The Race Underground
Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
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In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew more 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.
Doug Most
Doug Most, a native of Rhode Island, is a lifelong journalist and author whose career has spanned newspapers, magazines, and universities up and down the East Coast, with stops in Washington, DC; South Carolina; New Jersey; and Boston. He was named Journalist of the Year while at The Record in Bergen County, New Jersey, for his coverage of a tragic story about two teens charged with killing their newborn, a story he turned into a true-crime book titled Always in Our Hearts. After a stint at Boston Magazine, he worked for fifteen years at The Boston Globe, as the Sunday Magazine editor, and deputy managing editor/special projects. His articles have appeared in Best American Sports Writing and Best American Crime Writing. His 2014 nonfiction book, The Race Underground, told the story about the birth of subways in America, in the late 1800s and was adapted into a PBS/American Experience documentary. The New York Times called the book “a sweeping narrative of late-19th-century intrigue.” He works now as the executive editor and an assistant vice president at Boston University. He holds a BA from George Washington University in political communication.
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