Editing Nikola Tesla (section)

=== Living circumstances ===
Tesla lived at the [[Waldorf-Astoria (1893–1929)|Waldorf Astoria]] in New York City from 1900 and ran up a large bill.{{sfn|Cheney|Uth|Glenn|1999|p=125}} He moved to the [[St. Regis New York|St. Regis Hotel]] in 1922 and followed a pattern from then on of moving to a different hotel every few years and leaving unpaid bills behind.{{sfn|Carlson|2013|p=467-468}}{{sfn|O'Neill|1944|p=359}}

Tesla walked to the park every day to feed the pigeons. He began feeding them at the window of his hotel room and nursed injured birds back to health.{{sfn|O'Neill|1944|p=359}}<ref>{{cite web|title=About Nikola Tesla |url=http://www.teslasociety.org/about.html |publisher=Tesla Memorial Society of NY |access-date=5 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120525133151/http://www.teslasociety.org/about.html |archive-date=25 May 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Tesla Life and Legacy&nbsp;– Poet and Visionary |url=https://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_poevis.html |publisher=PBS |access-date=5 July 2012 |archive-date=8 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120708101441/http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_poevis.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He said that he had been visited by a certain injured white pigeon daily. He spent over $2,000 ({{Inflation|US|2000|1922|r=-1|fmt=eq}}) to care for the bird, including a device he built to support her comfortably while her broken wing and leg healed.{{sfn|Seifer|2001|p=414}} Tesla stated:

{{blockquote|I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me. I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.<ref>{{cite web|title=About Nikola Tesla |url=http://www.teslasociety.org/about.html |publisher=Tesla Society of USA and Canada |access-date=5 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120525133151/http://www.teslasociety.org/about.html |archive-date=25 May 2012 }}</ref>}}

Tesla's unpaid bills, as well as complaints about the mess made by pigeons, led to his eviction from St. Regis in 1923. He was also forced to leave the [[Hotel Pennsylvania]] in 1930 and the Hotel Governor Clinton in 1934.{{sfn|O'Neill|1944|p=359}} At one point he also took rooms at the [[Hotel Marguery]].{{sfn|Cheney|Uth|Glenn|1999|p=135}}

Tesla moved to the [[Wyndham New Yorker Hotel|Hotel New Yorker]] in 1934. At this time Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company began paying him $125 ({{Inflation|US|125|1934|r=-1|fmt=eq}}) per month in addition to paying his rent. Accounts of how this came about vary. Several sources claim that Westinghouse was concerned, or possibly warned, about potential bad publicity arising from the impoverished conditions in which their former star inventor was living.{{sfn|Jonnes|2004|p=365}}<ref>{{harvnb|Cheney|Uth|Glenn|1999|p=149}}</ref><ref name="Seifer435">{{harvnb|Seifer|2001|p=435}}</ref>{{sfn|Carlson|2013|p=379}} The payment has been described as being couched as a "consulting fee" to get around Tesla's aversion to accepting charity. Tesla biographer Marc Seifer described the Westinghouse payments as a type of "unspecified settlement".<ref name="Seifer435" />