Thomas Edison's invention factory in West Orange is set to reopen

Generations of children who made the pilgrimage to Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange used to be confined to the first floor of the main laboratory where Edison punched in at a time clock for 80-hour weeks and took naps on a small bed in his library.

Now, for the first time, the Steinway & Sons piano, tickled perhaps by Edison himself, is in full view. So, too, are the famed inventor's "talking machine" and recording devices. Portraits of the premier voices of the day — tenor Walter Van Brunt among them — line the walls. Many of the artifacts locked away for decades in the museum's vaults have been restored and moved back into the rooms they once occupied.