edison tower

Menlo Park is a section of Edison, NJ. Edison is of course named for the most famous man of the 20th century, Thomas Edison... (Raritan Township changed its name to Edison in 1954). Thomas Edison lived and worked in Menlo Park from 1876 to 1882, and made many of his breakthroughs and inventions here... before moving to much bigger facilities in West Orange, NJ. The site of the Edison Tower and the Menlo Park Thomas Edison Center is where his lab and research facilites once stood. He lived just down the street. Christie Street was the first in the world to be lit with electric lights. Considering the historic significance of this location, there really should be much more here. (Edison's West Orange lab, facilities, home, and museum are all beautifully restored and open to the public).The Edison Tower is a beautiful art deco style tower (131 feet tall), finished in 1938, topped with the world's biggest light bulb. However, this tower has fallen into serious disrepair, and is currently closed and is being renovated. It has been closed for a few years already and unfortunately does not look close to being done. It is currently fenced off and scaffolded and partially covered. You can see, from a distance, how impressive it once was... and will be again when it is done. Next door on this Menlo Park site is a nice VERY SMALL museum. It has a few good exhibits, and a tour guide tells the story of Edison's earlier years. It is good, but there should be much more. You can easily go through the whole exhibit in about 20 minutes. There are no original buildings (or even reconstructed ones). There is a scale model of the original building (made from materials from the original structure). The whole museum is about the size of the gift shop of a larger museum. The tour guide was interesting and informative, and tried hard to tell the story with what they had there. It was ok, but a little disappointing. Considering that the town is named EDISON, and the undenialable historic significance of the site, I was really expecting more. Thomas Edison deserves more. The West Orange Edison site is incredible and should not be missed (please see my review). I am not saying to skip the Menlo Park site, but only go here for completeness if you have the time. It is worth a visit, but if you are only going to one Edison site, it is absolutely no contest, you must go to West Orange. I would go back to Menlo Park only when the tower reopens... that would be worth seeing.

With immense happiness , i went to the spot...when i went i felt unhappy .. such great person not honored .. the tower work is under renovation... i inquired about that renovation.. more than two years ..the progress is going on .. only lack of fund .. the progress getting very slow... here it is in charge of the township to manage the the fund for it's renovation.. 400 more inventions were made out this spot.. Edison"s friend Henry ford taken away the remnants of factory buildings to Michigan .. he saved something from here... all over the world .. EDISON known to the people ..in very popular.invention (in incandescent bulb & phonograph) .. but here .. it is ...? federal govt of America may..do something...

Here is another place to take the kids to learn about the many contributions made by Thomas Edison, easy to get to, right off RT27, in fact you can see it from the hwy