I hopped in a zipcar and drove from NYC out to Shoreham, Long Island several months ago and trespassed around the site of inventor Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe tower and laboratory to see how it looks.
As of April 2012, it's looking pretty bad.
The laboratory building seems to remain mostly structurally in tact, but is covered in graffiti and likely frequented by local teens smoking some weed. I have no evidence to support that latter theory, it was just a feeling I got. The foundations of the Wardenclyffe wireless tower, which was torn down in 1917, are all that remain of that structure. In a mind-numbingly craptastic documentary I watched last year, it seems a group of engineers took measures at some point (with concrete) to preserve the wooden piers that go so deep into the ground, they stopped excavating at around 300 feet. So at least it has that going for it in the way of being looked after.
But in a rad turn of events as interest in Tesla has increased over the last few years, my huge crush on internet comic artist The Oatmeal grew even stronger as he partnered with a bunch of folks from the reddit community to create a crowdfunding campaign to buy the property and fulfill a long dream of turning it into the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe.
Currently, the only large-scale museum about Tesla is in Belgrade, Serbia (video forthcoming), where all of his research and personal affects were taken after his death by his klepto nephew, who happened to be the Ambassador to the US from (then) Yugoslavia.
Being based in NYC, I'm excited to see the developments of the new museum and hope to be one of its first volunteers. Geeking out is the new cool.
Cross-posted at NikolaTeslaTour.com