On West 34th Street, between Broadway and 7th Ave, there is a plaque on the side of Macy's Department Store, which reads:
HERE THE MOTION PICTURE BEGAN
★
ON THE NIGHT OF APRIL 23rd, 1896, ON THIS SITE
IN KOSTER & BAIL'S MUSIC HALL
THOMAS A. EDISON
WITH THE "VITASCOPE"
FIRST PROJECTED A MOVING PICTURE
------------
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE EVENT , THIS TABLET IS HERE AFFIXED BY
THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY , OCTOBER 4, 1938
This is actually incorrect. Moving pictures had been around for some time, but could only be viewed through Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, which showed a single reel of film to one person, "peep show" style. The first public screening was held at Salon Indien du Grand Café, in Paris, on December 28, 1895, by brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere. They ran ten short film clips, including their own La Sortie des usines Lumière and L'Arroseur Arrosé, but the first projection in front of a crowd would be Charles Francis Jenkins with his Phantoscope. That event holds the earliest documented projection of a motion picture, when he tested a clip of a dancer during a vaudeville act on June 6, 1894, in Richmond, Indiana.
Now, though Edison did pioneer movie projectors, cameras, and film, the Vitascope was actually invented by Charles Francis Jenkins, and Thomas Armat, in 1895, off of modifications to Jenkins' patented Phantoscope. The Edison Manufacturing Company just agreed to manufacture the machine, and produce films for it, if they could advertised it as a new Edison invention.
If all of this angers you, continue west on 34th St, to the corner of 8th Ave, and visit The New Yorker Hotel.
This is the building where inventor, and thorn-in-the-side of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla spent the last ten years of his life, in a huge suite on the 33rd floor, which served as living quarters and study.
If you're lucky enough to enter the premises as a hotel guest (or ask nicely), you can see the plaques on the doors, which were converted into two different rooms.
New Yorker Hotel historian, and archivist, Joseph Kinney has set up a small museum in the lower lobby, which anyone can view (near the hotel's Business Center), and it holds some of Tesla's belongings, as well as a bust of the scientist.
The building also has an outdoor plaque commemorating Tesla's stay at the hotel, which was unveiled in a ceremony on July 10th, 2001. The tablet was originally created in 1977, by Yugoslav-American Bicentennial Committee, but, due to lack of interest in Tesla's work at the time, wasn't placed there until 2001 (thanks to the hard work of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
While the building has been owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church since 1975, it is currently run by Wyndham Hotels, who is doing some renovations on the facade, so the plaque is covered up by scaffolding. Until the construction is done in 2016, and the boards removed, you can only view it online (see an image of it here).
