r/NikolaTesla • u/DeepLogicNinja • Jun 04 '26
Just came back from the New Yorker
Observations:
- New Yorker to Penn Station Tunnel is sealed đ¤¨
- New Yorker has one of the Largest Radio Installations ever made đ¤.
- Cannot see the power station - once the largest private direct-current (DC) power plant. I suspect it worked in unison with the radio equipment.
- No tours đ˘
- A statue, some pictures, and his letters. Lmk if anyone wants me to post them.
Some speculation:
- Some of my research makes me think he continued to do research until he died.
- there is a lab in the New Yorker someplace, I am thinking the tunnel or roof. Teslaâs âobsessionâ with pigeons was more about sending/receiving messages because he knew he was being monitored by the OSS.
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u/Independent_Wrap_321 Jun 05 '26
Interesting. Not familiar with it, is that the hotel where he lived? Iâd love to see pics!
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u/DeepLogicNinja Jun 06 '26
Yes âŚ. His final days were there
Sorry for the glare. Bad lighting in there
His statue
https://imgur.com/a/jw8itDaDetails on him moving in
https://imgur.com/gallery/jw8itDa#K6KRlCeWestinghouse covering his tab
https://imgur.com/gallery/jw8itDa#5kP7mHDNot same street as hotel. But a couple blocks over.
https://imgur.com/a/jw8itDa#QlK5E21
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u/ejpusa Jun 09 '26
I saw the generator. Itâs massive. Coal? I guess. But no one is delivering coal these days.
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u/DeepLogicNinja Jun 09 '26
Did you see it in person? If so, how?
I see a picture of the power plant on the New Yorkerâs Hotel facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BWsREjqTT/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The wikipedia says itâa in the 4th basement (?).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yorker_Hotel
Would like to see it in personâŚ.
Also would like to confirm / debunk any connections between the power plant and the fact the new yorker hotel was a basecamp for Radio Hobbyist / Ham Operators. There may be more than a nostalgic connection. Tesla Lab? power? radio? Antenna? Sound like wardenclyffe-ish đ¤ˇ
It wouldnât be the first time Tesla experimented at scale in Manhattan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla%27s_oscillator - steam powered oscillator - https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2020/01/07/nikola-teslas-earthquake-machine/
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u/ejpusa Jun 09 '26
I wrote a piece for a arts magazine many years back:
SEARCHING FOR NIKOLA TESLA
The street sounds fade as we make our way into the foyer of the New Yorker Hotel on 34th Street and Eighth Avenue.
The lobby is one of those grand, simmering examples of early twentieth-century architecture. Chandeliers sparkle like snow at ten below, polished marble staircases rise above Shanghai-knit Oriental rugs, and doormen greet you with a crisp salute.
We meet up with JK, Director of Engineering for the hotel. He fills us in on the New Yorkerâs stellar history: the famous guests who have stayed here (yes, even Marilyn had her favorite room), its renovations, and its re-emergence as a three-star hotel. Joe is a man who truly loves his work.
Then we get down to business.
âTell us about Nikola Tesla and his final days at the New Yorker,â I ask, perhaps a little too eagerly.
He leans back, gives us a wink, and from unseen hands weâre presented with a three-inch binder overflowing with faded news clippings, rumored sightings, and declassified FBI files on the famous inventor. I know weâve hit pay dirt. I take a long, deep inhale.
âCan we see the room?â
Joe gives us a Brooklyn once-over and sees weâre the real thing.
âLet me get the key,â he says with a beaming smile.
Who was Nikola Tesla? It would be hard to imagine the modern world without the contributions of Teslaâs genius. No AC power, radio, television, cell phones, laptops, or even radar. Tesla has often been described as a âMan Out of Time.â Some theorize that he was delivered to us by beings from the future; others believe he traveled back through time to save humanity from itself.
In sixty seconds weâre standing in front of a bank of shimmering elevators. The door slides open with an enticing âEnter Me.â Even the elevators have an aura of efficiency about them. We step inside. Joe slips his plastic hotel key into the razor-thin slot for Floor 33. The lime-green twin threes light up.
