You see the power plant from the highway and the power plant is the building that makes the lights work. Every light in the city comes from a power plant. Every refrigerator in the city runs because of a power plant. Every screen you look at glows because a power plant is burning something or splitting something or catching something from the wind and the burning or splitting or catching is converted into electricity and the electricity travels through wires to your wall and the wall has an outlet and the outlet has power and the power comes from the plant. The power plant is the source. The power plant is the beginning of everything that plugs in.

Thomas Edison opened the Pearl Street Station in lower Manhattan on September fourth eighteen eighty two and the opening lit eighty five buildings and the eighty five buildings were the beginning of the electric world. Pearl Street Station burned coal to make steam and the steam turned a dynamo and the dynamo made direct current and the direct current traveled through copper wires buried under the street and the wires lit incandescent bulbs in offices and homes within one square mile. One square mile. That was the beginning. Edison lit one square mile of Manhattan and the one square mile became the world. The Pearl Street Station burned down in eighteen ninety and the burning down did not matter because by eighteen ninety there were power plants everywhere. The idea had escaped.

The Battersea Power Station in London powered a fifth of the city for fifty years and became the most photographed industrial building on earth. Four chimneys. Art Deco brick. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed the exterior and the designing the exterior of a power plant was the acknowledgment that even a building that burns coal can be beautiful. Pink Floyd put Battersea on the cover of Animals with an inflatable pig floating between the chimneys and the inflatable pig between the chimneys is the image that most people know Battersea by and the most people knowing Battersea by a Pink Floyd album cover is the power plant becoming culture. Battersea closed in nineteen eighty three and stood empty for forty years and the standing empty for forty years is the afterlife of the power plant and the afterlife of the power plant is the question of what to do with a cathedral that no longer has a god.

In the South Bronx the power plants line the waterfront and the lining the waterfront means the poorest neighborhoods breathe the exhaust. This is true in every city. The power plant is placed where the land is cheap and the land is cheap where the people are poor and the people are poor where the power plant is. The circular logic of environmental injustice. The power plant in the South Bronx burns natural gas and the burning natural gas produces nitrogen oxides and the nitrogen oxides produce asthma and the asthma rates in the South Bronx are the highest in New York City and the highest asthma rates being next to the power plant is not a coincidence. The power plant makes the lights work in Manhattan. The power plant makes the children sick in the Bronx. The electricity goes one direction. The exhaust goes another.

You flip the switch and the light comes on and the coming on is the miracle you have forgotten is a miracle. The light comes on because a turbine is spinning somewhere and the spinning turbine is connected to a generator and the generator is connected to a transformer and the transformer is connected to a transmission line and the transmission line is connected to a substation and the substation is connected to a distribution line and the distribution line is connected to your building and your building is connected to your switch and your switch is connected to your bulb and the bulb lights up. The chain between the power plant and your light bulb is hundreds of miles long and the hundreds of miles long works in a fraction of a second and the fraction of a second is the speed of electricity and the speed of electricity is the speed of modern life. The power plant. Burning. Spinning. Sending. Right now. The building that never sleeps so that every other building can have light.