A when i move to boston it was an experience. And as i started looking for a book idea i started looking at the boston subway knowing it was a point in america. One of the things that was interesting as we looked into the history of that and i discovered i had written a true story behind how the subway came to be. But then i was interested when i discovered the same time boston was debating and digging the subway new york was doing the exact same thing. At the same time in the late 1800s both cities were completely overrun by immigrants who had flooded into the city in the second half of the 19th century and really had sort of overrun the cities in the cities were at the time sort of just fingernails of what they are today. Everybody was crammed into just a tiny portion of the city because that was as thou art far out is you could go. If you wanted to get from Downtown Boston to brooklyn it would take you two hours by horse and carriage. Very few people lived out here except for the extremely wealthy and they had private carriages so that was the way life was back then. If you did not have a carriage and horse pulled cart for yourself then you lived downtown on one of those streets that was developed very early and that was it treated the same thing was true for new york. In new york city everybody lives in a further spout part of downtown crammed onto the island of manhattan. It was only when trolleys begin to speed up and the electric trolley came along and means of moving people around started to come along that then people were able to move out and move out of the city so at first it was a mild than two miles and then for miles and eventually six miles and the city started to expand and grow. That was critical to get people further out from the downtown area where they were living. That was sort of a big moment in the second half of the 19th century that happened with the expansion of cities. The book sort of developed from that Pivotal Moment when city started to expand and what happened was a couple of pivotal pivotal Pivotal Moments happen. It did blizzard, storm like nothing we have ever seen since then cripple the entire northeast. For at least 400 people but some estimate more than 1000 people were killed in this lizard. It just devastated the entire northeast. New york boston and everything in between ground to a standstill. When that happened new york especially took a look at the way they were moving people which was elevated trains and they said this has to change. We cant be at the mercy of the skies any longer. Boston at the time had already started to look at ways to move people underground and this is where the story to me became very interesting. There was a gentleman in boston by the name of Henry Whitney sophie think of the name whitney in American Culture for me anyway two things come to mind. One of them is the museum in new york city which is a Famous Museum founded by ancestors of the Whitney Family. The other one was e. Live whitney. I remember back in fifth grade and the cotton gin but eli was a cousin of the Whitney Family so this family is just one of the most important cultural families that made such an impact on American Life today. These two brothers from the Whitney Family grew up in massachusetts out by springfield pivotal roles in the two subways one in boston and one new york. Whitney lived in brookline and he is essentially singlehandedly responsible for what you see now on beacon st. He is the man who saw the vision of a constraint street becoming what it is today with tracks down the middle, trees lining those tracks boulevards on both sides of the street, of the tracks and he sort of saw saw that and develop that and made a fortune off of it. He is also the man who first imposed the idea of building a tunnel underneath boston. In 1887 he went before the state legislature and propose what at the time was a radical idea, a tunnel under boston common. The idea was met with jeers and a lot of people said the common is sacred ground, dont touch that. And he sort of pushed it and he became a critical figure in how the subway came to be today. At the same time he was doing that his brother William Whitney was getting involved in the Transit System in new york city and the interesting thing about these brothers is that they were polar opposites. He was a slacker dropped out of school bounce around the country trying to find a direction and a job until he was in his 40s and he married a woman 20 years younger than him and sort of just was directionless for a long time until he got involved in transit and real estate and that gave him a purpose in that direction and focused him. His brother was the exact opposite. His brother married, went to harvard and then to yale and married into one of the richest families in the country that paine family of ohio who made a fortune in oil and eventually William Whitney became an important lawyer in new york city who brought down boss tweet and was recruited to run for president. Had he wanted to be present he could have been. There were buttons with people Walking Around that said William Whitney for president but he didnt want to be president. He came back, and gave an interview at the time where worries that im not running for president and very emphatic about it. He helped get Grover Cleveland elected and he became a huge political figure in washington. He got involved in transit in new york and the two brothers became these critical figures in these projects so to me as i discover that and opens the life of the Whitney Family and the subway i became fascinated with it. These two cities boston and new york in these two brothers henry and william and this amazing project. The last reason i wrote this book and maybe in some ways the first reason i wrote this book is that i think all of us tend to take these things for granted we ride the subway. These massive things than other projects over the centuries that have been built. When we ride the subway today whether austin new york london paris wherever you are i think we