74th Street Generating Station

The massive red brick structure you see before you is the 74th Street Generating Station, a fortress of industry that helped transform New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. When it opened in 1902, this plant marked the end of the era of smoke-belching steam locomotives on Manhattan's elevated railways. By generating the electricity needed to power the new electric trains, the station cleared the air of soot and cinders that had long plagued the city streets below. Its construction was a monumental engineering feat, utilizing eight colossal steam engines that were, at the time, the largest stationary engines ever built.