SEPTEMBER 2017 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 107
a 400-horsepower Westinghouse
reciprocating engine, “driving a
directly connected dynamo which
was specially made for my purposes,”
Tesla later explained. He also
had special transformers designed
“to stand an electric tension of
60,000 volts.”
But the most important structure
was the tower. At the top was a 55-
ton steel globe to store electricity,
beneath which was a shaft, 10 feet
by 12 feet wide, lined with steel
and supported by timbers, with a
winding staircase running 120 feet
into the ground. At the bottom, 16
steel rods plunged hundreds of feet
deeper.
“In this system that I have invented,”
Tesla explained, “it is necessary
for the machine to get a grip of the
earth. Otherwise it cannot shake
the earth. It has to have a grip on
the earth so that the whole of this
globe can quiver.”
What Tesla did not have a good
grip on was the investment community,
including his trusty benefactor
J.P. Morgan.
Almost two years before, Guglielmo
Marconi had managed to send
a simple Morse code transmission
from England to Newfoundland
using 17 of Tesla’s patents, and that
was enough to persuade Morgan
to invest in the cheaper, proven
technology of radio.
Tesla countered that his Wardenclyffe
Tower – together with a
half dozen matching complexes
erected elsewhere around the globe
– would be able to send energy,
wirelessly, wherever it was needed.
As Morgan reportedly replied,
“Free power to the whole world?
But where do we put the meter?”
Marconi’s simple radio transmission
based on Tesla’s patents was
financially successful “because
he was willing to incrementally
accomplish something,” said Marc
Alessi, an entrepreneur and attorney
who has played a crucial part in
helping preserve Wardenclyffe.
“When J.P. Morgan questioned why
Marconi had beat him, Tesla was
like, ‘Well, he’s only doing a single
transmission! I’m doing multiple
band-width radio with channels!’
“Which is what we use today. Tesla
didn’t care about financial success
or business. He wanted to move the
dial for humanity.”
And it cost him.
Making America glow
Tesla had established the principles
for modern electric power even
before he left Europe for New York
in 1884, perfecting alternating current,
or AC, as opposed to the DC
current inventor Thomas Edison
was banking on.
In 1887, Tesla filed seven U.S.
patents for AC motors and power
transmission, which caught the
attention of Pittsburgh industrialist
George Westinghouse, who
tracked Tesla down in Manhattan
and bought the rights to it all for
$60,000. Included: 150 shares of
Westinghouse Corp. and royalty
payments of $2.50 per every horsepower
of electrical capacity sold.
Backed by Westinghouse, Tesla illuminated
the Chicago World’s Fair
in 1893, out-dazzling Edison at the
Electricity Pavilion and inspiring
Frank Baum to conjure the Emerald
City in his book, “The Wizard
of Oz.”
Tesla’s triumph in the Windy City
helped Westinghouse win the
contract to build the Niagara Falls
Power Project, which lit up Buffalo
for the first time on Nov. 16, 1896.
AC had won the electrical race, but
the battle had been costly. Forced
to pay lucrative royalties to Tesla,
Westinghouse was nearing bankruptcy,
and J.P Morgan was close to
taking over the company.
But Tesla saved the day.
“He ripped up his royalty contract
with Westinghouse for alternating
current, and the whole reason was
that he wanted to make sure that
people had electricity,” said Alessi.
A noble deed, but one that led,
ultimately, to Tesla’s own financial
ruin. Lacking funds, he was forced
to shut down his beloved Wardenclyffe
in 1906 and, worse, deed
the property to Waldorf-Astoria
manager George C. Boldt to settle
his hotel bill of $20,000, a bit more
than $500,000 today.
Astor, his friend and last financial
hope, went down with the Titanic
in 1912. Westinghouse died in 1914.
That July 4 demolition was Boldt’s
attempt to recover his $20,000,
selling Wardenclyffe for scrap. The
rubble, however, brought a meager
$1,750.
Tesla was philosophical: “My
project was retarded by the laws of
nature,” he wrote. “The world was
not prepared for it. It was too far
ahead of time, but the same laws
will prevail in the end and make it
a triumphal success.”
Success might have been more
clearly triumphal had he bothered
to commit the fundamentals of
wireless energy to paper.
Though thoroughly defeated
professionally, Tesla remained a
tantalizing public figure, even making
the cover of Time magazine in
1931, when he turned 75. (Einstein
wrote him a birthday greeting,
congratulating Tesla on “the magnificent
success of your life’s work.”
Tesla, interestingly, had scoffed at
Einstein’s theory of relativity and
said that “the idea of atomic energy
is illusionary.”)
In 1934, Tesla was written up in
The New York Times, this time
over news of his latest invention, “a
peace ray,” that could send concentrated
beams of particles through
air, “of such tremendous energy
that they will bring down a fleet of
100,000 enemy airplanes.”
(Additional research: See the Reagan
era Star Wars initiative.)
By then the Westinghouse Corp.
had quietly arranged to put Tesla
up in a pair of rooms at the New
Yorker, where he lived for his final
decade, leaving only for walks and
to feed pigeons in a nearby park.
Though once a regular at Delmonico’s,
Tesla became a vegetarian in
later life, subsisting on vegetables,
bread and honey.
He died on Jan. 7, 1943 after putting
out the “Do Not Disturb” sign,
ignored in the morning by a maid.
The coroner ruled the death the
result of coronary thrombosis. He
was 86.
FBI agents rushed into Tesla suite
soon after his passing to impound
his papers and keep sensitive
materials – the peace ray! – out of
enemy hands.
Here’s an unexpected twist: Among
the Americans called in to ana