Memorials to Nikola Tesla in USA

From the expose by Miloje Popovic, freelance writer and journalist, member of the Executive Board of the Tesla Memorial Society in New York, at the tribune “Tesla - Genius and Visionary of 21^st Century” in the Belgrade Chamber of Economy, on the occasion of the 150^th birth anniversary of the great inventor and scientist

In addition to the well-known Tesla Monument at Niagara Falls, erected thirty years ago, as a reproduction of the work by Frano Krsinic which was set up in front of the Faculty of the Electrical Engineering in 1963, there are several other memorial symbols in New York dedicated to Nikola Tesla. Apart from the Nikola Tesla Corner Sign located at the intersection of 41^st Street and 6^th Avenue, there is a Commemorative Plaque in 27^th Street, between 6^th Avenue and Broadway, “on the building in which the former Gerlach Hotel used to be” and in which Tesla lived for a while, and which was, thereupon, renamed The Radio Wave Building. This commemorative plaque was unveiled by the borough president of Manhattan, Percy Sutton, in March 1977. The Tesla Commemorative Plaque on Hotel New Yorker, in which Tesla lived longest, was erected on July 10, 2001. The photo of Nikola Tesla in the Immigration Museum of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, in the vicinity of New York City, is bigger in size even than the one of Einstein. As it is well-known, the ceremony of the Tesla Monument unveiling at Niagara Falls, now on the Canadian side, is also being prepared. In Belgrade, the erecting of a memorial at the Belgrade airport, which is recently named “Nikola Tesla” is on the agenda. The former Tesla’s Tower in Shoreham, a little place a hundred kilometers away from New York, which was 57 meter high (which was in that period a pretty tall structure) was projected by Tesla to be the first telecommunication center in the world. It would, apart from wireless transmission of electric power, transmit the radio waves, wireless telegraphy and telephony. The Tower was operative for only four years (from 1901 to 1905) and ceased its operations for financial reasons. This original Tesla’s insignia was destroyed during the World War I, since someone in the American government believed that it could be the landmark for German submarines. The Tesla Memorial Society of New York, together with the American partners and immigrant organizations, has spoken in favor of the reconstruction of the Tower, which can be turned into the Museum of Nikola Tesla for the territory of USA.