Somerset (New Jersey)

Somerset is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP's population was 22,083.Somerset housed one of the first Marconi Wireless Stations in the United States.HistoryNew Brunswick Marconi Station was located at JFK Boulevard and Easton Avenue just a few minutes from the New Brunswick border. Today it is the site of Marconi Park. It was an early radio transmitter facility built in 1913 and operated by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. After the interruption transatlantic telegraph cables by enemy action, the facility was confiscated by the United States Navy on April 7, 1917, to provide transatlantic communications during World War I. The New Brunswick Naval Radio Station was the principal wartime communication link between the United States and Europe, using the callsign NFF. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech was transmitted from the site in 1918. After the war, ownership of the station, along with Marconi's other US assets, was transferred from the navy to RCA. The antenna masts were demolished in 1952 to make room for what is now a small mall containing a Kmart, but the buildings on the other side of JFK Boulevard were spared. All but one of the brick buildings were demolished around 2004 to make way for a storage locker facility. The bricks and tiles were saved for use in any future restoration of the spared building, and the Marconi facility in Belmar, New Jersey.