Power to the People

Nikola Tesla in a multiple-exposure photo in 1899, as a Tesla coil discharged millions of volts.

Dickenson V. Alley/Burndy Library

I used to live near the site of Tesla’s Houston Street laboratory. As children, some of the older residents had heard stories of the residual effects of one of his experiments conducted there.

On 30 July 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35. Tesla established his 35 South Fifth Avenue laboratory in New York during this same year. Later, Tesla would establish his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston Street. There, at one point while conducting mechanical resonance experiments with electro-mechanical oscillators he generated a resonance of several surrounding buildings but, due to the frequencies involved, not his own building, causing complaints to the police. As the speed grew he hit the resonant frequency of his own building and belatedly realizing the danger he was forced to apply a sledge hammer to terminate the experiment, just as the astonished police arrived.[55] He also lit vacuum tubes wirelessly at both of the New York locations, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power transmission.

On the other hand, Tesla’s innovation could have offered the possibility of free electricity and eventually internet access, but Thomas Edison decided to electrocute an elephant in order to bury those ideals, and rake in some cash.