Sky E-News

There are few scientists in the world who have generated as much mystery and legends as Nikola Tesla, who spent his last days of life in New York City.  He’s been the inspiration for movies and television programs, including but not limited to The Prestige and Tesla: Master of Lightning.  He’s the inventor of the Tesla Coil, and some people connect him with the Tunguska Event, an explosion over Siberia in 1908.  The Tunguska Event is generally believed to be the a large meteroid or comet fragment that came apart with terrific force in mid-air, flattening trees for miles, and releasing energy equal to that of five to thirty megatons of dynamite.  Some people suggest wilder theories, claiming everything from an impact with a black hole, the crash of a UFO, or a collision with antimatter.  Some, though, suggest it was Nikola Tesla, experimenting with a death ray at the Wardenclyffe Tower in New York, a facility that’s now on the National Historical Registry.  This actually is a confusion of a number of stories about Tesla, taking place over a decade.  The Tower itself was supposed to be a way of harnessing electrical current as a means of world-wide communication.

Today, one of the sites you’ll see in New York, is a plaque on the side of The New Yorker building, declaring this spot as the place in which he died in 1943.  The plaque, placed on the building in 2001 by the Yugoslav-American Bicentennial Committee.  The plaque honors Tesla for the discoveries he made in the arena of alternating electric current, praising him for advancing the U.S., along with the rest of the world, into the modern era.   While Yugoslavia no longer exists, the plaque remains, to commemorate a scientist and inventor who some claim to be the equal of Einstein and Edison.  If you’re planning to check into one of the hotels New York USA keeps available for its visitors, then this is one of those spots you should at least take a walk past.

New York is filled with the sights that everyone knows about — The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, Central Park — but not everyone takes time to check out the history enshrined in the buildings by these simple plaques.  Be sure to keep an eye out for them.