Con Ed or Con Edison (Consolidated Edison)

Con Ed?

Continuing Education? Convicted? Conniving? A convention of guys named Ed?

New York gets its energy form a company named "con"?

"Con Ed" stands for "Consolidated Edison." The company itself prefers "Con Edison" to "Con Ed." The name represents the merger of the "New York Edison Company" with "Consolidated Gas," officially changed in 1936.

http://www.coned.com/about/about.asp?subframe=main
About Con Edison

New York City pulses with energy. It is the global center of finance, communications, information technology, and other industries dependent on reliable energy. For more than 180 years, Con Edison has been supplying the energy that powers New York.

Consolidated Edison Company of New York (Con Edison), a regulated utility, provides electric service in New York City (except for a small area of Queens), and most of Westchester County. We provide natural gas service in Manhattan, the Bronx, and parts of Queens and Westchester. Con Edison also owns and operates the world's largest steam system, providing steam service in most of Manhattan. Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies with $10 billion in annual revenues and approximately $22 billion in assets.


12 April 1887, New York Times, pg. 10:
...New-York Consolidated Gas Company
30 October 1892, New York Times, pg. 16:
...New-York Edison Electric Illuminating Company
19 February 1936, New York Times, pg. 27:
CONSOLIDATED GAS
OFFERS NEW NAME

Stockholders to Vote March 16
on Making It Consolidated
Edison Co. of New York.
(...)
Stockholders of the Consolidated Gas Company of New York are being asked to approve at their annual meeting on March 16 a change in the company's name to the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., the annual report, issued yesterday, reveals. The electric business has become predominant and now provides about 75 per cent of the gross operating revenues of the system, and, with changes in corporate structure contemplated, the officers consider it appropriate that the name shall better represent the nature of the business.
(...)
In addition to the merger of the New York Edison Company and the United Electric Light and Power Company last August, and of the pending petition to merge five gas companies into the Consolidated Gas Company, plans for further corporate simplification are outlined as follows by Floyd L. Carlisle, chairman, and Frank W. Smith, president.

17 March 1936, New York Times, pg. 31:
CONSOLIDATED GAS
CHANGES ITS NAME

Few Shares Voted Against
Calling It Consolidated Edi-
son Company of N. Y.

28 March 1936, New York Times, pg. 24:
(Stock quotes -ed.)
Consol. Edis. N.Y.
Cons. Ed. N.Y.

11 October 1951, New York Times, pg. 36:
SMOKE AND "CON ED"

Consolidated Edison appears to be fighting a delaying action against city enforcement of smoke control laws.
(...)
But of one thing we are sure, the pople of New York would prefer to see "Con Ed" using its energy and funds on controlling smoke emission rather than on fighting legal skirmishes. The real issue is dense smoke, not technicalities. If "Con Ed" is guilty, let us get on with the penalties and - best of all - the remedies. Court delays solve nothing.