Greetings

Is that marble? This is an incredible picture. Wallpaper?

And through here is our living room.

...kind of like a Roman bath house for robots

Almost looks like a painitng.

“Through me you pass into the city of woe;
Through me you pass into eternal pain;
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d;
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things Eternal,
and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.”

– Dante, “The Divine Comedy”

Is that the way it was? To go through a door in the beautiful rotunda right into a room with a huge generator? It seems very odd???

I'l take door #1 please

Wow that is beyond words,,,, just amazing! One of my fave! thank you for getting such an amazing photograph like this Motts!

Great passage, Vince! So out of place with the grandeur of the marble, the generator almost seems superimposed. Wonderful shot.

I vote on this one for a desktop theme ... don't think it works that way, but the juxtaposition of the industrial metal against stone is awesome. It makes me think of the Parthenon if it had generators and the ability to make power.

Thanks gypsy it was the first thing I thought of when I looked at this ornate door and then behind it was this rusted leviathan peering at you almost to say “Come on in but you will never leave.”

Such an ornate building for a ultilitarian purpose, power generation.

I wonder if it was ever used for special events...

What's number 8 doing up here?

When I look at this it almost looks like a Victorian science fiction image for War of the Worlds. The door opens to an alien craft standing outside. Great juxtaposition.

It's like "Peek-aboo! I see you!"

That is fantastic, just seems like it out of place. Not what I would expect to see through a door way that beautiful :)

time machine? amazing shot.

I was thinking Daleks from Dr. Who, but War of the Worlds works for me as well.

Toats surreal

Wow, what an unexpected view...to just open the door and see that.

Years ago, powerhouses were built as temples as the production of electricity and the benefits to society were seen as a momentous thing. The part that has "General Electric" on it is the stator of one of the generators. In the days when a plant like this one was in operation, the house crew kept the plant "spit shined". I work in a plant build in the 1970's, and we have terazzo floors and marble in the lobby. A powerplant is "mothership" to those of us fortunate enough to work in one. We are proud of our plant and the fact we produce the power. We stick tight as a cohesive crew and we do our own engineering and overhauls in house. Any real powerplant had this sort of ethic to it. A hydroelectric plant is even more special as it can "
black start" itself. If the grid power fails, a hydroelectric plant can be "black started" with no outside power. The older plants like this one could be started by the crew using manual means. A modern plant like a "fossil fueled" (oil, coal or natural gas) generating plant or nuke uses tremendous amounts of power to black start. A hydro plant is most often what jump starts the other powerplants. A hydro plant has big, slow turning machinery and it is kept spit shined and well maintained. A well aligned and maintained hydro unit with bearings properly adjusted will run so smoothly you can balance a nickel on edge up on the generator housing, even when the unit is tripped off line. Been there and done that.