New York City once had miles of hidden underground mail tubes.

Science & Industry

I n October 1897, construction of a high-speed network designed to service an ever-expanding city was underway beneath the streets of Manhattan. No, it wasn't the subway; that would take a few more years. This was a pneumatic tube mail system, developed using engineering principles that dated back more than two centuries and had already been put to the test with working models in London, Paris, and Philadelphia.

Built by the Tubular Dispatch Company and leased to the U.S. Post Office Department, the New York City system was powered by rotary blowers and air compressors that shot steel mail-carrying canisters through cast-iron tubes at speeds of approximately 30 mph. The tubes were largely installed between 4 and 6 feet underground, with a noticeable outlier following the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, while the canisters they supported measured approximately 2 feet long by 8 inches in diameter. The network eventually connected 23 post offices through 27 miles of tubing, its early success paving the way for systems in Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis.

As one might suspect, a canister would occasionally get stuck, shutting down that particular pathway until it could physically be removed. But a bigger problem was the exorbitant costs that came with the endeavor, an issue that became more pronounced as the network continued circulating the same volume of mail even as the need for a larger, faster system increased with the growing population. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield finally put the kibosh on New York City's mail tubes in late 1953, reasoning that the addition of two trucks would be just as effective and far cheaper to maintain, and this once-futuristic service was left to become a hallmark of the city's past.

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By the Numbers

Pieces of mail that fit into a pneumatic mail canister

600

Miles covered by the Paris pneumatic mail network

269

Did you know?

A pneumatic system was briefly used to power a precursor to the subway.

Approximately 30 years before mail canisters began zipping beneath the Big Apple, inventor and magazine publisher Alfred Ely Beach acquired a permit to begin constructing his own pneumatic mail system. However, Beach's real goal was to develop a subterranean network of trains, and he unveiled the fruits of his labor to a surprised public in February 1870. This preliminary system featured two stops, at Manhattan's Warren Street and Murray Street, with a 100-horsepower fan blowing an 18-passenger car through a 312-foot brick tube between the stations. The ride was generally considered a smooth one, and some 400,000 customers shelled out more than 25 cents for the experience during its first year. But while Beach finally managed to obtain approval for expansion in 1873, the onset of an economic depression that year slowed investment to a halt. New York City dwellers would have to wait another three decades for the perks of a nonpneumatic, electric motor-powered subway to arrive.