Tesla, Builder of Shoreham Tower, Dies

Nikola Tesla, electrical inventor and eccentric, remembered by many Long Islanders for the tall steel tower and huge brick laboratory he built at Shoreham, about 1912, succumbed to old age last Thursday in the suite at the New Yorker Hotel where he had lived many years. He was 86 years old.

Considered one of the most important scientists of the age, among other things, Tesla was the discoverer of alternating current power transmission and distribution of electrical energy.

On his 78th birthday he startled everyone by announcing he had invented a “death beam” powerful enough to destroy 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles and annihilate an army of 1,000,000 soldiers instantly. He was a strict vegetarian but regarded alcohol in moderation as a boon to man.