Edison Machine Works

You are standing in an area that once held the foundation of the modern electrical grid. In eighteen eighty-one, Thomas Edison transformed an existing ironworks facility on Goerck Street into the Edison Machine Works. This factory served as the birthplace for the massive Jumbo dynamos, twenty-seven-ton generators essential for powering the first commercial central power station at Pearl Street. The sheer production demand at this site was so intense that workers often had to set up extra manufacturing lathes on the sidewalk outside, connecting them to the factory machines through open windows using long drive belts.