MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

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

Don't Burn the Building Down

David Kress
'67

I had an office/lab in Building 20 from about 1967-1970. I worked with Steve Burns and Roger Mark in Bio-Engineering and had joint projects with MGH. I designed a very high impedance amplifier for glass electrodes. At one point, I went off to a class and left a soldering iron plugged in. Upon returning, my entire setup was missing, with a note to see Steve. He was not pleased. "You can do just about anything you want in Building 20, but if you burn it down, I will hate you forever" (or words to that effect).