The Race Underground

Posted on 08 January 2017 by Doug Most

In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew congested, the streets became clogged with plodding, horse drawn carts When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast, a solution had to be found Two brothers from one of the nation s great families Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York pursued the dream of his city digging America s first subway, and the great race was on The competition between Boston and New York played out in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval, life changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and the question of America s place in the world The Race Underground is peopled with the famous, like Boss Tweed, Grover Cleveland and Thomas Edison, and the not so famous, from brilliant engineers to the countless sandhogs who shoveled, hoisted and blasted their way into the earth s crust, sometimes losing their lives in the construction of the tunnels Doug Most chronicles the science of the subway, looks at the centuries of fears people overcame about traveling underground and tells a story as exciting as any ever ripped from the pages of U.S history The Race Underground is a great American saga of two rival American cities, their rich, powerful and sometimes corrupt interests, and an invention that changed the lives of millions. Best Download The Race Underground [ Author ] Doug Most [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr I love trains and I love urban history so this history of the Boston and New York underground railroads was tailor made for me, especially since the two subway systems have been part of my life for over 50 years The Race Underground is not just a story of railroads, it s also a mini history of Boston and New York packed perhaps too closely for comfort with memorable characters like Henry Melville Whitney who ran his father s Metropolitan Steamship Company In the late 1860s Henry began buying I love trains and I love urban history so this history of the Boston and New York underground railroads was tailor made for me, especially since the two subway systems have been part of my life for over 50 years The Race Underground is not just a story of railroads, it s also a mini history of Boston and New York packed perhaps too closely for comfort with memorable characters like Henry Melville Whitney ...I won this book as a Goodreads first reads giveaway and was excited to get into this one as I thought it would be to my likings an interesting subject, a competitive backstory with political innuendo, a host of turn of the century power broker types all with an angle to work Unfortunately for me, the book just never hit on all cylinders There were places I found interesting tidbits but as a whole I wasn t captivated to the level of enthusiasm I had for the Eric Larson books that the marketi I won this book as a Goodreads first reads giveaway and was excited to get into this one as I thought it would be to my likings an interesting subject, a competitive backstory with political innuendo, a host of turn of the century power broker types all with an angle to work Unfortunately for me, the book just never hit on all cylinders There were places I found interesting tidbits but ...I won this book in exchange for an honest review.I unfortunately could not bring myself to finish this book I found several challenges with this book Of what I have read, I have found this book to be fraught with convoluted chapters, a multitude of secondary characters who appear for nothan one chapter and absolutely no flow The author will begin a chapter and I would find myself saying, what does this have to do with anything In a way I can applaud Mr Most s use of detailed historica I won this book in exchange for an honest review.I unfortunately could not bring myself to finish this book I found several challenges with this book Of what I have read, I have found this book to be fraught with convoluted chapters, a multitude of secondary characters who appear for nothan one chapter and absolutely no flow The author will begin a chapter and I would find myself saying, what does this have to do with anything In a way I can appla...The marketing blurb for The Race Underground, a book I won in a Goodreads advanced reading giveaway, sets up a historical thriller nonfiction novel, almost, on par with Erik Larson and his reporting and narration of important historical events with a flair for creating interesting characters Well, I hated what little of Erik Larson I have read, and I was disappointed by Doug Most s book in the exact same way Like Larson, Most s book has a general disconnect of events, shoddy writing and poor p The marketing blurb for The Race Underground, a book I won in a Goodreads advanced reading giveaway, sets up a historical thriller nonfiction novel, almost, on par with Erik Larson and his reporting and narration of important historical events with a flair for creating interesting charact...Doug Most tried to tell what could have been an epic story but turns it into a muddled story which focuseson the politics of building the first subway then on the great engineering story which it was He says in one sentence what he misses when he says how the great failure of the London subway was that it was not copied for 30 years This makes for a weak story from could have been epi...Doug Most s history is solidly founded, but The Race Underground is burdened by unnecessary pretensions to tension and superfluous human interest flourishes that seek to emotionalize a titanic tale of infrastructure but just get in the way.Firstly, the incredible rivalry advertised in the subtitle doesn t stand up over the book s 416 pages New York City and Boston both sought solutions to overcrowded, polluted streets In the same roughly 60 year span they made halting progress towards the day Doug Most s history is solidly founded, but The Race Underground is burdened by unnecessary pretensions to tension and superfluous human interest flourishes that seek to emotionalize a titanic tale of infrastructure but just get in the way.Firstly, the incredible rivalry advertised in the subtitle doesn t stand up over the book s 416 pages New York City and Boston bo...The book was an interesting read but I felt that its title really misrepresented its contents A race It took decades for each city to get its subway from its first public statement to its first shovel in the ground, and each city, especially New York, tried several other options before they basically reached a point where an electric subway was the only option to fix their traffic and population growth problems Various obstacles mostly came about through someone or group s greed, self interes The book was an interesting read but I felt that its title really misrepresented its contents A race It took decades for each city to get its subway from its first public statement to its first shovel in the ground, and each city, especially New York, tried several other options before they basically reached a point where an electric subway was the only option to fix their traffic and population growth problems Various obstacles mostly came about through someone or group s greed, self interest, politics, and or ignorance Boston and New York have long had rivalries of various sorts but that didn t get either of their subways built any faster The subways built can t even really be considered equivalent...I really enjoyed this well researched and well written look at the development of the subway as the primary means of transportation in the late 19th century Most has done a great job of portraying the problems, the solutions, and all the people and politics involved The book was well written and flowed well I often dislike nonfiction because it tries to follow too many threads unsuccessfully, but not so here I read an advance readers copy i hope the final edition has maps and photos That wo I really enjoyed this well researched and well written look at the development of the subway as the primary means of transportation in the late 19th century Most has done a great job of portraying the problems, the solutions, and all the people and politics involved The book was well written and flowed well I often dislike nonfiction because it tries to follow too many threads unsuccessfully, but not so here I read an advance readers copy i hope the final edition has maps and photos That would make...This is the true story, not so much about THE building of the Boston and New York subways, but about HOW they were able to be built Politics, greed and corruption put up many struggles against the city planners who had their visions of solving the horse drawn streetcar traffic above the surface, as well as overly supersticious citizens who shuttered at the idea of having to ride their own Underground.This book goes into greatly detailed biographies of the characters at play, which would be a be This is the true story, not so much about THE building of the Boston an...Whenever I travel to a city with a subway system, I marvel at how in the world such a thing could have been built over a century ago This book gives so many amazing insights into how it was done, and lots of anecdotes about the politics and financing that went into several of the major cities history of building their own subway systems My only criticism is that the time line bounces around ...

English
08 January 2017

Doug Most