IEEE Spectrum November, 2014 - 29

RESOURCES_GEEk lIfE

NIKola teSla SlePt HeRe
the new yorKer hotel'S Joe
Kinney KeepS the inventor'S
memory Alive

Moving through the hotel's art deco
lobby, we descend the stairs to Kin-
ney's subterranean office, and he talks
as we go. "This hotel is the only place
in the country where Tesla spent a lot
of time and that still exists much as it
was when he was alive," says Kinney.
"Everyplace else is either demolished
or radically changed."
From 1933 until his death in 1943,
Tesla lived in relative obscurity at the
New Yorker Hotel with little means.
Considered quirky, he loved pigeons
and was known to spend time every
day in nearby Bryant Park visiting
them or feeding them from the win-
dows of his room. Tesla's New York
Times obituary refers to his claims
about death beams and communi-
cations from Mars.
But in his earlier days, Tesla made
critical contributions to establishing
electricity as the ubiquitous workhorse
it is today. Electrical power was still a
novelty when the Croatian-born, ethnic
Serbian visionary arrived in New York
City with pennies in his pocket at the
age of 28 in 1884. He also had a head
full of ideas, many of them formed
while working for the Continental
Edison Company in France. He worked
on improving Edison's DC system, but
he fell out with Edison over pay. Eventu-
ally, Tesla found a backer in Pittsburgh
industrialist George Westinghouse for
his designs for motors and transform-
utSide the 34th Street Side of the new yorker hotel ers that used AC.
The rivalry between the backers of AC and
in Manhattan, it seems fitting that lightning cracks the sky as
Joseph kinney [above] points to a plaque recognizing that the DC power became known as the War of Cur-
father of aC power, nikola tesla, once lived at the hotel. that very few rents. In the end, AC power triumphed over
among the thousands of people walking by each day realize that the DC power, and Tesla conducted many spec-
inventor and engineer once rivaled thomas edison, alexander graham tacular, well-attended high-voltage power
bell, and henry ford for the mantle of greatest american inventor is demonstrations, including a high-profile
kinney, appearance at the Chicago World's Fair
why kinney has spent nearly 20 years championing tesla.
the chief building engineer for the hotel as well as its unofficial histo- (formally known as the World's Columbian
rian, is a 63-year-old bespectacled man with white hair and a perpetual Exposition) in 1893. Edison, shortly before
twinkle in his eye. his sarcasm and intensity often ignite a rather goofy, his death in 1931, said that one of the big-
high-pitched chortle. dressed in tie and jacket despite the oppressive gest mistakes of his life was his failure to
humidity of a hot summer day, he is clearly proud of the tesla plaque, back AC power.
But inventing AC power failed to sustain
which reads, in part: "here died, on January 7, 1943, at the age of 87,
Tesla, who foolishly released Westinghouse
the great yugoslav-american scientist-inventor."

photograph by

Randi Klett

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

nORTh aMERICan

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum November, 2014