's pneumatic subway was bricked up and forgotten until 1912, when workers digging a new subway tunnel discovered the old system. More about the secret New York subway project: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/technology/nyunderground/secret.html Copyright (c) 1998, The Learning Kingdom, Inc. http://www.LearningKingdom.com