tend to not think about how that tunnel came to be and in new york that tunnel came to be because of immigrants, irish workers and italians who came to this country with the sole purpose of digging a tunnel with pics shovels axes their bare hands horses pulling cartloads of dirt mat. There were no giant machines that you see today when we walk by a construction site. There were just men and their tools. That is what was fascinating and as i look at the donald i find myself having an appreciation for it. Its a remarkable feat and that was done 100 years ago because at the time they knew that was going to be a critical thing. People need to feel safe and secure that the air was clean. That was a huge obstacle for them to overcome. Centuries ago men did not want to go down. That was terrifying to mankind, the idea of going underground was terrifying and they had to overcome that and convince people that going down there was going to be safe. So that was one of the big achievements of these tunnels was convincing mankind that going underground was safe, secure not going to flood. Your tunnel will be light and airy and all those things. Although we sometimes joke about how light and airy the tunnels are in boston they really are. They are dry and its pretty amazing. When i write ride to the tunnels i have a special appreciation for how those tom wells came to be and the book tells the story of not just Henry Whitney and William Whitney and some of the others behind us but it tells a story of these immigrants. Patrick mclaughlin who was working on the job one day and a hammer came down and hit them on the head of hamas killed him. The projects back then were, they were sort of knew what they were doing. They were learning as they went. Dynamite if you think about it was something that was brandnew in the late 1800s. Dynamite was something they had never worked with in boston or new york and here they were blowing things up under the city streets and it was crazy. They didnt know how to harness the power of dynamite and yet they were doing it so the book tells the story of the big people in the Little People because i wanted it to reflect those of those things. So i hope when you read the book what you take away from it is especially the appreciation for how we get around the city of austin the city of new york how those tunnels came to be. Its a remarkable feat and there are still subways being built today including in new york the Second Avenue subway and the same Second Avenue subway which not only built the original subway but in boston so there are connections between boston and new york from this project that still exist to this day. So the look sort of tells a lot of those connections. There is a little background for you in terms of how the book came to be and why i was interested in it. I will read a few passages and i will assume that everyone in this room at some point may be in brookline or boston has written the subway. I will give you a little from boston and a little from new york to give you a flavor of what happened in the two cities. The first chapter of the book was probably my favorite chapter before the new york subway opened in the new york subway opened in 1904, before that subway opened 50 years earlier there was a gentleman by the name of alfred beach. He was a skinny opera loving inventor who invented things like the typewriter for the blind and lots of other quirky inventions. An amazing man and he had a dream in their early 1850s that new york needed a subway. This was 50 years before new york would actually get a subway that he had this dream to give new york a subway. There was an obstacle standing in this way so i will read a short portion from this chapter. Devlin Clothing Store was a fivestory commercial success. Brothers daniel and jeremiah opened a business in 1840 3a few blocks away from city hall. When business took off they needed more space for their racks of readymade frocks suits umbrellas ties and trousers paired one of the reasons the space works so well was the gigantic basement which went to levels deep underground. Alfred h. Needed a space for his new business. The beach pneumatic transit company. After scouting for real estate along broadway when he saw the basement of devlin and notice it could be accessed from the sidewalk he negotiated a deal with the brothers. For 4000 a year he would lease the basement for a period a five year starting in 1868. He spent the next are focused on a single piece of machinery he would need to dig his tunnel. The device he came up with was ingenious and resemble the hollowed out arrow to exert pressure that could lose and 16 inches of soil with each push. He designed a hood over the edge that would protect workers from falling debris or the catastrophic event of a collapse but before beach could start digging a different catastrophe nearly derailed his project creative pair of cronies scheme to drive up the price of gold by buying it in bulk. By late september the price of gold had risen to an astronomical 137 per ounce and by the morning of september 24 frenzy enveloped wall street and riots nearly broke out. The National Guard was put on notice. Gold kept rising to 160 is lunchtime pass. Brokers lives were destroyed and one even shot himself at home before the deal is over. They sold 4 million of gold and it was too late. Wall streets first black friday expose hatchet men acting alone could bring the country to the brink of financial ruin. Black ready touch everybody including beach lost a fortune but he was too far invested to stop in three months after black friday he was ready to start the tunnel. In december of 1869 beach and his son frederick and a small group of men arrived in devlins store after close for the night. They brought picks and shovels covered wagons works lanterns and tools and following beaches and instructions to the tunnel south under broadway from warren st. In curved to below murray st. The laborers worked quietly to avoid suspicion above. Night after night the six men would stand inside the