Wardenclyffe Tower, also known as the Tesla Tower, is a 57-meter high radio transmitter and experimental tower that Nikola Tesla started building in 1901. The main financier was J.P. Morgan, who invested $150,000 in the project (equivalent to more than $4 million today). Tesla presented it to him as a powerful and superior radio transmitter capable of transmitting messages across the Atlantic. Tesla had bigger plans and believed he could use this tower to transmit electricity wirelessly. J.P. Morgan refused to further fund Tesla's plans, and in 1904 the two broke off. Due to a lack of funding, the tower and the laboratory that Tesla build next to the tower were never completed or became operational. The project was finally abandoned in 1906.
Due to the financial problems of Tesla, the plant was slowly falling into disrepair. In 1915, he had to sell it to George C. Boldt, in whose luxury Waldorf-Astoria hotel he lived on debt. In 1917, Boldt sold Tesla’s assets to the Smiles Steel Company, which soon demolished the tower and sold the raw material. The brick building still stands today.
Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe is a not-for-profit organization that is trying to develop the site of Tesla's laboratory into a transformative global science center and preserve his legacy in the Tesla Museum.
Website: www.teslasciencecenter.org