Category: Subway Myths

• The "Subway" Air Poisoning

  This theory claimed that the new New York City subways did not merely carry passengers underground, but poisoned the city’s atmosphere by drawing oxygen below street level and leaving the surface depleted. In other versions, the problem worked in reverse: the subways trapped foul air below and then returned it altered, exhausted, or disease-bearing. The theory belonged to the earliest years of underground rail travel, when ventilation, crowding, dust, heat, and fear of enclosed air were central public concerns.