Tesla Statue: American Side

Niagara Falls, New York

A gift from Yugoslavia to the United States in 1976, the bronze statue is the work of Croatian sculptor Frano Krsinic. It's on Goat Island, just upriver from Horseshoe Falls, and you get to it by walking through the entrance arch of the old Niagara Falls power plant that Nikola Tesla helped to build in 1895, the first big hydroelectric plant in the world.

Tesla, although giant-size, looks angular and unfinished, He sits in a big chair, wearing what look like rubberized overalls (electric shock proof). His head is bowed, and he's reading what appear to be blueprints in his lap (The shiny surface of the blueprints suggest that tourists sit on them for photo-ops). It's Tesla as a science geek, not the madman media darling that everyone loves today.

The Tesla statue on the Canadian side of the Falls is more flamboyant and visually satisfying, although the American statue deserves credit for being the first Tesla tribute in North America.