On a late summer afternoon in 1882, Thomas Edison flipped a switch at J.P. Morgan’s Wall Street office and a single light bulb flickered to life. It was powered by the world’s first central power station, the Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan. For the first time, a city district was illuminated by electricity generated and distributed from one location. The station's six steam-driven "Jumbo" dynamos supplied 110 volts of direct current to 59 customers, lighting 400 lamp