Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating Company flipped the switch on his power station on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, at 3pm, the 106 lamps located at JP Morgan's Drexel Bank office lit up. &nbsp; So did the New York Times and the other nearby buildings. &nbsp;All power was underground which took about a year to install. &nbsp;By the end of the month, they had 59 customers. By the next year, they had 513.

It depicts the construction of Thomas Edison's first domestic incandescent lamp electric utility in New York City with the central station at Pearl Street.

Pearl Street Station Plaque

Edison's Central Station

When Edison Lit Up Manhattan

"Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night."&nbsp;

The invention of the phonograph was fairly quick. &nbsp;According to some of the lab records, Edison experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kruesi, to build, which Kruesi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, "Mary had a little lamb." To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him.

First floor machine shop, located in Building 5 of the Laboratory Complex

Location of the new artifact storage area on the 3rd floor of Building 5.

The new phonograph exhibit area as it appeared before the exhibit was installed.

The 3rd floor music room as it appeared before renovation.

2nd floor Precision Machine Shop as it appeared before the renovation

Edison Lab

Scientific American

Invention of the Phonograph

Edward Callahan invents a telegraphic device showing stock prices with symbols based on Morse Code for the Gold and Stock Telegraph Co, inventing the Stock Ticker.

Thomas Edison`s Universal Stock Ticker is perhaps the single most iconic piece of Wall Street technology. But, Thomas Edison was not the ticker`s original inventor. That distinction goes to Edward Calahan of the American Telegraph Company, who invented the ticker in 1867. The original stock ticker looked similar to Edison`s model, but with a major distinction. Calahan`s model had one large wheel that printed both letters and numbers. Edison—always eager to improve on other people`s inventions—realized he could increase the ticker`s speed by adding a second wheel. With two small wheels spinning simultaneously—one for letters and one for numbers—its speed nearly doubled. Edison`s ticker hit the market in 1871 and quickly became the industry standard. Edison`s ticker is perhaps most famous—and infamous—for its use during the Stock Market Crash of 1929. On Black Tuesday, October 29, stock tickers couldn't keep up with the increased trading volume as Wall Street panicked. The information coming out of the tickers lagged behind the actual transactions happening at the New York Stock Exchange by several hours. Not having accurate stock prices made most investors and brokers very anxious, which exaggerated the sense of panic. One of the few good things that came out of the Crash of `29 was a redesigned ticker in the early 1930s. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, several new models appeared on the market, but then the electronic age quickly rendered mechanical tickers obsolete.

Invention of the Universal Stock Ticker

Topsy the elephant was electrocuted by the owners of the Coney Island amusement park "Luna Park" in an event to raise publicity about the opening of the new park (at this point still under construction).

Film produced by Edwin S. Porter or Jacob Blair Smith for the Edison Manufacturing Company. The film captured the point when 6600 volts of electricity was turned on. Behind Topsy is the unfinished "Electric Tower" with a sign advertising "OPENING MAY 2ND 1903 LUNA PARK $1,000,000 EXPOSITION, THE HEART OF CONEY ISLAND".

Poster for the combined Forepaugh &amp; Sells Brothers Circus

Electrocuting an Elephant

It consumed coal for fuel and began with six dynamos. It started generating electricity on September 4, 1882, serving an initial load of 400 lamps at 82 customers. By 1884, Pearl Street Station was serving 508 customers with 10,164 lamps.&nbsp;Pearl Street Station was also the world's first co-generation plant. While the steam engines provided grid electricity, Edison made use of the thermal byproduct by providing steam heating to local manufacturers and nearby buildings on the same Manhattan block.Pearl Street Station served what was known as the "First District" (bounded clockwise from north by Spruce Street, the East River, Wall Street, and Nassau Street). The district, so named because of its importance in the history of electric power, contained several other power stations such as the Excelsior Power Company Building.

