Thomas Alva Edison

FATHER OF PEARL New York City.It has taken almost three years, but Edison, now thirty-five, is ready to unveil something that will amaze even New Yorkers, who are famous for thinking they've already seen it all.Today's innovation shows the real difference between Edison and other inventors. He didn't stop after perfecting electric light. He has created an electric light system, taking into account all the practical difficulties that inventors in a lab usually leave to other engineers or later generations.Today Edison will throw a switch to start six massive steam generators at a power plant on Pearl Street, which is near the base of Manhattan, not far from the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall. If all goes well, those generators will convert that steam power into electricity, and the city that never sleeps will be lit all night.Edison and his staff are making a careful last inspection of the facility and the equipment before he heads to the office of his chief investor, the millionaire J.'?¯P. Morgan. He has arranged to have the switch placed in Morgan's office, where Morgan and other financiers will be present.Morgan is already a strong supporter of Edison's inventions. His home a few miles uptown is one of the few in the city equipped with electric lamps instead of gas for illumination. Edison has even installed a private generator for Morgan, to avoid the usual chemical batteries.Edison isn't worried about failure today. He has already tested the system twice, once aboard a ship and the other time in London. He also limited his first effort to the downtown core so he could focus on getting it right before offering it to the rest of the country. Of course, attempting a project like this in the busiest part of New York is asking for trouble. It could have been completed more easily just about anywhere else. But Edison has his reasons for this location. This is the financial district, and he wants to impress the people whose money he'll need for expansion. The New York Times is also within the square mile his system covers. (It'll be another twenty years before the paper moves to Longacre Square at Forty-second Street, which will be renamed Times Square.) As usual, Edison is courting good publicity. He installed lights in the newspaper for free.Edison's obsession with detail has served him well on this project. He started his design in a way modern business schools would admire: with careful market research. A house-by-house survey produced a complete picture of the district: the number of gas jets in the buildings, how many hours they burned, how much gas they used, and what each customer spent. Armed with this information, he calculated the amount of electrical power his generators must produce to properly service the customers, and what price would seem attractive.Early on, Edison concluded that his wiring and cables should be underground, rather than strung on existing poles that carry telephone and telegraph wires. Adverse weather, occasional dangling wires and rickety installation of crossbeams convinced him he needed a more secure conduit for his cables. It took much persuasion and pressure on New York City's mayor and its other politicians before they agreed to let him dig beneath the city streets and plant his miles of wiring. Now there's one hundred thousand feet of cable -- almost nineteen miles of it -- running beneath this plant's range of one square mile.As the concept of the system began to develop, Edison and his staff at Menlo Park created the blueprints for each piece of equipment required. They've been awarded more than eighty new patents for their innovations, and dozens more are waiting approval.Edison even had to invent a method for measuring his customer's usage so he could charge them accurately. He came up with a chemical solution that formed a coating on a metal strip when electricity was sent through it. By weighing the stColbert, David is the author of 'Thomas Alva Edison' with ISBN 9781416964445 and ISBN 1416964444.