Consolidated Edison Sherman Creek Generating Station

The Sherman Creek Generating Station was a coal-fired power plant built in 1913 that was located on a two-acre site bordering 201^st Street to the north, the Harlem River to the East, and Sherman Creek to the South.  The six-million-dollar facility went online on January 31, 1914, and provided power to the residents of New York City, New Haven, Connecticut, and the Hartford Railroad.  The massive brick and steel structure was designed to produce and deliver alternating current exclusively.  Because of the depth of the Harlem River, barges were used to deliver the coal that was used by the facility.  The Sherman Creek station was originally built by the United Electric Light & Power Company, later to be taken over by Con Edison.

It was soon very common to have the local residents complain of the noise that was generated at the plant.  Three giant 22,500 horsepower Westinghouse Parsons double flow turbines coupled directly to 15,000 kilowatt generators were cooled using a section tunnel, ten feet in diameter that siphoned water from the Harlem River and, after it had been used to cool the pumps and generators, dumped the steaming wastewater into Sherman Creek.   In 1923, James Butterly and other property owners filed a one-million-dollar lawsuit against the United Electric Light and Power Company. As outlined by a reporter in the New York Sun, Mr. Butterly sold a piece of the land to United Electric, and discovered they had built a tunnel without a franchise to carry away hot water-11,000 gallons per hour- and they were flooding the land so that the ground they used without purchase would eventually be declared a marginal street.” (New York Sun, January 29, 1929.) After the courts recognized his title to the land, Mr. Butterly was awarded $3,000,000 in damages.

During the 1960’s there was an ongoing effort to move the polluting, coal burning facilities, including the Sherman Creek plant, far from heavily populated areas.  In 1966, in an effort to reduce pollution, Consolidated Edison, pursuant to a “memorandum of understanding” with the then New York Mayor John Lindsey, agreed to the future closure of the plant.  Because its inability to meet clean air standards, the Sherman Creek Generating Station was taken offline in 1970.  Despite several ambitious plans to redevelop the site, including the construction of a residential development, all of the plans were rejected. Eventually, in 1997, the plant was decommissioned 1970, and ultimately demolished in 1997.

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