The station burned down in 1890, destroying all but one dynamo that is now kept in the Greenfield Village Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

"America's electric age was born at 357 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan when Thomas Edison began operating the city's first central power station. His first dynamo, or generator, was built for the Paris Electrical Exposition of 1881 and began commercial operation at the Pearl Street plant on September 4, 1882.Competitors had already installed harsh electric arc lights on Broadway from Fourteenth Street to Thirty-Fourth Street and on the Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883. By 1890, more than thirty companies were generating or distributing electricity in New York City and Westchester, the territory that would be served by the Consolidated Edison Co.Financed by J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts, Edison perfected a carbon filament that would burn in a glass bulb for as long as forty hours. He incorporated the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York to transform the novelty-a few private residences, like Morgan's, had self-contained power plants - into a commercially viable enterprise dependent on dynamos, voltage regulators, fuses, sockets, meters, switches, and miles of copper wire.At 3:00 P.M. that September 4, Edison and his board of directors traveled about a half mile to Morgan's Wall Street office. With their watches synchronized, an engineer closed the circuit breaker at the plant; Edison flipped a switch; and the office was bathed in electric light. Under a month later, Edison had fifty-nine customers.Each of the six dynamos weighed 27 tons-_-the largest ever built at the time and produced enough direct current (100 kilowatts) to power 1,100 lightbulbs. The six giant dynamos (nicknamed Jumbo, after Barnum's elephant) were connected directly to a steam engine and became the prototype for generating power from a central station to distribute electricity to homes, a goal Edison had harbored for four years (blame Edison, too, for the first electric bill, based on his electrolytic meter).Within a year or two, Edison's company was supplying more than five hundred customers. A fire destroyed the plant in 1890, but Dynamo No. 9 survived and continued operating until 1893. Today it is on exhibition at the Henry Ford historical attraction at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers describes the Pearl Street plant as the first "complete system of commercial electric lighting and power." The success of Edison's incandescent bulb created a demand for reliable power sources. "It was this demand," the institute concluded, "that led to the construction of the Pearl Street station and launched the modern electric utility industry" by generating reliable power and distributing it efficiently “at a price that competed with gas lighting.”- TEXT FROM SAM ROBERTS - 101 OBJECTS

Edison's use of low-voltage direct current limited the practical reach of his generating station to about one-half mile. To impress financial backers, the station was situated in the heart of Manhattan's business district at 257 Pearl Street. Underground lines radiated out to cover the blocks indicated (bold lines) in this drawing. Note the Brooklyn Bridge (not yet completed at the time) spanning the East River.

IEEE Global History Network and Consolidated Edison Company of New York

Control and switching equipment were housed on the third and fourth floors.

Scale model of Thomas Edison's Pearl Street power station

Pearl Street Station

The Black Maria, Thomas Edison's pioneering film studio in West Orange, New Jersey, was the world's first film studio. Dedicated to producing film strips for the Kinetoscope, it played a crucial role in early cinema. The studio, costing $637.67, hosted the first public demonstration of films in May 1893. It produced diverse scenes, including magic shows, vaudeville acts, and sporting events, contributing to both fiction and non-fiction genres. The commercial success of Edison's Kinetoscope began in 1894.

Despite its historical significance, the Black Maria was a small and uncomfortable workspace, eventually replaced by Edison as a glass-enclosed rooftop movie studio in New York City, the Black Maria was closed in January 1901, and Edison demolished the building.

The U. S. National Park Service maintains a reproduction of the Black Maria, built in 1954 at what is now the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange. A previous reconstruction had been built and dedicated in May 1940 when MGM held the world premiere of Edison, the Man starring Spencer Tracy in theaters throughout The Oranges (West Orange, East Orange, South Orange, and Orange)

As displayed at the LC motion picture exhibit, 1954

The Black Maria, Thomas Edison National Historical Park

World's 1st film studio

"Considered to be the first motion picture given legal status by copyright acceptance. The forty-five frames it contains were sent in for copyright as a still picture. The action consists of a man, Fred Ott, sneezing. Application for copyright was filed by William K. Laurie Dickson, Edison's assistant and supervisor of the new motion picture project. The frames were rephotographed from the still picture and turned back into a motion picture"--Early motion pictures.

