Don't sleep on NJ. It has "the highest number of millionaires both per capita and per square mile in the U.S., and hosting more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere else in the world."
For many years I simply though of NJ as that stretch of highway south of NY, I guess the NJ turnpike with lots of large industrial plants. Then I drove west and realized it's also got a lot of toll roads.
The glory of discovery will echo through the ages. Radio astronomy was invented in the Holmdel Bell Labs.
I remember reading a story of a scientist that had discovered a new element. He sprinkled it on his father's grave saying that it's half life of O(thousands) years would last longer than any other memorial be could build. Can't remember the guys name sadly.
SV seems to have a little more depth to it. Were there many other high tech companies in the Holmdel region back in the 80s, or was this a little island of the future in a land of farms and Springsteen?
I was following the re-use of this building into modern smaller office spaces shortly before covid19 hit the commercial real estate market. I hope they're doing OK.
Spaces were getting leased and companies were moving in and then a vast number of things shifted to remote work/full work-from home, and I'm not sure to what extent they've really recovered.
I have a theory that the original placement of Bell Labs, back in the day, was chosen by the higher ranking executives to be conveniently close to their large homes in some leafy suburbs out in that particular part of NJ. It's not really what you could call a hotbed of tech innovation and local commute-distance talent pool nowadays, compared to locating a company in some retrofitted space in NYC.
Bell Labs was active in this area going all the way back to the 1930s, where its relative isolation was ideal for radio astronomy -- in fact, one can reasonably claim Holmdel as the origin of that field.
Also in this era, once you got a job at Bell Labs, then you were set for life...not getting filthy rich necessarily, but you could fully expect to spend your entire career with the one prestigious, stable, monopoly-supported employer, before retiring with a nice pension. As a result, the rank-and-file talent were happy to move and settle down in the towns surrounding these giant suburban/exurban campuses, which also had excellent public schools thanks to the affluent tax base and high concentration of engineer/scientist parents.
I think the NJ location was discussed in the book "The Idea Factory" (or at least the Murray Hill location) - hard to imagine it as farmland with tons of open space compared to the NYC office! These days there are still a good number of legacy engineering companies in defense and telecom in the North Jersey area. There's a neat small-world feel to some of these places with all the people who scattered around after Lucent.
> compared to locating a company in some retrofitted space in NYC.
Speaking of that, Bell Labs' old NYC HQ [1] is an impressive set of buildings too! It was converted to the Westbeth artist live/work community in the late 60s [2], and they typically offer tours to the public during Open House New York weekend each year [3].
I work at AT&T Labs. We often drive over to Bell Works for our lunch break; it's a lovely mixed used space, and also a chance to keep in touch with a part of AT&T history.
Back around 83 I got to do a project at this facility working with a guy who built prototypes of consumer products. I was in middle school.
The project was to make a wireless joystick for the apple 2. You could go to the basement and fill out an order sheet and get any kind of electronic component. The order was filled on the spot while you stood there.
I didn’t know anything about the assembly written for the project. The mentor did all that. However I got to do all the wire wrapping and some of the other bits. It worked! Good times. No doubt this is one of the reasons I ended up as an engineer…
It was my first “real” office job and I just assumed all office buildings were that grandiose! Only later did I realize how fortunate I was..
Anyway I occasionally visit it now as Bell Works and am glad it has found a second life - hopefully one that lasts at least as long as its first incarnation.
p.s. I wrote that code in about a day, and then spent a month trying to figure out how to deploy it on the IBM-managed Windows NT IIS machines with only some ancient Perl available (5.005 maybe?) and no option to upgrade.
IIRC it involved printf-over-email debugging where the IT folks would try and deploy it, email me the errors, I’d iterate and we’d repeat.
Was a pretty valuable experience in some ways - good taste of enterprise computing realities…
Used to go there daily for a project a few years ago. Pretty interesting campus and spent some time walking the hallways. They had some ancient looking computers which was interesting.
I grew up near here and visit once in a while when I come to see my rents.
It’s a nice, large space. The holmdel public library has actually moved into it.
Not a huge fan of the surrounding McMansions they’ve built, but Bell Works itself is a good place to grab a bite, go for a walk, grab a drink - and of course to work.
Always wondered if the Holmdel area could’ve been SV, but I don’t think there was the same level of entrepreneurial risk taking as there was in the Valley.
I worked at a startup working with haptic touch screens, and got to participate in a student hack-a-thon with our hardware at this location around 2014-2015. At the time, it looked like the pictures here: https://metropolismag.com/projects/eero-saarinens-bell-labs-...
