Tuxedo Park Quotes

“the Carnegie money was only a drop in the bucket. He believed it was vital that science and technology were broadly mobilized for the war, which would provide him with a way to address what he saw as by far the most pressing military problem—the need to rapidly improve the country’s air defenses.”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park

“They now had a technical advantage over the Germans that they had to exploit immediately...According to Cockcroft, right then and there Loomis proposed the idea of establishing a large central microwave laboratory. The British enthusiastically seconded the idea, and it was quickly agreed that it should be a civilian rather than military operation, staffed by scientists and engineers from both universities and industry, based on the British model of successful research laboratories, and, not coincidentally, Loomis' own enterprise.”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

“Loomis was not any easier a father than he was a husband. He set the bar very high when it came to his three sons. After he cashed out of Bonbright, he awarded each of the three boys a substantial share of their inheritance - roughly $1 million - on the theory that it was never too early to begin charting one's own course. The youngest, Henry, was only fourteen when he was given complete financial independence.”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

“Loomis was largely responsible for the committee's wholehearted sponsoring of microwave radar research. The army was skeptical, believing that microwave radar was 'for the next war, not this one." The army had already worked to improve its transmitting tubes so that the wavelength could be reduced to 1 1/2 meters and thought anything much shorter than that could not be perfected anytime soon. Given how slow they had been to capitalize on new technology in the past, Loomis regarded the army's attitude as more a reflection on their own bureaucracy than those posed by the research challenge.”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

“one of the first to provide poor invalids with a level of care that had previously been available only to the rich. In”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park

“his deeply ingrained belief that the rich should repay their debt to society. Throughout his life, Alfred Loomis would feel that moneymaking alone was not a satisfactory existence.”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park

“But after a sojourn in the Adirondacks restored his health, he became persuaded of the curative powers of the mountain air and devoted himself to the study of respiratory problems. He”
― Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park