Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park

Fascinating and interesting museum. Edison was so much more than just an inventor. He was involved in the first movie making experiences, botany experiments, children’s furniture, and a great businessman.
I recently read an article about an autistic boy they saw no hope for speaking let alone any independence. Mother pulled him out of school to homeschool and expose him to anything of interest (connecting shadows to the light source and where it was coming from). He ended up having an IQ higher than Einstein! He attends college at age 11 and is the first astrophysicist for his age. And is in also has minimal formal education which allowed his creativity to thrive. He did a TED talk that focused on removing learning and instead creating. Thought provoking really.
This is an excellent stop for children and adults alike. You can walk through his workshops fitted with multiple belt setuos that run the machines off of one motor. His personal library is beautiful. Even the informational video next to the store was ask me you and I usually want to bypass those. The video talks about his home which you can also view a few miles away. Also worth a visit from what I hear, but didn’t get around to it today.

Lightbulb wasn’t on. Not really much here. I did see some deer, and that was pretty cool.

We visited on the 5^th of july and the center was closed :(and the tower was still under construction. So we visited the nature trail. The trail was alot more than we anticipated. It spills out into a little lake where we actually ended up fish watching these crazy huge fish. A well spent afternoon in my book, but quite disappointed about the tower and center.

very small (2 small rooms) but very interesting museum on the former site of Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory (i believe the 2^nd of 5 locations where he had such laboratories in his life — but this is where he made some major advancements such as the first functionak light bulb, hence the name «Wizard of Menlo Park») where he also lived with his first wife until her untimely death at a young age. the admission is $ 5 but well worth it because the tourguide is great, very knowledgeable and funny. the little museum is jam packed with various examples of Edison’s inventions and info about his life, there is also a tiny gift shop at the front where one pays admission. The monument, capped by an enormous lightbulb is currently under restoration as of June 2014. the original buildings thAt were here no longer exist but it is cool to see the place where all this stuff occurred. there is a short nature trail leading into the thick woods of Edison State Park, a pleasant but unextraordinary walk in the woods. The Edison National Historical Park at his West Orange lab site has much, much, much more to see since the buildings are still standing there, but it is still i think worthwhile to visit this Menlo Park site if you are seriously interested in Edison and/​or in the process of invention /​technology development. when the monument restoration is done the place will look a lot better, it is rather underwhelming now.

Loved it! We stopped by here on our way from PA to NY there’s a suggested $ 5 donation and you get a 30min+ tour of this little room filled with Edison’s inventions. Chuck gave us the tour –it was very informative with lots of fun facts!