Milestones:Largest Private (dc) Generating Plant in the U.S.A.,
1929 Largest Private (dc) Generating Plant in the U.S.A.,
1929generators, with exhaust steam used for heating and other
facilities. The installation used more than two hundred dc
motors, and was controlled from a seven-foot (two-meter) high,
sixty-foot (eighteen-meter) long switchboard. The plaque can be
viewed near the elevators of the New Yorker Hotel, 481 8th
Avenue, New York, NY 10001. What would be described today as a
"cogeneration" facility was incorporated into the design of the
hotel. Steam engines were to drive electric generators, and the
exhaust steam from these engines would then be used for heating
the building as well as in other facilities, such as the hotel
laundry. A cost analysis performed at that time showed a savings
of US$48,000 per year as compared to the cost of purchasing
electric power. The Hotel New Yorker, at 8th Avenue and 34th
Street, was also the residence of Nikola Tesla for the last ten
years of his life until his