Edison Memorial Tower to be rededicated on Saturday

• For the first time in many years, the Edison Memorial Tower will shine light, chime and play music
• The tower's restoration cost $3.5 in state funds and $375,000 in county funds
• The tower was dedicated in 1938 on the site of the inventor's lab, but fell into years of disrepair
• Residents fondly recall the light of the tower as a beacon to home, as well as its 5 o'clock chime

EDISON - The township’s pride and joy will be beaming for the first time in a decade on Oct. 24 when the Edison Memorial Tower is relit after a $3.9 million renovation to the once-crumbling tribute to namesake inventor Thomas Alva Edison.

On the site of the Wizard of Menlo Park’s laboratory from 1876 to 1887, the tower stands in commemoration of the more than 400 inventions Edison created there. They include the phonograph in 1877, the incandescent light bulb in 1879, an underground electrical system in 1880, an electric-powered railway in 1881 and an electrically lit street in 1882.

Based on the 12,000 annual global visitors to the adjacent Thomas Edison museum, many from around the world will cast its eyes upon Menlo Park this weekend, along with hundreds of guests who’ll celebrate the tower’s rededication from noon to 7 p.m. on Christie Street. They will include Mayor Thomas Lankey.

“The newly restored Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park – with its 77-year-old tower and museum – is once again a proud a jewel of our community and a shining beacon that attracts thousands of visitors annually from around the world to Edison Township,” Lankey said. “Once listed among New Jersey's 10 most endangered historic sites, the Edison Memorial Tower and Museum has been returned to its Art Deco brilliance and stands once more as a proud monument to science, innovation, creativity, ingenuity and history.”

Lankey also praised the generosity of the state, county, township and several other benefactors, including individuals, businesses, community groups and civic organizations, all of whom made the restoration a reality. The Edison community is forever in their debt, Lankey said, having restored the symbol of the township’s municipal seal and logo.

Light bulb replica gifted to Edison Township

Gladys Fitzgerald said she is among the many longtime members of the community who are grateful. When Fitzgerald was 12 years old and her sister, Majorie, was 11, they attended the original 1938 dedication of the tower with their mother, Edda.

After living in the township for more than 80 years, Fitzgerald retired to the Jersey Shore three years ago. But she said she is excited on Oct. 24 to visit her old neighborhood, a block from the tower she remembers so fondly, not only for the giant, brightly lit bulb at its top that served as a beacon to home, but also the chimes and music it  will play for the first time in 20 years.

“That tower was such a big part of my life growing up,” she said. “I was just there with one of my grandson in August. He wanted to see where Grandma grew up. They told me about the rededication of the tower. I’m so excited because maybe there’ll be some other old people there I went to school with.

“I remember the cornerstone of the tower and going to the ceremony,” Fitzgerald continued. “I remember as a child, I used to sit on the steps at my house and listen to the music of the tower and the chiming. At 5 o’clock, they used to chime the time and then play organ music. The two songs I remember are ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’ and ‘Danny Boy.’”

Menlo Park museum shines a light on Thomas Edison

When the tower was dedicated in 1938, Edison had been dead seven years. The last time he had visited the site was in 1925, when the state unveiled a large commutative plaque imbedded in stone that still stands at the corner of Christie Street and Route 27.

Upon the inventor’s death, his family donated the 34-acre property to the state to make it into a park. Since 1999, the nonprofit Edison Memorial Tower Corp. has worked to restore the tower, as well as a museum whose 12,000 annual visitors include school and college groups and Edison enthusiasts, scholars and historians from around the world.

Having outgrown its space, the museum will undergo a $2 million expansion as soon as funding is secured, Director Kathleen Carlucci said. During the rededication ceremony, Carlucci said she and the museum’s supporters hope to gain momentum for a proposed expansion.

“We’re looking to get a modular museum,” Carlucci said. “The atrium of the tower would be standing in the foreground. It will be a community center really. We’ll be able to have more classes, have more school groups come, and have more hands-on exhibits, where students can touch things and really interact with them. To be able to use all your senses makes a greater impression.

“That’s the way Edison was,” she continued. “We’re talking about a fabulous history. His story is inspirational. Edison changed the world.”

Preserving Thomas Edison history in namesake town

In addition to the first light and sound to come from the tower in many years, Carlucci said event highlights will include:

• A “Mr. Edison” re-enactor.
• Food, business and nonprofit vendors.
• Demonstrations of nearby school science, technology and engineering projects.
• Displays of emergency response vehicles and by the local historical society and library system.
• Walking tours of the grounds.
• An outline of where Edison’s laboratory once stood.   

What you can do

Enjoy the rededication of the Edison Memorial Tower from noon to 7 p.m. on Oct. 24 at the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park, 37 Christie St., Edison. Admission is free and items from a food court will be available to purchase. The event will culminate with the lighting of the tower fat 7 p.m. For more info, visit www.menloparkmuseum.org or call 732-549-3299.

Staff Writer Bob Makin: 732-565-7319; bmakin@MyCentralJersey.com