Got to spend the night in the building, and the most interesting part was wandering around into the offices that still had writing on the chalkboards/whiteboards lamenting the closure of the building and Bell Labs/Lucent. It was an amazing experience!
[+] [-] toddm|3 years ago|reply
https://www.fastcompany.com/90762774/jessica-lee-gagne-sever...
[+] [-] blamazon|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River_Museum
It's interesting in general how that show was produced in the 'tri-state area'.
(Not sure how else to call this - the urbanized junction of NJ/NY/CT radiating outwards from NYC)
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graderjs|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmartrican|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeweiss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roflyear|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dekhn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dnamlin|3 years ago|reply
It wasn't even headquarters for Bell Labs.
A reminder....all glory is fleeting!
[+] [-] blamazon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fatjokes|3 years ago|reply
I remember reading a story of a scientist that had discovered a new element. He sprinkled it on his father's grave saying that it's half life of O(thousands) years would last longer than any other memorial be could build. Can't remember the guys name sadly.
[+] [-] googlryas|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptyparadise|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roflyear|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] planetsprite|3 years ago|reply
The Gabagoogleplex
[+] [-] notacop31337|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andyjohnson0|3 years ago|reply
https://metropolismag.com/projects/eero-saarinens-bell-labs-...
[+] [-] walrus01|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs
https://www.wired.com/2014/09/coupland-bell-labs/
I was following the re-use of this building into modern smaller office spaces shortly before covid19 hit the commercial real estate market. I hope they're doing OK.
Spaces were getting leased and companies were moving in and then a vast number of things shifted to remote work/full work-from home, and I'm not sure to what extent they've really recovered.
I have a theory that the original placement of Bell Labs, back in the day, was chosen by the higher ranking executives to be conveniently close to their large homes in some leafy suburbs out in that particular part of NJ. It's not really what you could call a hotbed of tech innovation and local commute-distance talent pool nowadays, compared to locating a company in some retrofitted space in NYC.
[+] [-] dnamlin|3 years ago|reply
Also in this era, once you got a job at Bell Labs, then you were set for life...not getting filthy rich necessarily, but you could fully expect to spend your entire career with the one prestigious, stable, monopoly-supported employer, before retiring with a nice pension. As a result, the rank-and-file talent were happy to move and settle down in the towns surrounding these giant suburban/exurban campuses, which also had excellent public schools thanks to the affluent tax base and high concentration of engineer/scientist parents.
[+] [-] stn8188|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TedDoesntTalk|3 years ago|reply
Edison, NJ is not far away and was definitely a hotbed of tech in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Thomas Edison).
[+] [-] evanelias|3 years ago|reply
Speaking of that, Bell Labs' old NYC HQ [1] is an impressive set of buildings too! It was converted to the Westbeth artist live/work community in the late 60s [2], and they typically offer tours to the public during Open House New York weekend each year [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Laboratories_Building_(Ma...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westbeth_Artists_Community
[3] https://ohny.org/place/westbeth-artist-housing/
[+] [-] jmartrican|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cobertos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordleft|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdm70|3 years ago|reply
The project was to make a wireless joystick for the apple 2. You could go to the basement and fill out an order sheet and get any kind of electronic component. The order was filled on the spot while you stood there.
I didn’t know anything about the assembly written for the project. The mentor did all that. However I got to do all the wire wrapping and some of the other bits. It worked! Good times. No doubt this is one of the reasons I ended up as an engineer…
[+] [-] rrdharan|3 years ago|reply
http://www.extropia.com/hacks/webcal/WCfacility.html
It was my first “real” office job and I just assumed all office buildings were that grandiose! Only later did I realize how fortunate I was..
Anyway I occasionally visit it now as Bell Works and am glad it has found a second life - hopefully one that lasts at least as long as its first incarnation.
[+] [-] rrdharan|3 years ago|reply
IIRC it involved printf-over-email debugging where the IT folks would try and deploy it, email me the errors, I’d iterate and we’d repeat.
Was a pretty valuable experience in some ways - good taste of enterprise computing realities…
[+] [-] roflyear|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mradek|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dr_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lunaticlabs|3 years ago|reply
Got to spend the night in the building, and the most interesting part was wandering around into the offices that still had writing on the chalkboards/whiteboards lamenting the closure of the building and Bell Labs/Lucent. It was an amazing experience!
[+] [-] DIARRHEA_xd|3 years ago|reply
I have had 3 near collisions in the past year. My friends, about the same.
Be warned
[+] [-] eschulz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aj7|3 years ago|reply