shield while another half dozen performed the task to polis the shovel. Others lay bricks to line the tunnel and still others made the trek to carry a single car. The walls were painted white iron rods were installed throughout the roof to the pavement and gas lights and oxygen masks on. It was an efficient operation but it was scary. Claustrophobic for some workers who walked off the job or the rumbling from the street railways overhead created terrifying roar that made the late night work nerveracking. Thanks to the efficient tunneling shield the tunneling went well. Beach was relieved at how smoothly professed until it buckled in the ground should read the soft dirt came to an end and the workers stared at a wall in front of them. The beach faced a dilemma. Either the wall had to come down or the project was over. Nobody knew if moving the wall would cause broadway to buckle her collapse. Each told his men to chip away and take it down stone by stone. It took several nights in beach stood by as every stone was removed and pass from worker to worker and carted out. The ceiling held, the wall came down in the digging resumed. As hard as beach tried to keep his work is secret it was impossible. The operation required with scaffolding and enormous machinery that would arrive at the corner where would sit for hours or days before disappearing down the steps never to be seen again. New yorks mayor abraham haul one of ball wall streets loyalist grew suspicious of what the company was up to and then when a section of broadway sunk ever so slightly the mayor acted. On january 3, 1870 he sent a written order demanding to be let in. He got nowhere. Each his men had orders to let nobody in and remind anyone who tried that they would be chartered to complete their tunnel. The response from beach was simple, nonsense. The New York Times suggested that haul was not going to back away. As the Street Company commenced the paper wrote it is likely the mayor counseled him to remove them but beach was equally stubborn. On jenrry eight he released a statement. In reference to the ridiculous stories in the doors being closed to all persons theres no truth to them. The company promised to make repairs to the surface. The mayor backed off and each bought himself time and one month later and 58 days after the digging began the tumult was finished. It was a perfect 112 feet and all that was needed were the subway car and the fan to blow the car down the tracks. That is a little piece of history will wear alfred beach built a secret subway tunnel from the entire city of new york. It was just a great story and he was determined to not let boston get in his way. When he found out what he was doing he was not happy because he had a stake in the Transit System taking a nickel out of every fair and the idea of the subway new city angered him. Its a great story of this little guide taking down the big guy if you want to call a david and goliath its a fun way to look at it but the story of alfred beach was remarkable. Thats a piece from the new new york and but skipping ahead to boston, boston story has a lot of interesting angles. One that was the most interesting was when they first started taking on the subway site on the construction site downtown so im going to read you a piece of when that construction began. The contractor on and the job was a man named Michael Meehan. They called him the comments buildup with wagons loaded with dirt. Piles of picks and shovels were all over it every morning the sun came out there were dozens of men jostling for position to get noticed. The most important person is dead guard was not Michael Meehan but his son robert. The Contractors Office was asked desk and comfortable chairs and no one was allowed in. Meehan was the makeshift village for the duration of the project. Reshanties were erected with fresh coats of paint. For laborers to e their lands take a breath mend their hands and sore feet or wait for the next assignment. No smoking was allowed so that shanties became a place where pipe smoke filled the air. From the day but for shovel and to the ground me and was entrusted his father to take down the names and addresses of the workers who congregated every morning. It was the timekeeper on the job in the general utility man who answered all the questions. Each morning he would take the information of the men gathered and explain if and when their services were required they would receive a letter in the mail and be expected to arrive promptly at 7 00 in the morning. At first only 25 men came but that was expected to grow to 50, 100 possibly more than 1000 a day. As more equipment was brought in the trench got deeper and longer in the process of sealing it with concrete began. As soon as the project started neither meehan or joness partner whose faces appeared in the papers enough time to make them familiar to the average citizen could walk anywhere without being pressured for work they were celebrities and everyday letters begging for work were thrust into their hands. Meehan referred them to his son except in those instances when they were not in his there are no snaps around here and he laughs. Another man tried a different approach appealing to his softer side. If i dont get work today i will get hail columbia in reference to the popular patriotic american anthem. My wife told me not to come home without a job and she means business. It worked. A family man himself himself with a wife and two sons and four daughters. Take a shovel and get to work. His men showed up on schedule and put in an honest days work. In one instance an irishman on the job for several weeks top showing up responded frequently imbibing in a nearby tavern and was arrested at the construction site or it does incidences were rare as meehan and jones tried their best to higher mend it they trusted. Meehan made no secret the first was to be citizens of the country in the second was to come from the same neighborhood as meehan to make it plain. Meehan made no secret of his affection for the irish and his dis