Suffolk Closeup: Honoring Tesla — not the car, but the man

In coming days, structures that were added to Nikola Tesla’s laboratory in Shoreham will be taken down in what is to be a return of the historic laboratory to “its original state when Tesla worked there,” says Jane Alcorn. “Within the next two years,” Alcorn said, her hope is that the laboratory is restored to what it was when Tesla was there.

Ms. Alcorn, founder of the project to create a Tesla science center and museum at what was his laboratory, said there are to be exhibits including “replicas of Tesla’s equipment” in the elegant red brick building designed by Tesla’s friend, famed architect Stanford White.

And in Suffolk County, the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe will become a reality.

Nikola Tesla was a genius inventor.

These days most people when they hear the word Tesla, probably think of the Tesla car, which, indeed, Elon Musk named after him.

But, as Princeton University Press, which published “Tesla, Inventor of the Electrical Age,” states: “Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to radio and television.” It is authored by Dr. W. Bernard Carlson, professor of science, technology, and society at the University of Virginia.

The world would adopt alternating current or AC, although Thomas Edison, whom Tesla, of Serbian background, worked for after he came to the U.S., pushed for direct current or DC. There were conflicts between the two over this.

And Tesla was responsible for far more inventions, including hydroelectric power, forms of remote control and the bladeless turbine. As for radio, Guglielmo Marconi is generally credited with originating radio, but the U.S. Supreme Court, after Tesla’s death in 1943, determined that much of Marconi’s work was based on 17 Tesla patents.

Tesla went to Shoreham to pursue his vision of providing wireless electricity, for free, to people around the world. “Tesla was convinced that he could set up stationary waves in the Earth and transmit power and messages,” relates Carlson. Tesla received a $150,000 loan from “the most powerful man on Wall Street, J.P. Morgan … to support his wireless work.”

Why Shoreham? Tesla “was approached by James S. Warden, a lawyer and banker from Ohio who had relocated to Suffolk County,” bought farmland and “christened his property Wardenclyffe.” He offered Tesla land that is just to the north of Route 25A in Shoreham.

In addition to the laboratory, a giant tower 187-feet tall, visible from Connecticut, was built. Below the tower a deep “ground connection” was dug. “In many ways, Wardenclyffe was the fulfillment of Tesla’s dreams. For nearly a decade he had been planning in his imagination a system for broadcasting power around the world, and now that system was taking shape in the real world,” writes Carlson.

But then Morgan pulled out of the undertaking and Tesla faced huge financial problems. The tower was demolished in 1917.

“Tesla’s long-held dream was to create a source of inexhaustible, clean energy that was free for everyone. He strongly opposed centralized coal-fired power stations that spewed carbon dioxide into the air that humans breathed,” wrote Stephen Dark in 2020 on the Australia-based website, The Fifth Estate. “Tesla was so far ahead of his time.”

There are pieces online about research in modern times based on Tesla’s work at Wardenclyffe. His idea of wireless electricity lives on.

A decade ago, I presented a TV program from Wardenclyffe for Long Island’s WVVH-TV. You can view it on YouTube by inputting “Saving Nikola Tesla’s Laboratory” and my name.

Late this summer, the plan is to open a visitor’s center on the 16-acre site, said Alcorn. Nearly $10 million, she said, has been raised since the campaign began in 2012 to save Tesla’s laboratory. This includes $1 million from Elon Musk. The funds have come from all over the world. For further information, visit teslasciencecenter.org/

Former New York State Assemblyman Marc Alessi is executive director of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. He notes the challenge “amid the crisis” of COVID-19 to turn “the site of Nikola Tesla’s last remaining laboratory into a transformative global science center that embraces his bold spirit of invention, provides learning experiences, fosters the advancement of new technologies, and preserves his legacy …” But, says Alessi, support has come from the project’s “global community … now over 150,000 strong.”