Pearl Street
Our name

Why Pearl Street

A firm that finances power should remember where power began.

I1882 · Lower Manhattan

The first station.

On September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station began delivering electricity from a central plant to customers in Lower Manhattan. Steam engines drove large dynamos, and copper conductors under the streets carried current to offices and homes. For the first time, electric power was a service: generated in one place and delivered to many.

It was a financial undertaking as much as an engineering one. Edison’s backers, J. P. Morgan among them, funded the station before it had proven anything. Pearl Street is our reminder that every era of power begins with someone willing to finance it.

Pearl Street Station, New York, 1882
Pearl Street Station, New York, 1882.
IIDirect current

Why DC matters to us.

Pearl Street ran on direct current. Within a decade, alternating current won the argument over long-distance distribution, and Edison’s system gave way.

More than a century later, direct current is coming back. High-voltage DC lines move power between regions, and solar arrays, batteries and data centers all run on it natively. The modern grid is being rebuilt around the current Edison chose first.

Our firm is based in Washington, DC. We take the coincidence as a mandate. Edison started the job on Pearl Street. We intend to help finish it.

III

In Edison’s footsteps.

We are honored to work in the tradition Edison began: practical engineering, patient capital and the conviction that reliable power changes what a city can become.

We don’t claim his legacy. We hold ourselves to it, in every turbine we fund and every site we bring to the grid.

Then255–257 Pearl Street, New YorkSteam dynamos, direct current and the first central power station.
NowPearl Street, Washington, DCTurbines, land and capital for the next generation of power.

Pearl Street is an independent firm and is not affiliated with Thomas Edison’s companies or their successors.