Thomas Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application. Edison's name is registered on 1,093 patents. Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention that first gained him wider notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Despite its limited sound quality and that
Menlo Park Mall from the shopping venue. The structure was fully enclosed between June 1966 and December 1967. After the remodeling, it was renamed Menlo Park Mall. The original center was anchored by Bamberger's, Montgomery Ward (opened May 1960), a small, dry goods only, JCPenney, a two-level Woolworth, as well as two grocery stores: ShopRite (later a Pathmark), and Pantry Pride, later a Big Buy. Originally a one level structure, the fully enclosed mall (post-1967) had a lack of skylights, with only shaded windows along the sides of the ceiling. The low lighting made the interior quite dark, as was customary with interiors