The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway (59 page)

Samuel Meredith Strong, the boy caught in the Blizzard of 1888. (
U.S. National Library of Medicine
)

Engineer Frank J. Sprague, whose electric motor was a critical development. (
Courtesy of John Sprague
)

William Barclay Parsons, the engineer behind New York’s subway. (
Parsons Brinckerhoff
)

New York subway contractor John B. McDonald.

Tufts engineer Frederick Stark Pearson was used by Henry and William Whitney. (
Cyclopaedia of American Biography [artist unknown]
)

William Steinway ushered the piano into living rooms and the subway into New York City. (
Courtesy of the Henry Z. Steinway archives
)

New York subway financier August Belmont. (
Library of Congress
)

Frank Sprague in the New York alley where he tested his electric motor. (
Courtesy of John Sprague
)

The hill in Richmond, Virginia, that Sprague overcame with his 56electric motor. (
Courtesy of John Sprague
)

The unbearable congestion on Tremont Street in Boston. (
State Transportation Library of Massachusetts
)

Dangerous overhead wires and the Blizzard of 1888 triggered subway construction. (
New-York Historical Society)

Wall Street during the Blizzard of 1888. (
New-York
Historical Society
)

The cut-and-cover tunnel under way in Boston in 1896. (
State Transportation Library of Massachusetts
)