East River Generating Station
East River Generating Station is a power plant located near the East River at the eastern end of East 14th Street, adjacent to the East Village and Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village neighborhoods in Manhattan, New York City, United States. Constructed by New York Edison Company, the plant began operating in 1926. It was later expanded in the 1950s and underwent a repowering project in the early 2000s. The cogeneration facility supplies both electricity and steam—it provides electric power to most parts of Manhattan located south of 36th Street and is the primary plant for the New York City steam system, supplying over half of the system's total capacity.
History
Background and planning
In 1924, the New York Edison Company determined that a new power station would be needed to accommodate the demand on its 25-hertz system, with the center of the electrical load situated on the southern half of Manhattan. The site selected for the new power plant was located on the East River between East 14th and 15th streets, adjoining property owned by the Consolidated Gas Company. The waterfront site would enable large coal-carrying vessels to dock adjacent to the facility and also allow for a westward expansion to Avenue C for a plant with an approximate footprint measuring long by wide. Facilities for coal handling and storage as well as a mill house were to located on the block bounded by Avenue D, the East River, and East 13th and 14th streets. The new power station was designed by Thomas E. Murray along with engineers from the New York Edison Company.Plans for a power house located on the east side of Avenue D between East 14th and 15th streets were filed by the New York Edison Company with the Buildings Department in 1924. The company publicly announced its plans to construct the new power station in May 1925, explaining that it was designed to meet the increased demand for electricity expected within the next five years from population growth. Plans for the new facility called for nine generators capable of generating a total of 700 MW of electricity. A contract to build the first two generators was awarded to the General Electric Company; the units were too large to ship and had to be assembled on site. When operating at full capacity, the plant would require of water per minute for steam condensing, which was double the amount that could be supplied by the city's water supply system via the Catskill Aqueduct. For this reason, the power station was designed to use water supplied from the East River.
Construction of the power plant was opposed by local residents and businesses, who described the facility as a "super-nuisance" that would generate smoke, cinders, ashes and soot as well as block development of the waterfront for recreational purposes. New York Edison Company countered that it was the only public utility company in the world that washed gases before they exited the smokestacks and that their complaints related to air pollution were caused by watercraft and other buildings that burned coal. An editorial appearing in The New York Times acknowledged that it was likely too late in the process to block construction of the power plant, but called for better control of the waterfront to prevent additional industrial and institutional structures from being erected along the East River.
To accommodate future expansion of the planned power plant, the New York Edison Company submitted an application to the Board of Estimate to close the portion of Avenue D between East 14th and 15th streets; this street segment was identified as being "closed and discontinued" on the city map by March 1926.
Construction and opening
The first electrical components for the new plant were shipped by barge from Albany, New York, and docked adjacent to the site on May 21, 1926; the equipment included rotating parts for a frequency changer to convert electricity from 25 hertz to 60 hertz. On August 2, 1926, two cranes were used to place the first generator into the plant while the components for the second generator were being constructed at the General Electric facility in Schenectady, New York. The plant was placed into operation on November 23, 1926, by Queen Marie of Romania, who ceremoniously switched on the plant's first 60 MW steam turbine, which at the time was the largest single unit of the New York Edison Company and was capable of generating more than three times the amount of electricity used in all of Romania. Later that day Queen Marie toured the company's Waterside Generating Station on First Avenue and East 38th Street to provide contrast with its new power plant at East 14th Street. The second steam turbine, also having a capacity of 60 MW, was placed into operation by the following year.Coal was delivered to the plant by barges, which were unloaded by coal towers that traveled along the bulkhead. Conveyor belts were used to move the coal from the bulkhead into the coal preparation house on the south side of East 14th Street, which contained raw coal bunkers, steam dryers, and pulverizing mills. Pulverized coal was transported by pressure through pipes in a bridge connecting the mill house to the power house on the north side of East 14th Street. About half of the width of the power house was occupied by the boiler room running along the south side of the building; electrical galleries occupied the north side of the building and a generator room was located in between. Six boilers were used to supply steam for the two generators.
