Скачать или смотреть Secrets of Nikola Tesla's New York!

We all know Broadway…Fifth Avenue…Wall Street…, but did you know there are streets here in NYC that are named after scientists?
We're in Bryant Park, and if you glance up on the southwest corner, you'll see Nikola Tesla Corner…
Nikola Tesla was many things, including an eccentric inventor, a mad scientist, electrical engineer, and mechanical engineer.
He was probably most famous for his work in electricity and wireless technology – not to mention his rivalry with Thomas Edison – and this photo!
Since his birth, Tesla was almost destined to work in electricity.
He was born during a lightning storm in 1856 to Serbian in modern day Croatia, foreshadowing what was to come.
Tesla arrived in New York City in 1884. Already a talented electrical engineer who could work out complex math in his head, joined Thomas Edison at Edison Machine Works on the Lower East Side.
. Despite their initial mutual admiration, their relationship is said to have soured due to disagreements over business, ideology, and patents, but we may never know exactly what happened between the two prolific inventors.

Tesla would strike out on his own and had several labs in the city and of course in Long Island where he built his famous lab Wardyncliff.

This brings us to the corner of 40th and 6th avenue which was dedicated to Nikola Tesla in 1994.

“we're talking about the late 1980s, you know, before there was a Tesla car or, you know, Elon Musk or anything like that”
he was such an inspiration that he was not a political person. He was all about science and he was one of us. You know, And that was that was why we felt very strong about him.
40th Street would have been the target one because his laboratory was there

One of Tesla's many labs was located here at 8 West 40th. He relocated here around 1900 shortly after his lab on now LaGuardia place went up in flames.

The community board came back and rejected 40th street because of its proximity to fifth ave and the new York public library…but they had an alternate recommendation… She said, You know, you can do it in the middle of the block or the end of the block.

This area has a couple more spots relevant to Tesla. First some background.
Tesla pioneered the alternating current system (or AC) of electricity used to power houses and offices today.

In an AC flow, electrons switch directions, whereas in a DC flow, the flow of charge is in one direction.

And as you may have already guessed, DC flow was favoured by Edison and is used today in computers, solar cells, and electric vehicles.

Tesla also invented the Tesla Coil to achieve his dream of transmitting electricity without wires. The device is a high frequency transformer that creates very high voltages with low currents. Today tesla coils are mainly used for demonstrations and entertainment. Still, we use the same principles he was experimenting with in radio transmission today.
In 1917 - Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal by the Electrical Engineers Club, which is located here. You can see the plaque here with his name here.

The idea of receiving a medal with his rival's name emblazoned on it was not high on his list. Rumour has it that Tesla disappeared during the ceremony and was finally located outside.



Tesla's biographer, John Jacob O'Neill, described what happened next:

"[There] stood the imposing figure of Tesla, wearing a crown of two pigeons on his head, his shoulders and arms festooned with a dozen more… while seemingly hundreds more made a living carpet on the ground in front of him, hopping about and pecking at the bird seed he had been scattering. "

Tesla loved pigeons. In fact, he fed thousands of pigeons from here to the NY public library, often after midnight on walks from the hotel he would stay at.

One in particular was said to visit him not far from here at the New Yorker Hotel, where he lived in obscurity in the last years of his life.

"When that pigeon died, … I knew my life's work was finished,"

I was in Bryant Park last fall, about a year ago.
And I sat on a park bench for a while and just kind of like, you know, had some memories. And I left because there's a sign on the park bench, do not feed the pigeons. And I said, That sign was here and Tesla was we'd be still using candles.

It took Anton and The Croation New Yorker Club 8 years of going back and forth with the community board, but in 1994 the southwest corner of Bryant Park was dedicated Nikola Tesla Corner.

Thanks for watching and if you like this video, be sure to subscribe, like and leave a comment. Stay tuned for more videos about streets named after scientists in NYC.

00:00 Intro
00:13 Who is Nikola Tesla
01:17 Nikola Tesla Corner
01:49 Tesla's lab on 40th Street
02:20 AC vs DC electricity
02:43 Tesla Coil
03:00 The Edison Medal and "The Engineers Club"
03:25 Tesla's love of pigeons
04:32 Reflections on Tesla
05:02 Nikola Tesla Corner Dedication
05:14 Tesla died in obscurity
05:36 Outro