Pearl Street Station
Pearl Street Station was the first central power plant in the United States. It was located at 255-257 Pearl Street in Manhattan on a site measuring 50 by 100 feet,[1] just south of Fulton Street. It began with one direct current generator, and it started generating electricity on September 4, 1882, serving an initial load of 400 lamps at 85 customers. By 1884, Pearl Street Station was serving 508 customers with 10,164 lamps.[1] The station was built by the Edison Illuminating Company, which was headed by Thomas Edison. The station was originally powered by custom-made Porter-Allen high-speed steam engines designed to provide 175 horsepower at 700 rpm.[2], but these proved to be unreliable with their sensitive governors. They were removed and replaced with new engines from Armington & Sims that proved to be much more suitable for Edison's dynamos.[3]
The station burnt down in 1890, destroying all but one dynamo that is now kept in the Greenfield Village Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.[4]
See also
References
- ^ a b "Edison" by Matthew Josephson. McGraw Hill, New York, 1959, pg. 255. OCLC 485621, ISBN 0070330468
- ^ Electrical world, Volume 80, McGraw-Hill, 1922, p.529
- ^ Electrical world, Volume 80, McGraw-Hill, 1922
- ^ 125 Years On: Pearl Street - Birthplace of the Electric Age (Interactive Presentation), Consolidated Edison Company of New York. Last accessed: 3 May 2009.
External links
- Pearl Street Station from the IEEE Global History Network
- Edison: His Life and Inventions
- Edison Electric Institute. History of the Electric Power Industry. Retrieved 13 April 2005.
- Smithsonian Institution. Emergence of Electrical Utilities in America. Retrieved 13 April 2005.
 | This article about a New York City building or structure is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |