As part of New Jersey’s fiscal year 2025 budget, Senator Patrick Diegnan and Assemblymen Robert Karabinchak and Sterley Stanley have secured $200,000 in state funding for the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park. The State Legislature passed the budget, and Governor Phil Murphy signed it into law.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park serves as a memorial to Thomas Alva Edison, the renowned inventor who performed some of his finest work in New Jersey. The state funding will be used for improvements to the center’s memorial tower, museum, and education center, located within the 36-acre Edison State Park on Christie Street in Edison Township.

“The Thomas Edison Center at Menlo Park represents New Jersey’s trailblazing nature, and we are proud to continue funding the tower and museum’s upkeep and renovation in the state’s annual budget,” Diegnan, Karabinchak, and Stanley said.

Approximately 400 of Edison’s most important inventions were created in the Menlo Park Laboratory within Edison Township, where he lived from 1876 through 1884. The Center showcases many of his creations, including the phonograph, and represents the birthplace of recorded sound and the world’s first incandescent light bulb. People from more than 60 countries and every state in the nation have visited the museum and surrounding park honoring the "Wizard of Menlo Park."

During a recent visit to the center, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette noted Edison is responsible for “some of the greatest contributions to modern life.”

“New Jersey has always been home to innovation,” LaTourette said. “From science to the performing arts, to the giants of industry and athletics, our New Jersey grit, our drive to never stop improving and to better the lives of others was certainly a hallmark of Thomas Edison’s work.”

The museum, which provides scheduled guided tours tailored to specific audiences, is open to the public Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, please visit menloparkmuseum.org.

 2020 Newsletter