NJ Had Masterminds Who Made NYC Christmas Light Capital of the World

New York City is known throughout the world for its hallmark holiday lighting whether it’s the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, the electrifying department store displays of Fifth Ave or the New Year’s crystal ball at Times Square.  But, who masterminded the first plans and the first marketing concept to package this technology into a grand NYC hallmark tradition? Few realize that Thomas Edison was the Wizard of Fifth Ave Holiday Sparkle that was engineered from supply centers in New Jersey. His inventions in the incandescent light bulb also sparked inventions for Christmas tree lighting.  It was New Jersey that brought the Holiday Lights to NYC Fifth Avenue. To be specific, it was Harrison, New Jersey and Edison’s General Electric Company that would supply the lights and equipment.  

In 1882 at the Manhattan address of 139 East Thirty-Sixth-Street, the family home of Mr. E. H. Johnson, (President of the Edison Company for Electric Lighting) became the first electric lit Christmas Tree to make its debut.

As Edison’s executive, Johnson’s neighborhood became one of the first sections in the city to be wired for electricity. New York City became the modern world’s Happy Holiday trendsetters because of their proximity to Edison’s electrical supply factories, its design engineers and a marketing department that targeted sales brochures to the privileged homes and grand department stores.  New York coveted these new marvels from Edison’s lighting company. 

Big department stores knew these electric lit trees attracted shoppers in droves. These gleaming inventions came with a Fifth Avenue price tag to match. Department store tree lights of the early 1900s had a price tag of $300+ - an equivalent of approximately $6,517.75 today.  The price was a complete package deal that included wiring services and a generator.  However, Edison realized that many would not make such an investment for a seasonal shopping attraction and his company also had rental plans for Christmas tree lights during this big shopping season.

Even before the Johnson’s Christmas tree, in 1880, these same strands of electrical lights were strung around the outside perimeter of Edison’s Menlo Park NJ Laboratory. Lucky New Jersey train passengers got to experience the world’s first electrical Holiday light display as the trains traveled passed his laboratory location.

Edison’s General Electric Company provided the technology, design, marketing, distribution, set-up and electrical connection services and rental and payment plans from its New Jersey home office.  And thus, New York City became the world’s nouveau lighting spectacle for the Holidays for over 130 years. It is these great entrepreneurs, engineers and inventors from over a century ago that transformed holiday traditions to how we celebrate Christmas Holidays today.  Ironically these independent free thinkers and innovators in Edison’s New Jersey workshops were consumed with innovation rather than religious faith and were not sentimental traditionalists. But despite their weak proclamations of their faith they knew how to turn on the lights for the exuberant holiday masses.

For every Christmas tree that is lit and all the strung up electric lights on homes and commercial buildings, it makes me wonder each year at these marvels of tradition that started in New Jersey by the most legendary masterminds.      

Visit the Thomas Edison labs in West Orange, New Jersey this season. Admission is only $7, which is a less than a ticket to a movie. It is a great family place for your Holiday time off to bond with the family and show the inventive things that came out of the Labs of New Jersey that helped transform NJ and the rest of the world into a modern electric powered culture and society that is showcased each year when it is Christmas Time and New Year's Time in New York City.