GNIS feature ID 878259 Local time Saturday 9:19 PM | Elevation 43 m | |
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Weather 2°C, Wind NE at 18 km/h, 90% Humidity | ||
Menlo Park is an unincorporated community located within Edison Township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States.
Map of Menlo Park, Edison, NJ 08820, USA
In 1876, Thomas Edison set up his home and research laboratory in Menlo Park, which at the time was the site of an unsuccessful real estate development named after the town of Menlo Park, California. While there, he earned the nickname "the Wizard of Menlo Park". The Menlo Park lab was significant in that was one of the first laboratories to pursue practical, commercial applications of research. It was in his Menlo Park laboratory that Thomas Edison invented both the phonograph and a commercially viable incandescent light bulb filament. Christie Street in Menlo Park was the first street in the world to use electric lights for illumination. Edison left Menlo Park and moved his home and laboratory to West Orange in 1887. After his death, the Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum was constructed near his old Menlo Park lab and dedicated in 1938. Edison's old lab site and memorial now make up Edison State Park. The municipality in which Menlo Park is located, which was called "Raritan Township" while he was alive, was officially changed to Edison Township on November 10, 1954, in honor of the inventor.