Nikola Tesla’s lab could speak to future generations
Nikola Tesla was a scientist who brought us the basics of wireless power transfer, AC power, the AC motor, the polyphase system, radio circuits and radio control, frequency inductive heating, gaseous/fluorescent lighting, and electric clocks, to name a few of his innovations.
I lived only a few miles from Tesla’s Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham on Long Island, N.Y., for most of my life, and I have been to the historic site there where Tesla purchased 200 acres of a former potato farm in 1901 from James Warden. Tesla’s only remaining laboratory building still stands there today. His initial goal was to establish a wireless telegraphy plant. The lab and 187-foot-high transmitter tower (with 120 feet below the ground) were constructed and financed by J.P. Morgan.
The Wardenclyffe Lab and Tower in 1917. Source: Tesla Science Center.
The site was in ruins and vandalized when I visited it just before recent efforts managed to save this bit of important history. It was heartbreaking for any scientist or engineer to see such an important piece of engineering history potentially lost forever.
In 2012 an Indiegogo campaign to save Nikola Tesla’s former laboratory was led by cartoonist Matthew Inman from Oatmeal and Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. They were successful. The campaign needed $850,000, and $1.37 million was raised along with a combined grant from New York State for an additional $850,000. A bid was made on the property, and the lab was snatched from a developer who was going to demolish the site to make way for residential properties.
On September 23, 2013, a statue of Nikola Tesla was erected on the Wardenclyffe grounds and dedicated by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic.
A statue in honor of Nikola Tesla was erected at the site of the original Tower base. Source: Tesla Science Center.
Now efforts to build a museum are underway. Inman wrote a cartoon review of Tesla’s Model S. Inman was asking Tesla CEO Elon Musk to donate the balance of funds needed to restore Tesla’s lab.
Musk agreed to donate $1 million and to build a Tesla supercharger station in the museum parking lot as well if the Science Center would launch efforts to raise the rest of the funds.
As a first step towards building the museum, another Indiegogo effort is underway and has already raised more than $280,000 to begin the removal of hazardous materials from the buildings, as well as begin the renovation of the Stanford White building, which served as the laboratory and heart of Nikola Tesla’s wireless energy project. This money will replace a roof and protect the lab from any further damage. So “buy a brick for Nik.”
Eventually $10 million is needed for the completion of the museum, and they are planning some additional fundraisers in the future to meet this goal.
The Tesla Science Center is always still looking for volunteers to help with improving the site by an initial cleanup on the grounds outside the buildings.
Steve Taranovich is the editor-in-chief of EE Times’ Planet Analog website where this article first appeared.
Related links and articles:
Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe
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