Sherman Creek power station, 1916.

Opened in 1914, this eight-story, 62,000 square-foot, coal-burning power station was said to be the largest and most modern plant of its kind in the world. The dedication ceremony took place on a cold day in January, but more than 1000 people attended. (After the guided tours of the facility, the guests were served a lovely lunch catered by Delmonico’s.)

At the cost of six million dollars, the facility took two years to build. It was designed to deliver alternating current exclusively and used three massive 22,500 horsepower Westinghouse Parsons double flow turbines. An illustration of the giant plant was used in advertisements starting in 1920, paid for by the United Electric Lights & Power Company, to convince those not yet on the electrical grid that the time to join was now.

Despite all the modern technologies and providing a needed utility, the giant, noisy plant had its critics from the beginning. Not long after opening neighbors complained about the noises of the vented air and a sound dampening infrastructure was installed. Landowners on the Sherman Creek whose properties were being flooded with superheated water from the plant sued United Electric and won. By the 1960s communities wanted the coal burning polluters out of their neighborhoods. By then the plant was Consolidated Edison, and in 1966 the city closed the facility citing air pollution. It went offline completely in 1970.

Plans for the non-functioning plant included razing it for highrise housing or an affordable housing adaptive reuse scheme. None came to be, and the plant was finally demolished in 1997 and replaced with a smaller substation.