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| Waterside Station postcard, circa 1907. |
Designed in the Beaux Arts style, the mammoth edifice actually houses two power stations, the second arriving in 1905. Producing both electricity and steam, the plant undergoes numerous renovations over the years to keep up with advances in power technology. The New York Edison Company is renamed Consolidated Edison in 1936.
Above, an aerial view from 1926, when Tudor City was still on the drawing boards. Waterside Station was powered by coal, which burned pungently and abundantly. Soot would be a problem in the enclave for decades, even after coal was replaced by natural gas in 1958.
Although most of Tudor City turned its back on the East River, No. 5 offered industrial-chic riverside views.
The red-brick power plant as seen from Queens around 2000. It was decommissioned on April 29, 2005, after 104 years of continuous service.
Waterside Station was sold by Con Edison to real estate tycoon Sheldon Solow for $680 million, and demolished in 2007. The property is a vacant lot today.
If you are interested, there is a really fascinating book about Thomas Edison, AC vs DC, J.P.Morgan, Westinghouse & Tesla and how it came to be Consolidated Edison. The book is "The Last Days of Night".
ReplyDeleteHow come building 5 was constructed to not "turn its back on the East River"?
ReplyDeleteNice building pictures and history of old new York city, thank you for sharing them.
ReplyDeleteAround 1980, had occasion to speak with Bob Nunnelly who worked at the ConEd Waterside plants. Combined output of the two was around 225MW. Waterside I had one boiler which produced 1600 pounds per square inch of steam at 950 degrees F.
ReplyDeleteWaterside II had six boilers exhausting into the two stacks. Both plants underwent numerous changes of boilers over the decades, culminating in the described arrangement above.
The buildings were architectural treasures.
Paul V. Zecchino
Manasota Key, Florida
29 DEC '20
I wonder if Bob Nunnelly know my Grandfather Joseph Kelly he was a boiler engineer for Con Edison at the waterside station I have his badge says he retired in 1953
DeleteI'm a former employee there called asbestos cancer 10 years later after working there
ReplyDeleteVery first time I visited the city was summer of 2000. I remember being on 42nd st, (greyhound bus) and I saw one of those tall smoke stacks next to an apartment building. I also remember seeing the UN and Socony buildings.
ReplyDeleteI worked there from 1962 to 1969 and the capacity as a performance technician during our period the plant had an output of about 500 MW and 2 1/2 million pounds of steam per hour into the Con Edison steam system, making it the largest cogeneration plant in New York City and perhaps the United States at that time. As an aside, during that period we had two major blackouts in New York City. When the first blackout occured around 5:20 pm I was on the 10th floor Commerce Building at NYU taking evening courses toward my engineering degree. I walked back to the plant to offer assistance. There was zero activity in the plant - you could hear a pin drop - very eerie ! A long delay was required as manholes in the streets of Manhattan needed to be inspected before a restart could occur. The plant management of Waterside took advantage of this delay and devised a plan to to remove the guts of a check valve and bring Steam from the New York Steam Plant at 34th St. and 1st Avenue into the Plant and use that steam to roll a low pressure turbine which when energized, shot a feed up to 74th St. to start that plant.
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