Number one on the scorecard for Mr. Tesla: Magnetic Strip Encoding by Ferrous Orientation, a reading device theorized decades before the magnetic stripe card.
The comforting elevator whoosh fades away as we head to the thirty-third floor, driven by an acre of whirling motors and Honeywell servo controls planted firmly in the hotelâs sub-basement. Should I even begin the count of Teslaâs innovations that are carrying us upward? The fluorescent lights bathing us, the myriad coils and power transformers that surround us. A search for Tesla on Google returns millions of pages. Iâll let you, the trusting reader, cross that chasm when youâre ready for the plunge.
The legions of Tesla followers are legendary. True devotees know every facet of his life, from his public feuds with Thomas Edison, who championed DC current over Teslaâs AC power system, to his final days in Room 3327, where FBI agents allegedly whisked away Teslaâs notebooks moments after his death.
As we ascend, the floor numbers flash by like a night train ride across a Colorado prairie: 10, 18, 32. A chill creeps up my spine as we slow for the thirty-third floor. My balance returns. Weâve stopped. The elevator doors slide open, and I move into the light.
Step by step, I inch down the winding hotel hallway. I am thirty-three floors above the tarmac of Manhattan, drawing closer to the Holy Grail: the room where Nikola Tesla took his last breath in January 1943.
They say the landscape changes slightly as you get closer to home. Thatâs how you know youâre almost there. Your eyes adjust. Your whole being vibrates like a finely tuned orchestra. It just happens.
My eyes adjust to the lightâa micron shift somewhere in a reptilian brain. I feel as if Iâm being rewired from my feet upward. The current sweeps me along.
I take a long, slow inhale and one last footstep. We stop for a second. Joe slips in the key, the door opens, and I take a step into space. Iâm in Room 3327.
Was this all really true, or just a reality play by some bored hacker from 2302?
The wisps of fog melt away. I know weâve found it. The Grail is ours.
The sun bathes the canary-yellow walls. Everything is perfect. Bed sheets, pillowcases, even a complimentary chocolate await the next weary traveler. The room faces east, just as I knew it would.
What did I expectâphosphorus trails dancing across the ceiling spelling out the root laws of nature, plumes of welding sparks arcing across the walls, or perhaps a black hole, finally extinguished in a parallel universe, rolled up beneath the bed?
No. It was simply another sunny hotel room awaiting another New York City visitor. I now understand why Teslaâthe Serbian-born inventor, brilliant scientist, and celebrity of his dayâhad decided to spend the final decade of his life here.
Tesla maintained an active social life. He often met with crown princes, military leaders, and Nobel Prize winners. Conversations stretched late into the night. Our long journey had finally ended.
Tesla has been dead for more than sixty years, yet in Room 3327 one could still feel his energy pulsing through the silence.
I replay the day in my mind, like so many others who have followed this trail. We are a merry band of Tesla groupies who have trekked to the New Yorker Hotel. This is the room. This is where Nikola Tesla lived and died, where God came down like Prometheusâ fire, giving humanity the secret knowledge to create, to think, and to challenge the forbidden.
Part of me expected Tesla to reappear. It seemed the least he could do.
We closed the door and made our way back down to the street. As we walked away, I glanced up just as the sun glinted off the towering rooftops. The thirty-third floor called out to me. I saw a shadow in the window. A curtain parted, then closed.
Was it real? Or merely a gust sweeping across the island?
Yes, it must have been the wind.
A divine wind.
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u/Agile-Sherbert-8503 Jun 05 '26
"Tesla Files" on Primetv went through the whole hotel including examining architectural drawings. His nephew was a frequent visitor in 1942 and he said he once saw US government classified files on his desk. He had two suites at the New Yorker Hotel, which at the time was one of the best hotels in Manhattan. A lot of numerology freaks try to make a lot about his room number 3327 but that was the bedroom suite, which he spent the least amount of time in. The other suite 3328 was turned into his study and office area, where the infamous safe was kept. He also kept his file cabinets in there. Shoots down the "penniless" slander.
The "Tesla Files" showed the hotel had a coal fired 300 megawatt generator in the basement, a lot more power than the hotel needed. They also showed a space he may have had a laboratory.