Nikola Tesla – Over $1 million raised to save Wardenclyffe

The IndieGoGo crowdfunding effort has reached the end, and the grand total is…

(insert drum roll here if you feel so inclined)

…$1,370,511

Wow. Just wow.

Congratulations to the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. And many thanks to Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal for such amazing outreach.

For those just catching this for the first time, an opportunity arose to purchase the one remaining laboratory facility of Nikola Tesla. The Wardenclyffe property at Shoreham, Long Island had been used for many years by a photographic processing company but recently came up for sale. While the iconic tower is long gone, the main building remains. The Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe teamed with The Oatmeal with the goal of raising $850,000 in 45 days, which along with a matching grant from the State of New York, would be enough to meet the asking price of the property. To the surprise of everyone that goal was reached in a matter of days and the fund passed $1 million within about a week.

In a nice coincidence (or not), the final amount – $1,370,511 – is divisible by 3. Nikola Tesla had more than a few  idiosyncrasies, one of which was an obsession with doing everything in multiples of three. [More on “The Odd Mr. Tesla” in my book.]

The next steps are to put down the bid for the property, and assuming successful completion, plan and begin the renovations for making the site into a museum and active science center. Progress on the transition can be found right here on this web page or on the web site of the Tesla Science Center. Stay tuned.

More information on my book “Nikola Tesla: Scientific Rock Star” can be found on my Tesla page. Don’t forget to subscribe to the posts by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends with the buttons below.