A recent push to turn inventor Nikola Tesla's former Long Island laboratory into a permanent memorial is even closer to becoming reality: organizers behind the project have purchased the 16-acre property in Shoreham and are trying to raise $10 million to pay for its restoration.
The lab, called Wardenclyffe Tower, was once in danger of being destroyed; when it was put up for sale over the summer, Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal and Tesla superfan, spearheaded an Indiegogo campaign to rev up funds to purchase the lab. That campaign smashed records, ended at $1.3 million and gave Tesla supporters the go-ahead to get the land; now, the sale is complete. "We are very excited to be able to finally set foot on the grounds where Tesla walked and worked," Gene Genova, Vice President of the Tesla Science Center, said in a statement.
But the work's not done yet: "Now begin the next important steps in raising the money needed to restore the historic laboratory," Mary Daum, the Center's treasurer, also said in a statement. The organizers estimate that they need about $10 million to renovate the space and turn it into a visitor-ready museum and memorial, which they hope to gather through a number of TBD fundraising efforts. Tesla, who died in the New Yorker Hotel in 1943, carried out a number of his wireless transmission experiments at Wardenclyffe.
