Years ago these fallout shelter signs seemed to be everywhere in New York � remnants of the civil defence programs of the 1950s and early 1960s. They are uncommon now � I imagine most now adorn rec room walls (I found this one at West Houston Street and the West Side Highway).
When I wrote my PhD thesis I examined (among other things) the interaction between the Manhattan Project (and later nuclear research) and the history of American ecology. I studied at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory: a major site for the Project, responsible for applying the technology for purifying uranium, among other tasks.
And I always assumed the Manhattan Project had nothing to do with Manhattan. It seemed logical that if you wanted to do something really secret, you wouldn't do it in the busiest city in the country. Better to stay out in the middle of nowhere, like rural Tennessee (Oak Ridge), Los Alamos (the New Mexico desert), and Hanford (Washington State) � places that one could pretend didn't really exist. The recent move to create a Manhattan Project National Historic Park that includes these three places confirms that this is the general assumption.
But then I came across an article that taught me otherwise. In fact the Manhattan Project had a lot to do with Manhattan. Historian Robert S. Norris has tracked down the story of the atomic bomb in New York. Guided by his research (as reported by William J. Broad in The New York Times), I thought it would be interesting to follow the trail of the first atomic bomb across New York. Another really useful source of information is the Atomic Heritage Foundation.
A good starting point is 155 Riverside Drive, at West 88th Street, in the Upper West Side. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project's chief scientist, grew up in this building, on the 11thfloor:
And just 18 blocks north, still on Riverside Drive, and between 105thand 106th street, is the New York Buddhist Church � the most modest building on the Drive. In front is a statue of a Japanese Buddhist monk, Shinran Shonin. This statue was in Hiroshima in 1945, survived the bomb, and was brought to New York in 1955. It is intended to remind everyone of the need for world peace:
Next, a walk further uptown bring us to Columbia University. Here, the Pupin Physics Laboratories was the site of a cyclotron and several advances in atomic science during the 1930s and 1940s. At one point 700 people at Columbia worked on the Manhattan Project:
At this point, I hopped back on the subway and headed south to Chelsea. Here on West 20th Street near the West Side Highway stood the Baker and Williams Warehouses:
These warehouses once stored tons of uranium that were used in the Manhattan Project, shipped from the Eldorado Radium Extraction Plant (as it was then called) at Port Hope, Ontario (as it happens, not far from my own home base at Trent University). Only in the late 1980s and early 1990s were these buildings finally cleaned of their residual radioactive waste. Which is just as well, as the area is gentrifying rapidly, filling up with galleries and offices (the location right next to the High Line is among the most desirable in west Manhattan). Here's more information about these buildings.
And it looks like at least one resident of an adjoining building is more concerned about something other than radiation:
At this point, I grabbed a City Bike, and headed further south, almost to the tip of Manhattan. Here, at 25 Broadway, is the Cunard Building:
Edgar Sengier, a Belgian, had his office here. His company mined about 1200 tons of uranium ore, storing it on Staten Island. It all went to the project.
Next, our trail heads north, to the Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway:
The Kellex Corporation was based here (on the 11th, 12th, and 14th floors). It pursued research on concentrating uranium ore, that eventually led to the K-25 (K for Kellex, 25 for Uranium 235) gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge.
And finally, we go just a little further north, to 270 Broadway, overlooking City Hall Park. During the war this was the headquarters of the North Atlantic Division of the Army Corps of Engineers:
Once the Corps was assigned the task of building the bomb, it put its headquarters for the job in the same building. And because of where it was located, it became known as the Manhattan Engineer District, or Manhattan Project: a name chosen because it gave away nothing about the true nature of the task. The project was run from here until later in 1943, when its headquarters were moved to Oak Ridge.
I imagine that for most people in New York those fading fallout shelter signs are the only visible traces of atomic history. So it is interesting to learn that New York's ultimate nightmare has roots in the city itself.
(By the way, if you'd like to learn more, here's a great source worth buying.)
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| End of the story: Hiroshima (October 2013) |
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