The New School Site Used to Be Thomas Edison’s Lab
Some fun history about 65 5th Ave.
“The New School has been a presence at 65 Fifth Avenue, the site of the University Center, since 1967, when the university converted a Lane’s department store building for student use. But long before the address became associated with educational innovation, it was renown for innovation of another kind. In 1881, inventor Thomas Edison installed at the address (which was then occupied by a handsome brownstone) a permanent exhibition of his electrical discoveries. The biography Edison: His Life and Inventions reports that “the house was thrown open to the public until late at night, never closing before ten o’clock, so as to give everybody who wished an opportunity to see that great novelty of the time—the incandescent light—whose fame had meanwhile been spreading all over the globe.” It is a fitting legacy for the University Center, which upon opening in Fall 2013 will itself serve as a living teaching tool, with exposed energy and water management systems to provide working demonstrations of sustainable design.”
