Step Into the Machine Shop Where the Movies Were Born
You walk into a long, wood-floored room lined with lathes, drill presses and benches, the belts and gears still in place, and the scale of the place settles on you: this was not a single inventor's desk but an industrial facility built for invention itself. The laboratory complex in West Orange, New Jersey, is the second Edison Laboratories, constructed by Edison in 1887 and operated for more than forty years. More than a dozen buildings supported his research into electricity, photography, motion pictures, chemistry and metallurgy. You can wander the specialty heavy and precision machine shops where tooling and prototypes were made, and the private library attached to the main laboratory building. Out of these rooms came the motion picture camera, improved phonographs, sound recordings, silent and sound movies, and the nickel-iron alkaline electric storage battery.
Stand Beside the Black Maria, the World's First Movie Studio
The building that changed how the world watched itself is here. Edison's Black Maria was the world's first movie studio, and it could be rotated on a turntable to keep sunlight on the film subjects. A replica was constructed in 1954, so you can see the structure and picture the crew turning it to chase the sun across the sky. Pair it with the machine shops and the library and you begin to understand the working method: a place designed so that an idea could move from sketch to prototype to finished product without leaving the grounds.
Cross Town to Glenmont, Edison's Home in Llewellyn Park
About half a mile west of the laboratories, in Llewellyn Park, sits Glenmont, Edison's Queen Anne style home. The house was designed by Henry Hudson Holly and built between 1880 and 1882 for Henry Pedder, originally comprising 23 rooms, with gravity-convection central heat, indoor flush toilets, and hot and cold piped water. Pedder was found to have embezzled funds from his employer to build Glenmont and was forced to surrender the estate; Edison bought it in 1886 and moved in with his newly married second wife Mina and his three children from his first marriage. Edison added six more rooms and electrical wiring. Inside, the house retains its original furnishings in an Eastlake style interior, and it is where his children with Mina grew up, including future New Jersey governor Charles Edison and industrialist Theodore Miller Edison.
A Place to Think About How America Made Things
Both properties, designed in 1887 by architect Henry Hudson Holly, are preserved together as Thomas Edison National Historical Park. The site interprets America's industrial, social and economic past, and the Friends of Edison, a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service, works on preservation and restoration of the laboratory and home. If you have ever wondered how a laboratory actually functioned, rather than simply what it produced, this is the place to find out. Note that the park is in West Orange, New Jersey, not New York City, so plan your crossing of the Hudson accordingly.
Before You Go
Set aside a half day for the laboratory complex and its more than a dozen buildings, and leave time to make the short trip to Glenmont so you see both halves of Edison's world in one visit. Check the park's official site for current visiting arrangements and any restoration work before you travel, since the Friends of Edison's preservation efforts continue. Then pick a date, cross the river, and spend a morning among the lathes and the turntable where the movies began.