Tesla's Laboratory: Still Off Limits
Shoreham, New York
Nikola Tesla was a genius or a mad scientist or perhaps both. He's credited with the development of alternating current as well as the fluorescent tube and the remote control. But his great dream was Wireless Power, the ability to simply broadcast electricity to everyone.
Tesla built a 16 acre laboratory, "Wardenclyffe," at the eastern end of Long Island, and within the compound erected a massive tower, almost 200 feet tall, from which he hoped to beam electric power. But the tower was dynamited in 1917, supposedly to prevent its possible use by German spies. Tesla never had enough money to build another, and died a penniless recluse.
The laboratory remained and eventually was sold to the Agfa Corp., which polluted the land so thoroughly that it became a Superfund Site, off-limits to everyone (Or at least, that's the official story for fencing it off). But it's still the last surviving Tesla lab, and a local group hopes to turn it into a Tesla Museum when the cleanup is completed -- whenever that will be.
