re: #424 lawhawk

When most people think of the Manhattan Project, they think of Hanford, Oak Ridge, or the deserts of New Mexico.

What they don’t realize is that the Manhattan Project had significant presences in far more places - including the very location it was named after.

While not located in Manhattan, there’s one place that also deserves a look; it’s a spit of land just under the Bayonne Bridge in Richmond Terrace on Staten Island where a batch of uranium delivered from the Belgian Congo was stored. Some of it spilled and contaminated the land there, but the rest was sent on to be processed and was used in the first atomic bombs.

That uranium ore was owned by Edgar Sengier, who had offices in the Cunard Building at 25 Broadway.

Got its name from the organization that ran it—the Manhattan District of the Army Corps of Engineers. The boss was a one-star named Groves, a very effective SOB who earlier had brought the Pentagon construction in on-time, on-budget. AFAIK, there still is a Manhattan District—some of my buddies worked there on ordinary Engineer Things.