The East River Generating Station originally had two smokestacks, both rising above the floor of the basement, and was planned to include a total of seven smokestacks after expansion of the facility was completed. The power station was located in close proximity to six hospitals, including the Willard Parker Hospital located on East 16th Street between Avenue C and the East River. Cyclonic separation was used to remove particulate matter from smoke before it was released from the plant's chimneys. A total of twelve collectors were installed on the roof of the plant, which used powerful fans and cone-shaped cylinders to create artificial cyclones that separated particulates from the gases using centrifugal force. Before entering the cyclones, gases were first washed to remove cinders.
A third generator with a capacity of 160 MW was placed into operation in October 1929. A luncheon was held inside Boiler No. 9 on December 2, 1929 to celebrate the completion of the installation of the new generator and three new boilers supplying steam for the new unit. The first two new boilers had been placed into operation in October and November, respectively, and the third boiler was fired after the luncheon to allow the generator to operate at full capacity. Nearly 100 people attended the luncheon, which was held in the, and boiler. The East River Generating Station was the first power station to install boilers capable of producing of steam per hour; the three boilers were manufactured by the Combustion Engineering Company.
The segment of the East River Drive between East 12th and 18th streets, which was constructed along the east side of the plant, first opened to traffic in 1939.
Subsequent expansions
In 1946, Con Edison began planning to nearly double the capacity of the East River Generating Station by adding two new generators and boilers. The power plant was expanded with an addition on the west side of the facility; two new 125 MW generators, Units 5 and 6, were placed into service in 1951. Four years later, another new generator was also placed into service.In 1957, Con Edison purchased an entire block located on the south side of the power plant from the Eagle Pencil Company, which leased back the site for one year prior to its move to a new factory under construction in Danbury, Connecticut. The block extended for a distance of between Avenues C and D and had a frontage of on East 13th and 14th streets. Three years later, in 1960, Con Edison also acquired the blocks located on the north side of the power plant between East 15th and 17th streets for a future expansion; this property had been occupied by the Willard Parker Hospital and was bought at an auction of city-owned parcels. The sale of land had to be authorized by the New York State Legislature after it was subsequently determined that part of the property had once been land under water.
Con Edison constructed three fuel oil storage tanks on the block formerly occupied by the Eagle Pencil Company as part of its plans to reduce air pollution by converting the generating station to burn oil instead of coal. The tanks had to be supported on over 7,700 wooden piles since the site had previously been filled in from the East River and bedrock was located below the surface. Three years earlier, Con Edison had announced plans to convert the generating station's fuel supply from coal to natural gas, but decided to switch to oil after objections raised by the Federal Power Commission and ongoing litigation delayed the conversion.
In September 1961, Con Edison announced it had placed an order with the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company to construct a 1,000 MW turbine generator; it later placed an order with Combustion Engineering, Inc. for a boiler to provide steam for the new turbine. The new equipment was planned to be housed adjacent to the East River Drive between East 15th and 17th streets, on the former site of the Willard Parker Hospital. A month-long supply of fuel oil for the proposed generating unit——was planned to be stored on a concrete platform built over a portion of the East River from East 17th to 22nd streets, which was to be covered by a 1,000-car parking lot and a public park. Development of the tank farm would necessitate the demolition of Piers 67, 68, 69 and 70 as well as the relocation of an existing Transit Mix Concrete Corporation plant from the bulkhead onto the new platform. After test borings taken at the site revealed the presence of poor subsurface rock conditions, Con Edison decided to instead install the 1,000 MW generator at the Ravenswood Generating Station in Long Island City. The turbine, known as Ravenswood No. 3 and "Big Allis", was placed into operation in 1965.
In 1977, Con Edison was selected by the Energy Research and Development Administration to operate a 4.8 MW fuel cell plant as part of a two-year demonstration project, which it planned to install to the north of the power plant at East 15th Street and the FDR Drive. Construction of the fuel cell plant was suspended in 1984 after the project had fallen three years behind schedule. The demonstration plant was ultimately dismantled before generating any electricity.
Unit 5 at the East River Generating Station was retired in 1995.