LONG ISLAND CITY POWERHOUSE HISTORY
--Robert Caro
The Long Island City Power House opened in 1905 as part of "the most extensive system of electrification yet put in operation on any steam railway in the world" but is now threatened with demolition of its iconic smokestacks. The planned conversion to luxury condominiums is to add six floors that will alter it almost beyond recognition. Demolition netting is already draped over one of the stacks, and the owner has applied for demolition permits. It appears to be doomed on the eve of its 100th birthday.
The Power House was built as part of a massive endeavor to improve the city’s commuter transportation network. Concerns about safety, noise, and dirt from steam-driven trains resulted in an 1897 agreement with the city of Brooklyn requiring the Long Island Rail Road to separate its tracks from the surface of Atlantic Avenue and to operate these passenger trains using a motive power that did not require combustion. Since it would make no sense to only partly electrify busy lines and require people to change trains to complete their trips, the LIRR proceeded to electrify all its steam lines out of Flatbush Avenue Terminal, the hub for heavy suburban and excursion traffic. Service was inaugurated in July, 1905 with trains running from the Flatbush Avenue Terminal over the Rockaway Beach Division.
The Pennsylvania Railroad owned the LIRR at this time and plans for the Power House were only part of an enormous electrification and expansion project which began in 1902 and ended in 1910 with the completion of Penn Station in Manhattan. Tunnels for both railroads under the Hudson and East Rivers were also part of the plan. McKim, Mead, and White were the overall project architects, which has caused a number of sources including a 1906 Scientific American article, to attribute the design of the Power House to this renowned firm. (Henry Herman)Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co., the engineering firm that designed the mechanical and electrical systems for the project and handled the structural engineering for the buildings seems to some scholars to be a likelier candidate for the building’s design.
The LIRR chose to use the third-rail system, which was more reliable than the newer single-phase system that used overhead wires. The subways had already been built to use electricity and made use of the same AC-DC, third-rail technology. Alternating current can be transmitted over longer distances, but direct current operates at lower voltage so was safer to have on the tracks near passengers. Also, AC-powered motors had not yet been perfected and DC motors were more powerful. The Long Island City Power House generated AC electricity that was transmitted to trackside substations, the romantic ruins of which still dot Brooklyn, where it was converted to DC to drive the motors on the trains.
The railroad considered building two power stations—one near Jamaica and one on the New York side of the Hudson--to connect with the Newark Rapid Transit system through the Hudson and Manhattan tubes into Church Street. However, the land proved difficult to acquire and in order to create steam for the turbines, both plants needed to be located near a water source so the East River made more sense than Jamaica and one power house easiest of all. Long Island City was centrally located for the lines in Brooklyn and into Manhattan.
The Long Island City Power House is only the second power house in the country to be built for steam turbines. This technology uses steam vapor to turn turbine generators. Steam turbines were invented by Sir Charles Parsons, an Englishman, who licensed the technology to the American (George) Westinghouse Electric Co., which built and supplied the turbines. When the Power House opened, it had three 5,500 kW generators. By 1910 two 8,000 kW generators had been added to provide power to the tunnels into Penn Station. The plan was to continue to expand the plant to power trains all the way to New Jersey.
The Power House burned coal to boil water for steam to drive the turbines. There once was a steel tower that ran from the top of the boiler house over to the water for unloading coal from barges. It rose 170 feet above the dock with a big clamshell bucket that lifted the coal into cars that ran on a circular cable over a bridge into the boiler house where the coal was dumped into hoppers and crushed to a uniform size for efficient burning. It fell by gravity down from the top of the building down into the boilers. The coal "pockets" or storage bins are still there. Ash from the burning of the coal fell down to another small railway in the basement, which carried this waste away.
The power house sits on a concrete foundation that is over six feet thick. The stacks alone took three and a half months to build. They are of steel plate lined with fire brick. They were built as independent structures from the boiler house so the building would not be stressed by the stacks deflecting in the wind. The 64-foot-long overhead crane is still in place in the turbine hall. It took three railroad cars to transport it from Morgan Engineering in Ohio, which built it. It was used to move generating equipment for installation and repair and could lift 55 tons.
The Long Island City waterfront was once a major transit hub, with freight being loaded and unloaded to carfloats (barges that carried railcars) using the transfer bridges in Gantry State Park. To the other side of the Power House was a large ferry landing where passengers could transfer from the ferries to the passenger trains that still stop at a yard just a few blocks away along Newtown Creek, itself a major industrial thoroughfare where tugs and barges still ply their trade. This striking monument to the earlier days when our waterfront worked for us should be preserved.
--Mary Habstritt
President
Roebling Chapter
Society for Industrial Archeology