In the fall of 1882 part of New York's lower Manhattan flipped the switch on what seemed to many to be an unholy miracle—a centralized, commercial electrical system providing both power and light. The power station at its hub stood on Pearl Street, in the capital's financial district. This was the first permanent system of its kind. It used direct (as opposed to alternating) current and 3,000 electric lamps. The man behind it was the irrepressible multiple inventor and "wizard of Menio Park Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931).
In the late 1870s one of the greatest quests of practical science had been to replace large, powerful electric arc lamps, which overheated easily, with smaller, safer lights. Edison's Electric Light Company, backed by a brace of prominent financiers including J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts, set about creating a parallel circuit where the current was divided between a string of small lamps (as opposed to the series circuit of the arc lamp). The aim was to prevent the entire circuit from blowing if one lamp failed. Using the type of carbon technology he had pursued for his carbon- button transmitter and phonograph of 1877, Edison produced carbonized bamboo bulb filaments. He also devised generators, junction boxes, safety fuses, sockets, and other related equipment to create a whole system to be used at Pearl Street.
Extensive networks with large central power stations, as opposed to those in individual buildings, took time to take off, and gas lights remained common for some time. However, a revolution had been set in motion. Tungsten bulbs appeared around 1915 and produced a much whiter light.
