After a subsequent interview at Brooklyn Poly, I was hired, and life as a fully independent researcher began.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
During my participation in the Manhattan Project and subsequent research at Los Alamos, encompassing a period of fifteen years, I worked in the company of perhaps the greatest collection of scientific talent the world has ever known.
When I was there, something clicked in my head; I found myself interviewing people, searching out facts and figures. Later on I became much more self-conscious of what I was doing.
I really wanted to work and become independent.
I grew up in the projects in Brooklyn, and I consider myself lucky and blessed to be where I am - just working.
I had a wonderful and very successful career in New York and had the privilege of working with some of the best editors and publishers in the business.
The Director of the Laboratory, George Reynolds, was most supportive of my efforts to work independently. There followed for ten years a glorious time for research.
I finished my Ph.D. at Berkeley in November 1987 and took a position as an independent fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in January 1988.
I came to NYU to study experimental theater. Shortly thereafter, I was featured in a 'Newsweek' article about the emerging downtown club scene, and, well, that was it for NYU. I was off and running.
I applied for a job at 'The New York Times' many years ago, and felt correctly that my life depended on it.
By late 1953, going to New York on vacation, I had lined up several Time Inc. interviews - and what they did was give me a lifelong appreciation of the importance of luck in getting a job.