The Last Decade of Nikola Tesla’s Life

The Final Years of One of the Greatest Inventors of All Time

By the time he retired in the 1930s, the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla had successfully ushered in the modern era of electronics with the invention of hundreds of devices, thereby permanently altering the course of human civilization from that point on. His unparalleled ability as an engineering savant who could harness electricity in strange new ways had changed the fate of the world forever, and he knew it. As such, Tesla had made very powerful enemies like J. P. Morgan and Thomas Edison who always wanted to discredit everything he did. Fortunately, on January 2nd of 1934, a settlement was reached with the Westinghouse Corporation which would pay for Tesla’s monthly living expenses for life, so Tesla promptly moved into the Hotel New Yorker. Being a destitute gambling addict who was terrible with personal finance, he was happy to be able to move in somewhere with all expenses paid for the rest of his life, especially in the midst of the Great Depression. It was truly a godsend for the poor old man.

Since Tesla suffered from OCD, he was obsessed with the number 3, so he requested to live in room 3327 on the 33rd floor because both numbers are divisible by 3. Regardless, a few years later, since FDR was keen on knowing the whereabouts of Tesla…