Now the Thomas Edison National Historical Park

The Black Maria

The oldest surviving motion picture

Edison kinetoscopic record of a sneeze, January 7, 1894

A combination of dance hall, theater and saloon, Hill’s was just one of a number of similar establishments that had sprung up in New York City in the second half of the 19th century.A “sprawling, dingy, two-story frame house which had two front entrances, a small door for the ladies who were admitted free, and a larger one for gentlemen, who paid twenty cents.<a href="https://culturenow.org/people/the-new-yorker?name=The_New_Yorker">[1]</a>” &nbsp;The dance hall, originally a series of small rooms, there was no regular bar on the main floor but on one side of the long hall was a counter over which the waiter girls distributed the drinks that had been brought up from the basement where the more disreputable of Hill's customers spent their evenings... On the other side of the room was the stage, with a tall box for a Punch and Judy show - a popular form of entertainment at that period. &nbsp;His place was also a favorite of various boxers and he frequently held prize fights there.&nbsp;Before the main door hung a huge red and blue lantern, which cast its rays onto a gigantic signboard … composed by Hill… ‘Punches and juleps, cobblers and smashes. To make the tongue waggle with wit’s merry flashes.'The rules of the house were written in rhyme … ‘no loud talking; no profanity; no obscene or indecent expressions will be allowed; no one drunken will be permitted to remain in the room; no man can sit and allow a woman to stand; all men must call for for refreshments as soon as they arrive, and the call must be repeated after each dance; if a man does not dance, he must leave. Mr Hill keeps the peace of his own concern, and does not hesitate to knock any man down, or throw him out of the door, if he breaks the rules of the establishment. He keeps jealous women from tearing out each other’s eyes.'

Harry Hill is depicted bottom centre in the boxing glove.

Sporting house at Houston and Crosby Streets

Harry Hill's Dance House

The original 1904 subway line ran from City Hall to Grand Central Terminal, then west to Times Square, and finally north to 145th Street. Four of the original stations are now closed including 91st St., 18th St., Worth St., and the Old City Hall Stations.Even though the underground portions of the subway had yet to be built, several above-ground segments of the NYC Subway system were already in service by then.

Passing through subway at 42d Street and Park Avenue

surface railway tracks supported over excavation on upper Broadway

over roof of subway at 126th Street and Lenox Avenue

The illustration shows a vignette cartoon, with, in the central scene, Father Knickerbocker, a symbolic figure for New York City, welcoming Santa Claus to the underground of New York City; the vignettes show Santa distributing Christmas presents and planning for next year. The "Angel of Peace" is hoping for an end to the hostilities between Japan and Russia.

NYC Underground Subway begins operating

New York City's Subway railroad was opened to public travel on the above date. The contract for the present Subway was awarded December 18, 1897, and work was commenced March 24, 1900. The picture opens with Mayor McClellan, City Officials, State Senators, Congressmen and railroad officials leaving the City Hall and entering the Subway station. A panoramic view of City Hall Park and surroundings, with the crowds in the background, is next shown. Then follows an interior view of the Brooklyn Bridge Station. Express and local trains are arriving and departing, including the official inspection train with President August Belmont's private car with a party of officials and invited guests. 300 ft.&nbsp;Porter, Edwin S., Camera, William J Gilroy, Inc Thomas A. Edison, and Paper Print Collection. Opening ceremonies, New York subway. United States: Edison Manufacturing Co, 1904. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016600205/.

Thompson and Dundy's killing of Topsy has switched attribution, with claims it was an anti-alternating current demonstration organized by Thomas A. Edison during the war of the currents.&nbsp;

Edison was an engineer and businessman. With 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as patents in other countries, Edison is regarded as the most prolific inventor in American history. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. 

Thomas Alva Edison

1st office building in the world illuminated by electric light.

Thomas A Edison received 200+ patents for 'the generation, distribution, and metering of electric currents' and formed the Edison Electric Illuminating Company.&nbsp;

Thomas Alva Edison

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