MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

E E C S

MIT's Building 20: The Magical Incubator

Story, Anecdote, or Reminiscence

The Third Floor

Lindsay Russell
lindsayr@tiac.net

I did my master's thesis in Bldg. 20, the "third floor" (penthouse). I had that big barn of a place to myself except for an elderly former RadLab technician working at a corner bench. It was great! You could nail motors, etc., to the benches & walls -- nobody minded what you did. There were plenty of power outlets all over. Nobody ever came around except those you invited in. (My thesis involved human subjects.) But before I set up shop there, I was advised that my efforts might be wasted, and I might be told to close up and move elsewhere, possibly on short notice. Bldg. 20, they reminded me, was but a temporary WW II structure and could be torn down "most any time." That was in the fall of 1950.
URL of this page: http://www-eecs.mit.edu/building/20/anecdotes/36.html
Author: Lindsay Russell | Created: Feb 18, 1998 | Modified: Mar 12, 1998
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