MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

MIT's Building 20: The Magical Incubator Story, Anecdote, or Reminiscence

An Earlier Tour of Building 20

John Eshbach
j.r.eshbach@worldnet.att.net

During the summer of 1950, while I was a graduate student in Woody Strandberg's microwave spectroscopy lab, I was among those pressed into service to escort several groups of visiting industrial managers through Building 20. My group included, for example, V. K. Zworykin, television pioneer and director of the RCA Labs at Princeton, NJ. These people had been invited to MIT to hear a pitch on the need for new laboratory space and see first-hand the wornout temporary building that was still being used so long after WWII.

One exhibit on the tour was a display depicting Bob Kingston's and Prof. George Harvey's vacuum system and soft X-ray apparatus that had been demolished when a lead brick came crashing through the ceiling of their lab from the roof above. (Bob was frightened but uninjured). The lead brick had been used as a weight to hold down an antenna frame which nevertheless was blown over in a high wind.

I suspect that any dollars pledged by these industralists actually went into the budget for the new RLE building nearby. I also wonder how many times this same ploy involving Building 20 has been repeated over the intervening years. Is it really going to be torn down this time?