page_title: John Randel Jr.
section_title: Life in Randelia
hierarchical_section_title: John Randel Jr. / Life in Randelia
caption_attribution_description: "View of Broadway in the city of New York with the proposed elevated rail-way invented by John Randel, Junr. C.E."
context_page_description: John Randel, Jr. was an American surveyor, cartographer, civil engineer and inventor from Albany, New York who completed a full survey of Manhattan Island from 1808–1817, in service of the creation of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which determined that New York City – which consisted at the time of only Manhattan – would in the future be laid out in a rectilinear grid of streets.
  Randel is also noted for having received one of the largest awards at the time as a result of his breach of contract lawsuit against the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company. The company's appeals of the judgment went to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed the award, as well as Randel's right to directly receive canal tolls in order to collect it.
context_section_description: With his settlement from the canal company, Randel built "Randelia", an estate in Cecil County, Maryland, just west of Chesapeake City, Maryland, and just south of the mouth of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which was 1,415-acre (573 ha) at its largest extent. There, he lived out most of the rest of his life, writing letters to newspapers in search of recognition for his work on the Manhattan grid – which he called "the pride and boast of [New York City]" – developing a plan for the extension of the grid above 155th Street; and working on other ideas.
  Although work did not always come Randel's way, he never stopped coming up with new ideas, such as the elevated railway, which he tried to develop well before they became a reality. Randel, who claimed to have thought of the idea of elevated trains in 1829, attempted to get permission from New York City's Board of Aldermen – the Common Council's name since 1831 – to build an elevated railway on Broadway. A committee of three evaluated the proposal, and had positive things to report about it, but recommended taking a cautious approach to such a sweeping change.  They asked for models and further description and details, which Randel provided them after commissioning a cast-iron one-tenth scale model in Philadelphia at the cost of $4,000 (equivalent to $110,000 in 2019) to $5,000 (equivalent to $140,000 in 2019).  He invited Broadway business owners and their families to see the model, which was on display at 413 Broadway, and got a significant amount of positive press coverage.  Randel's design was similar to the cable cars in San Francisco in that the trains were pulled by an endless loop of rope.  There would be four lines, two uptown and two downtown, one a local and one an express each way, in a closed loop from Bowling Green to Union Square, a distance of about 3 miles (4.8 km) in each direction. Despite the great care displayed by Randel in dealing with every detail of the system, from sanitation to the privacy of those in residences along the line, the Board of Aldermen rejected Randel's idea.
  Randel did not let the rejection stop him.  He got the Mechanics Institute to examine his proposal and make their evaluation public, got clearance from the chief engineer of the fire department, and altered the model slightly and re-presented it to the Board of Aldermen.  He showed the model at an American Institute fair in Castle Garden and displayed a new model of the elevated railway at the New York Crystal Palace in 1853. Unfortunately for Randel, none of these efforts ended in a contract with the city to build his proposed system; it did, however, get him involved in more litigation.  Randel also made a proposal to the Board for a railroad and roadway to be built above the wharves and encircle the city, which he called "The City Belt Railway and Depot" and "The City Belt Avenue", which he imagined to be about 28 miles (45 km) long.  This plan the aldermen liked better, but still nothing came of it.
  Filing lawsuits against numerous people, as well as being sued by others, was nothing new for Randel. His lawsuits were often about money Randel thought he was owed, or debts that he was not able to pay. On the other hand, some of the legal actions seem to be simply frivolous, such as when Randel lost a piece of jewelry and had all the workers on the estate looking for it, until someone showed up claiming to have found the pin by the river.  Randel attempted to have a grand jury indict the man, but the case was dismissed.  It seems clear the Randel saw the legal system as a cure-all for every problem, large or small.
  Work dried up for him, due in part to his litigious nature but also to his increasing eccentricity and self-righteousness. Even with his mentor, Simeon De Witt, to whom he owed a great deal, Randel could be petty and avaricious.  In the early 1820s, Randel had taken some field books of a survey done for the state, which were therefore state property, and would not return them when De Witt asked him to, giving, for years, various excuses as to why he could not do 
caption: Randel's plan for an elevated train on Broadway
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