Dear Friends,
Check out the NY Times Metro Section Today...for the article on "For the Love
of a Power Plant," which details the growing national attention to
preserving important historical industrial sites. On the second page there
is a mention of New Jersey's Historic Water Works - the Hackensack Water
Company, one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "11 Most
Endangered National Historic Sites" 2002. (Article copied below, for those
who don't get the NY Times :>)
All the best,
Maggie Harrer
President of the Board of Directors
The Water Works Conservancy, Inc.
Box 714
Oradell, NJ 07649
Phone: 201-967-0133
Fax: 201-967-7517
Website: Http://www.hwwc.org
A Fight to Save a Time Capsule From the Early Age of Electricity
By WINNIE HU
MECHANICVILLE, N.Y., Nov. 18 — The Mechanicville Hydroelectric Station, which
straddles the Hudson River just north of Albany, once lighted the entire
capital region.
But even in its heyday, it was overlooked by those who marveled at the
hulking machinery at Niagara Falls and the Hoover Dam.
Now a century later, the brick building with the peaked tin roof has hardly
changed, and because of that, it is drawing attention as never before.
Niagara Mohawk closed the station in 1997, saying that its outdated equipment
had made it "prohibitively expensive to run" and that continued operation of
the generators put too much stress on the underwater columns supporting the
building.
"Every time a part had to be repaired or replaced," said Alberto Bianchetti,
a spokesman for Niagara Mohawk, "it was like a custom fix." Niagara Mohawk
wants to stabilize the station by filling it with a type of concrete that can
be removed if someone takes over the site.
But a coalition of engineers, historians and preservation groups across the
Northeast are opposing Niagara Mohawk's plan with one of its own: the group
wants to restore the Mechanicville station and turn it into a working museum
of the region's industrial past.
"It's like opening up a time capsule," said James A. Besha, an engineer who
is leading the effort. "I tell people that this plant went through World War
I, the Great Depression, World War II and man's landing on the moon. Through
all the tides of history, it sat there operating 24 hours a day, generating
electricity with no fuss or muss."
The effort to save the power plant is the work of a preservation movement
that is increasingly looking beyond battlefields and the gilded mansions of
the rich and famous to reclaim old mills, factories, bridges and other
remnants of the industrial landscape. The Erie Canal, for instance, has
become a tourist attraction in recent years after New York spent millions of
dollars to rebuild parts of it. Similarly, a complex of 27 abandoned
factories in the Berkshires reopened in 1999 as the Massachusetts Museum of
Contemporary Art.
Last June, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed a mammoth
water filtration plant in northern New Jersey on its annual list of the 11
most endangered historic sites in America. Bergen County officials proposed
tearing down the plant, the Hackensack Water Works, to create a park, but
some local residents wanted it turned into a museum and research center.
Robert Vogel, a retired curator of engineering at the Smithsonian Institution
who is a founder of the Society for Industrial Archeology, said preserving
industrial sites like the Mechanicville station was important because they
could be studied to learn about the past — as potsherds and tools of earlier
ages are studied.
"Electricity doesn't come from God, or from the ground, but from plants like
this," Mr. Vogel said. "It is a relic of our civilization."
The Mechanicville site was developed in 1897 by R. N. King, a businessman
from Dayton, Ohio, and designed by Charles Steinmetz, an electrical engineer
often described as the creative genius behind General Electric. A row of
seven cast-iron generators, still intact, supplied power to General Electric.
The station was later bought by a regional utility and linked to one of the
first hydroelectric systems in the country. It changed hands several more
times before ending up with Niagara Mohawk in 1950. Through the years, the
powerhouse rarely missed a day's work, generating up to five megawatts of
electricity.
Not many of its neighbors noticed.
"It was just something that was always there," said Ken Leggett, 55, whose
family has lived near it since 1916. Mr. Leggett ventured inside the power
plant as a teenager to visit a friend but never went back. "It was scary
because it was so big and loud," he said.
Niagara Mohawk operated the station until the late 1980's, when it hired
Fourth Branch Associates, a subsidiary of Albany Engineering Corporation, to
manage it. In 1993, the companies received a joint federal license to run the
plant.
But the partnership quickly soured. Mr. Besha, the president of Albany
Engineering who has mobilized the preservation effort, said Niagara Mohawk
officials reneged on an agreement for a multimillion-dollar restoration that
was to include new underground generators to produce more electricity. He
said his company had already spent about $3 million on renovations.
A Fight to Save a Time Capsule From the Early Age of Electricity
(Page 2 of 2)
Mr. Besha sued Niagara Mohawk, contending breach of contract, and the utility
countersued, accusing him of trespassing, among other things. Niagara Mohawk
officials have declined to comment on the suit.
Niagara Mohawk resumed control of the station in 1996, and a year later it
turned off the power. Earlier this year, the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission accepted the surrender of the operating license, despite
objections by Mr. Besha and several preservation groups. They contended that
the historical value of the site was not fully considered.
Before it was closed, the station was listed on the National Register of
Historic Places as the oldest continuously operated hydroelectric plant in
the state.
"It's a piece of living history," said Daniel Mackay, director of public
policy for the Preservation League of New York State in Albany. "To have an
industrial building continue to serve its original purpose 100 years later is
truly unique."
Mr. Bianchetti, the Niagara Mohawk spokesman, said the station cost far more
to operate than it earned through sales of electricity. He also said Niagara
Mohawk was no longer in the business of generating electricity and had sold
its power plants. He cited the state's deregulation of the utility industry
in the late 1990's as the reason.
Niagara Mohawk officials said they approached several state agencies about
taking over the station, but not one was willing to, largely because of
budget constraints.
Bernadette Castro, the state historic preservation officer, confirmed that
money was a problem.
"It is an issue of dollars," said Ms. Castro, who considers the powerplant to
be worth saving. "I already have 35 wonderful historic sites, and each one
thinks it's an only child."
Only Mr. Besha seems ready to adopt the power plant, but Niagara Mohawk has
refused to sell it to him, citing his lawsuit against it and questioning
whether he had enough money for such a project.
Mr. Besha, 55, already a collector of vintage cars, said his company had
developed and refurbished more than a dozen hydroelectric sites around the
country. He said he would borrow about $27 million for the Mechanicville
restoration and repay it through profits from the sale of electricity. "I can
get the money," he said. "This is what we do; this is our business."
For now, the power plant awaits its future behind a padlocked chain-link
fence. Rain and dirt seep through cracks in its arched windows, and its once
gleaming generators are covered with tarpaulins.
Mr. Besha and his engineers check on the plant from a distance.
"This is going to sound sort of sappy," he said, "but we have grown to love
this plant. We decided if we didn't try to preserve it, no one else would."
Copyright The New York Times Company
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