DAY TRIPPING IN NEW JERSEY--Summer 2015

DAY TRIPPING IN NEW JERSEY
SUMMER TRAVELS-- New York 2015
When it came time to take Tara to Newark Airport for a flight south, we had another opportunity to do some sightseeing.  Andy had planned our trip to New Jersey as a day of touring once we left the terminals. With Tara safely ushered inside, it was on to Thomas Edison's library and complex in West Orange, New Jersey for us.

The factory Library is a place of intellectual magnificence.

Nestled between shelves of rare books
in the library is Edison's bed.

The spacious and elegant library was attached to the main factory building. Thomas Edison maintained a research library that was immediately accessible to him and his workers.  Besides rare texts of all shapes and sizes, it included art and sculpture, as well as a bed for him to use at any time of the day or night.

In this lab Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb.

In 1887, this laboratory building was one of the best-equipped chemistry laboratories in the world. Within its walls, Thomas Edison and his chemists experimented on everything from phonograph records to rubber.
"Grand science--chemistry," Edison once said. "I like it best of all the sciences."
Beginning in the late 1890's, Edison and his staff worked for more than a decade to develop a practical storage battery for electric automobiles.  After thousands of experiments, they produced a nickel-iron-alkaline battery by 1909.  Although not practical for electric autos, Edison's durable battery was used for industry, mining and railroad applications.  And it was actually invented in this lab more than a hundred years ago.


The old factory was clean and polished.

Andy and I walked slowly through the clean, old machines, reading the interpretive signs and trying to imagine what it would have been like to work for Thomas Edison.  "This would have been very noisy and very dirty," explained Andy.  "But it would also have been exciting to be in such a stimulating atmosphere."
Three complete floors of memorabilia filled every inch of the old lab building, with moving displays and sound bites. We could have spent days just reading all the information.
The adjoining buildings gave us peaks into life on Thomas Edison's "campus."
Metals were vital to Thomas Edison--from iron, copper and various alloys used in new inventions to gold for plating phonograph record molds.  In the adjoining metallurgical laboratory, workers collected, assayed and evaluated the metals used for Edison's projects.
In the late 1890's Edison employees experimented with the magnetic extraction of iron from low-grade ore.  But by 1900, discovery of high-grade ore deposits dashed Edison's hope of making a profit from milling New Jersey's low-grade ores.  After losing millions, Edison stated, "Well, it's all gone, but we had a good time spending it!"

In excellent condition, Edison's main factory stands as a
tribute to scientific experimentation and industrial development.

Building 4 was put to non-metallurgical uses--experiments in sound recording and phonograph record duplication were conducted in this building before 1903.  By 1912, much of the experimental work concentrated on the diamond disc phonograph.  At that time Edison and his assistants were known as the Insomnia Squad.
Finally we reached the outdoor pavilion adjoining the Black Maria.  It was set up with a large tent for outdoor entertainment.  In 1893 the Black Maria became the world's first building constructed as a motion picture studio.  The odd-shaped structure was designed to keep sunlight on the stage while Edison's pioneers made kinetoscope films.

The first ever movie studio, The Black Maria
rotates to capture sunlight during filming.

Although most filming took place around noon, the Black Maria could use available sunlight at all hours. During filming, the angled roof was opened using pulleys to allow sunlight in the studio.  The entire building rested on a pivot and wood track.  As the sun's angle changed during the day, Edison's movie makers periodically stopped filming to push the Black Maria around a few feet to keep sunlight on its stage. 
An early sound picture from 1894 showed Edison's chief motion picture assistant playing violin while two men danced.  The kinetophone, a "talking pictures" system, was introduced by Edison in 1912, but it proved unreliable and was soon abandoned.  Practical sound film was not achieved until the late 1920's.

Edison's parlor offers understated
elegance of upper class living.

The Thomas Edison mansion of West Orange, New Jersey
offers spacious lawns and gardens at the top of the hill.

Because we signed up early, we also had an opportunity to drive to the nearby mansion home of Edison and his family for a private small group tour.  Comfortable and spacious, the home allowed Thomas Edison and his family to live in style in northern New Jersey.  "I could easily move in here," said Andy.  I certainly had to agree. The scientist and inventor had all the conveniences of the time, but it certainly was not gaudy or extravagant.

Following Andy's map and my own GPS know-how, we found our way to Paterson, New Jersey to the Paterson Great Falls.

Even in a dry summer, Paterson Great Falls puts on a display.



Located downtown, the park is
currently being upgraded.

What eventually will be a beautiful walk along the river currently leaves a great deal to be done. Obvious efforts to upgrade the area are underway, and what was probably an industrial mess is now an improved park for Paterson residents.


Trails follow both sides of the waterway.

No swimming allowed here, but the scenery is lovely.