Allen J. Singer’s The Cincinnati Subway, represents Arcadia Publishing at its best: it’s a unique, fairly-priced, well-written book that documents an important story, and places it in the context of American urban history.

It documents a story you won’t find anywhere else, illustrated with numerous contemporary maps, photographs, and illustrations.

All for less than $20!

Cincinnati, Ohio’s, rapid growth in the nineteenth century had the unfortunate effect of creating strangling traffic congestion. After years of political infighting, a subway was begun, but feel victim to increasing costs and decreasing funding. Construction had begun in 1920, and two miles of subway was dug, before halting in 1927.

Political infighting resumed, while the tunnels decayed—and traffic congestion got worse than ever. The fate of the Cincinnati subway was sealed with World War Two and the beginnings of the postwar explosion of automobile ownership and the growth of the suburbs.

The Cincinnati Subway provides a micro view of an American problem, with an abundance of photographs showing the Cincinnati subway during construction, during its ignominous days as a Civil Defense shelter, and—finally—as the tunnels appear today.

Here’s a book that rapid transit modelers will want for the plans and photographs, and urban historians will want for its story of the way shortsighted corporate policies and political leadership created yet another congested and sprawling metropolitan area.

ISBM 0-7385-2314-4
Arcadia Publishing
www.arcadiapublishing.com