Title: The Race Underground
Release Date: 31 January 2017
Director: Michael Rossi
Summary/Review:
The American Experience documentary adapts a portion of the book by Doug Most relating to Boston’s effort to create America’s first subway. As a Boston partisan myself, why not leave out the portion of the book about New York City, even if they built a far more extensive subway system very swiftly after Boston’s first tunnel opened? Kidding aside, it is a dramatic figure focusing on key figures such as Frank J. Sprague, who invented the electric trolley car, and Henry Melville Whitney, who consolidated the trolley lines into the West End Street Railway Company and persuaded city officials to approve the first tunnel. There are challenges along the way including negative popular opinion, graves of Revolutionary War era soldiers, and an explosion, but the subway is completed and convinces the doubters. The documentary is well-illustrated with photographs and vintage film, and is a delight to watch.
Rating: ***
Panorama of the Mountains 