Consolidated Edison 39th Street Powerhouse

Asbestos at the Consolidated Edison 39th Street Powerhouse

In the heart of Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood, wedged between East 38th and 40th Streets along the east side of First Avenue, stood one of New York City’s most historically significant industrial landmarks: the Waterside Generating Station, better known as the Consolidated Edison 39th Street Powerhouse. The 39th Street Powerhouse opened in 1901 and was one of the first power plants in the country to use steam turbines to generate electricity. For over a century, it helped keep the city’s lights on, its buildings warm, and its subways running. But woven into the infrastructure that made it work was asbestos, a material that would devastate the lives of those who worked there.

A Pioneer Plant with a Poisoned Legacy

By 1937, the Waterside station had evolved into a cogeneration facility, meaning that it became a combined heat and power plant that generated electricity and utilized waste heat to produce steam for New York City’s district steam system. That dual role made the plant a vital component of urban life for decades. On September 28, 1999, Con Edison announced plans to replace the steam and electric generating capacity of the Waterside Generating Station with the repowered East River Station, after which the 39th Street facility would be sold. Con Edison or its corporate predecessor owned and operated the power and steam station until it was decommissioned in 2005.

But long before the plant closed, its workers had been exposed to one of the most hazardous occupational substances of the twentieth century. Between the 1930s and 1980s, electrical wire, of which there are 130,000 miles in Con Edison’s service territory, was commonly insulated with asbestos. The full scope of asbestos use at facilities like the 39th Street Powerhouse touched nearly every system in the plant.

Asbestos Throughout the Plant

Con Ed powerhouses were blanketed with high-heat insulation for machinery such as turbines, boilers, tanks, pumps, steam pipes, and valves. Much of Con Ed’s public equipment also included asbestos components. The 39th Street facility, as both a power generator and a steam producer, was particularly saturated with such materials because the steam system alone demanded high-temperature insulation throughout its pipelines and equipment.

Prior to the late 1970s, asbestos was used extensively in the utility industry as insulation for high-heat temperature equipment such as turbines, large boilers, tanks, pumps, steam pipes and valves. Asbestos could also be found in gaskets and in the block insulation that covered boilers and turbines.

When aging equipment required maintenance, which was frequent in a facility of this age and complexity, workers faced dangerous conditions. During maintenance work, worn asbestos insulation that covered pipes was torn down, and workers would assist with dismantling and replacing the asbestos insulation. This process was extremely messy and would create enormous dust clouds. Workers, often without any protective equipment, were breathing in microscopic fibers that would lodge permanently in their lung tissue.

Until the beginning of the 1970s, workers at Con Edison were not required to wear protective gear. For the many workers who spent their careers at the 39th Street plant during its most active decades, this meant years of unprotected exposure to airborne asbestos fibers with no warning about the consequences.

Who Faced the Greatest Risk?

The hazard at 39th Street Powerhouse was not confined to any single trade or job title. Plant workers were possibly exposed to asbestos when they installed, inspected, maintained, repaired, removed, or replaced asbestos-containing equipment. Steamfitters working on the cogeneration system, electricians handling wire insulation, boiler tenders monitoring high-pressure equipment, and general maintenance workers performing daily upkeep were all at risk.

Utility workers and other tradesmen who worked at Con Edison properties on electric transmission equipment or on distribution and service piping often carried asbestos fibers home on their clothes, shoes, and hair. Family members may have inhaled the asbestos fibers. This secondary, or “take-home,” exposure is a well-documented pathway to asbestos-related disease and means that the reach of the 39th Street Powerhouse’s asbestos problem extended well beyond the plant’s walls and into the homes and families of those who worked there.

Asbestos Effects Takes Decades to Develop

The scale of harm from asbestos exposure at Con Edison facilities has been confirmed in striking terms. A 1990 screening of more than 500 Con Edison workers found that 20% had scarred lungs or mesothelioma. That figure, drawn from a single screening of a fraction of the workforce, underscores just how pervasive the contamination was.

Mesothelioma, the aggressive and incurable cancer of the tissue lining that surrounds the lungs, abdomen, or heart, is caused by asbestos exposure. Because mesothelioma has a latency period of 15 to 60 years, workers who were exposed to asbestos decades ago may only now begin to show signs of illness.

That timeline carries urgent implications for anyone who worked at the 39th Street Powerhouse during its operational years. A worker who was present at the plant in the 1960s or 1970s may now be in the window when symptoms first emerge. The disease does not distinguish between those who spent decades on site and those who were present for only a short period; even brief exposures carry risk. Similarly, someone who may have been a child at that time, who was exposed to the asbestos dust from the clothes of a parent employed at Con Edison, would also just now start developing symptoms of mesothelioma.

The Human and Legal Toll

The volume of litigation tied to Con Edison’s network of powerhouses reflects the breadth of the problem across the company’s history and facilities.

Workers in the plant up to the point at which asbestos was removed, or those involved in the asbestos abatement process, may now be suffering the dreadful consequences of the exposure, having developed mesothelioma, lung cancer, or asbestosis. Even those who participated in later-era removal efforts, believing they were helping to clean up the hazard, could themselves have been exposed during the abatement process if proper precautions were not followed.

If you or a loved one worked at the Consolidated Edison 39th Street Powerhouse at any point during its more than hundred-year operational history, and have since received a diagnosis of mesothelioma, lung cancer, or another asbestos-related illness, acting promptly is essential. Statutes of limitations apply to asbestos claims, and the legal window can close. Consulting an experienced asbestos attorney, alongside a medical specialist familiar with asbestos-related disease, is the critical first step toward understanding your options and pursuing the compensation you may be owed.

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Sources:

• IEEE: Architect of Power
• New York Times: Fiery Blast Shuts Off Power to Many New Yorkers
• IEEE: History ─ An AC Pioneer, United Electric Light and Power Company
• Public Service Commission: PSC Concludes Investigation of Con Ed Electric Supply