<P> Pearl Street Station was also the world's first cogeneration plant . While the steam engines provided grid electricity, Edison made use of the thermal byproduct by distributing steam to local manufacturers, and warming nearby buildings on the same Manhattan block . </P> <P> The station burned down in 1890, destroying all but one dynamo that is now kept in the Greenfield Village Museum in Dearborn, Michigan . </P> <P> In 1929 the Edison Company constructed three scale working models of the station . When a button was pushed, a motor turned the engines, generators, and other equipment in the model . A set of lamps connected to labelled buttons identified the various areas of the building . Cut - outs in the side of the model building allowed examination of the boilers on the first level, reciprocating steam engines and dynamos on the reinforced second level, and the control and test gear on the third and fourth levels . The models were constructed to a scale of one - half inch to the foot and were 62 inches long, 34 inches high and 13 inches wide . The models still exist and are on display at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History in Washington, at the Consolidated Edison Learning Center in Long Island City, New York and at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan . Up to 31 people worked on constructing the models which took about 6 months to complete . </P>

The pearl street station relied on steam from burning coal to power the