In 1919, Charles M. Ripley wrote a thorough description of General Electric’s Schenectady Works, which then numbered 22,000 workers who formed both the economic and social lifeblood of the city. Among the social clubs formed by this burgeoning workforce was The Edison Club:
“The Edison Club was formed in 1904 as a result of a petition which was signed by 183 college graduates who were taking the [electrical] test course at the Schenectady Works . . . These young men have all pursued the same studies, have undergone the same training in the test course, and have lived the same life while being initiated into the electrical industry.”
The first two clubhouses were rented space on Lafayette Street, with some land near Ellis Hospital for outdoor recreation. By 1907 the club had grown so that it purchased this lovely old structure at the corner of Washington Avenue and State Street, right on the edge of the Mohawk River (and, later, at the foot of the Western Gateway Bridge). In addition to the clubhouse, there was a boathouse capable of holding 100 canoes; when it burned and was rebuilt in 1915, they made room for 144 canoes, a testament to the huge interest in canoe racing that burned in those early electrical engineers (not forgetting that Steinmetz, too, was an avid canoeist.) Ripley proclaimed that “A score or more of silver cups and other trophies have been won, and the Edison Club boys stand for all that is good, clean, fair and manly in the realm of sports.”
Behind the club, just visible here, was Edison Hall, which had an assembly hall/ballroom that could seat 400 people. It also had four bowling alleys, showers and lockers, a movie projector, and kitchen facilities.
It wasn’t long before the Edison Club decamped for open pastures and the allure of golf, moving in 1925 to its present location on Riverview Road in Rexford. The former residence that once housed the club was eventually demolished. Edison Hall, however, found new purpose as the home of one of the world’s first television stations, WRGB. Even after the station left downtown for Niskayuna in 1957, the building continued to be used by GE. In 1987 it became part of the Schenectady County Community College campus, where today it serves as home to the Center for Science and Technology.
A fine article. keep ’em coming!