Pneumatic Tube Mail in New York City

Did you know mail used to be sent underground in New York City and other U.S. cities? Imagine an underground world where mail was zipping around in tubes beneath the incredibly crowded and busy New York City streets. That’s what was happening for over half a century 4 to 6 feet below street level. In this episode, host Michelle Young, the founder of Untapped New York, will explain how the system worked and how the technology can still be found today. Special guests: Lynn Heidelbaugh, Curator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum; Luke Kingma, former Vice President at the science magazine Futurism; Justin Rivers, historian, playwright and Chief Experience Officer at Untapped New York. Music by Kittens Ablaze ("Hotel Room", "Liarbird"), Absent Tiger ("Take it or Leave It"), and additional sounds by Ben Bynum and Mike Koenig. New York City skyline in icon by Bernadette Moke, the Downtown Doodler.

If you love to go behind the scenes and into NYC's' most hidden and secret places, you should jump onto some of our most exciting tours like the Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue, the Secrets of Grand Central, or our Underground Subway Tour. And if you're a real hard core New Yorker, join our Untapped New York Insiders program for access to the most off limits places with curated behind-the-scenes events on a weekly basis.