For some time the need of a central generating plant had been apparent to all familiar with the company’s facilities and prospects. Already during the summer of 1898 an engineering commission had visited all the chief electrical stations of Europe and consulted the best-known experts of the industry, and in 1902 the first waterside station in New York was opened upon a site bordering the East River between Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Streets. The new operating room contained sixteen vertical engines with a capacity each of over 5,000 horse-power. From these current was generated by 3,500 kilowatt generators and sent out to the various distributing centers. As a very natural consequence of such development, the company by 1902 had 420 miles of underground system supplying installation amounting to 1,928,090 fifty-watt equivalents. Electricity a Living Factor. To talk about electrical development in terms of power consumed tells but one side of the story. More impressive even than figures are the immense number of uses to which electricity is put. Electric lighting, introduced in 1882, has become practically the standard for illumination, not only here, but for the entire civilized world. [Illustration: ELECTRIC SEWING MACHINES IN THE MANHATTAN TRADE SCHOOL] In the Printing Trade. Electric power was introduced, timidly, by way of a few fans in 1884 and following this, in 1888, motor drive for printing presses was undertaken. At the present moment in New York City there is hardly a printing establishment worthy the name that is not electrically operated throughout. Among the largest customers of the central station in New York City are the great daily newspapers, among them the _Times_, the _World_, the _Sun_, the _Evening Post_, and the _American_. Construction. Not only are passengers conveyed up and down by electric elevators in skyscrapers, but the buildings themselves are erected by means of electricity. Recent examples of such construction are the Woolworth and Equitable buildings in New York City; in this last instance a thousand horse-power was used in digging the foundations alone. [Illustration: _Photo by Brown Bros._ A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT The canyon of lower Broadway, south from the Woolworth Building--a glorious miracle of light.] Not only are New York City’s subways operated by electricity; they were also built by electricity, a statement which applies to the new subways as well as the parts of the first system. In digging for the new Broadway subway, an electric company supplied 25,000 horse-power. The mammoth new aqueduct system by which water is carried from the Catskills to the Battery is another example of electricity as a source of power for large construction work. Still more picturesque is the use of electricity in building the under-river tubes. Indeed, it is doubtful whether this particular form of operation could have been carried on without the aid of electricity. Loft Manufacturing.