It is the 4th of September 1882 in New York, coming on for 7 o'clock in the evening.

The last of the daylight is fading, but the big apple throngs with life.

Street talkers tap their wares to workers, making their way home from their offices.

Bars are alive with chatter and horse-drawn carriages rattle along the streets.

In Lower Manhattan, a journalist pushes open their heavy front door of the offices of

New York Times and climbs the stairs to his desk.

There he sits down and starts hammering away to chunky typewriter as his deadline looms.

Though he's used to covering all manner of exciting, strange, and sometimes dark stories

of the city, tonight he is writing about events inside his own office.

He has just come from number 257 Pearl Street, a couple of blocks away.

There, a few hours ago, the famous inventor Thomas Edison flicked the switch at his new

electricity generating station, sending a surge of power into the handful of buildings

signed up to his latest grand experiment.

But it's only now as the sky outside darkens, that the full impact of Edison's latest and

so far greatest invention can be felt.

Tonight, there is a network of incandescent light bulbs strung around the times building

and several other of Manhattan's finest institutions.

On a usual evening by now, the journalist would be squinting at the page before him.

The newspaper rooms gas lamps too dim and unsteady to work comfortably.

But Mr. Edison has brought the daytime inside.

The journalist rests his fingers on the typewriter's keys and stares in wonder at the bulbs

suspended from brass arms jutting out from the walls around his desk.

...