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The Inception of The Academy

The New York Academy of Sciences stands as a venerable institution with a rich and storied history that spans over two centuries. Established in 1817, the Academy has consistently been at the forefront of scientific exploration, education and the formulation of policies that shape our world. This enduring legacy continues to influence the course of science and society into our third century.

The Academy’s first home: On January 29, 1817, Academy founder Samuel Latham Mitchill convened the first meeting at the College of Physicians & Surgeons in lower Manhattan.

1800-1850

1817

At a time when New York City north of Canal Street was fields and forests, when the only academic route to a scientific education was medical school, and when learned societies were often reserved for men of wealth, a small group of young naturalists banded together to create the Lyceum of Natural History, founded on egalitarian principles. On January 29, 1817, Academy founder Samuel Latham Mitchill convened the first meeting at the College of Physicians & Surgeons in lower Manhattan. A U.S. Senator from New York, Mitchill was a professor of chemistry and natural history and was also responsible for establishing the first medical journal in the US.

That same year, an upstate farmer unearthed the jaw of a mammoth on his property—a spectacular first at a time when fossils were rarely encountered. He contacted Mitchill, who organized an expedition under Lyceum auspices to investigate further.

1824

From the Lyceum’s earliest years, members could keep abreast of science around the world through it sever-expanding library. In 1824 the Lyceum launched its journal, Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York. By exchanging Annals for the publications of scientific organizations worldwide, the Lyceum built its collections. Known today as Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, it is one of the oldest continuously published science journals in the United States.

1829 

From the very beginning the Lyceum welcomed many renowned Members, including Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States.

1836 

Commissioned by New York State, Lyceum members Lewis Beck, John Torrey and James DeKay led this landmark assessment of the state of New York’s natural resources, including minerals and forests, its flora and fauna. Also this year, Botanist Asa Gray became curator and librarian of the Lyceum; later, as a Harvard professor, Gray was one of Darwin’s lead supporters in the US.

1840

Chemist, physician, photographer, and Lyceum member John W. Draper presented the first photograph, an early daguerreotype, showing details for the moon’s surface at a Lyceum meeting on March 23.  

A 19th century shot of Lower Manhattan in New York City
Illustrations of various reptiles and amphibians.

1850-1900

An illustration of the NYU Medical School building.

From 1850-1900, Academy membership grows with some of the greatest names in science, welcoming in a new century of discovery.

One of the earliest photographs of the moon.
A sketching of an old building.
A black and white photo of a woman.
A ticket for a public lecture from 1893.

1859 

Renowned geographer, naturalist, explorer and philosopher Alexander von Humboldt was among the early Members of the Academy.

1865

In 1865, Academy Member Lewis M. Rutherfurd, who invented the first telescope designed for astrophotography, published one of the first high quality images of the moon.

1866

On the night of May 21, 1866, fire broke out in the building next door to the Lyceum headquarters on 14th Street. It soon engulfed the entire block, destroying the Lyceum’s library, as well as its collection—including John James Audubon’s Birds, John Draper’s chemistry apparatus, and an unrivaled mineralogical cabinet—dashing hopes of establishing a natural history museum and leading the Lyceum to move to Mott Memorial Hall at 64 Madison Avenue. The Lyceum persevered, turning this catastrophe into an opportunity to adapt to the changing landscape of science.

1868

Members of the Academy played key roles in founding a number of important institutions across the city of New York, including the American Museum of Natural History.

 

1876 

In the late 1800s science was becoming more specialized. Professional societies began to form, and natural history no longer represented a unified body of knowledge. In order to reflect the larger scope of scientific disciplines represented in the organization, such as Chemistry, Engineering, and Technology, the Lyceum changed its name to The New York Academy of Sciences on January 5, 1876, and created specialist sections under the Academy’s umbrella. 

1877

In keeping with its egalitarian principles, the Lyceum voted to begin inviting women to attend its meetings and to become members. Geologist and anthropologist Erminnie A. Smith became the first woman elected to Academy membership.

1887

Academy members also played important roles in national organizations, coordinating the first New York meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an event that gave the local scientific community visibility on the national stage. At the AAAS meeting, Albert A. Michaelson and Edward W. Morley made public their experiment disproving the existence of an “ether” through which light was through to travel in the form of waves. This shocked the audience—and paved the way for Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity.

1891

The Academy created the Scientific Alliance, an organization that united New York’s scientific clubs and societies—and began publishing the Bulletin to announce meetings and foster collaboration among member groups. Through these efforts, the Academy emerged as a leader.

1892

Scientist, inventor, engineer and Academy member Alexander Graham Bell opened long-distance telephone service from New York to Chicago in 1892.

1894

The Academy launched a series of annual exhibitions showcasing the research of its members and of other institutions in New York City.

1900-1950

The turn of the century brought in a new president to the Academy, along with new conferences and initiatives.

An illustration of the American Museum of Natural History.

1906

Nathaniel Britton was elected president of the Academy in 1906. Britton had been instrumental in founding the New York Botanical Garden, chartered in 1891, and had served as its first director. This year, the Academy moved into rooms at the American Museum of Natural History, where it maintained its offices until 1950. Academy members were among the Museum’s founders.

1913

Britton launched the Academy’s ambitious survey of Puerto Rico—the first of its kind—by marshaling the expertise of members in diverse disciplines: geology, meteorology, oceanography, archaeology, anthropology, botany and zoology. Though it began as a small-scale botanical and entomological exploration, it grew into a multi-year project, publishing 19 volumes and earning the Academy a reputation for scientific excellence.

1916

Serbian-American physicist and Columbia professor Michael Pupin was elected Academy president.

1935

Eunice Miner, a research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History, joined the Academy with just over 300 members. Miner became the Academy’s Executive Director in 1939 and through legendary energy and ambition, expanded membership to more than 20,000 by 1967.

1938

Two pioneering conferences—one on electrophoresis in 1938, the other on the internal composition of stars in 1939—established the Academy conferences in the eyes of the international scientific community.

1942

The Academy published the book Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis, by Gregory Bateson & Margaret Mead. Both Academy Members, Bateson and Mead compiled over 700 photographs depicting their cultural studies in Bali. Read the book here.

1946

In January of 1946, the Academy held the first-ever large scientific conference on antibiotics, only two years after the discovery of streptomycin. Proceedings from this groundbreaking conference were published in the September 1946 volume of Annals.

1948

The Academy launched the first Science and Technology Exposition, New York City’s science fair.

A diagram of various seashell varieties.
A black and white photo of a Balinese woman dancing.
An advert for a 1946 antibiotics conference sponsored by the Academy.

1950-2000

The Academy spent the entire latter half of the 20th century in its newly acquired Woolworth Mansion building, the longest period to date that the Academy remained in a single location, which helped to provide stability and promote advancement.

An illustrated primate graces the cover of "The Sciences" magazine.
A woman works inside a science lab.
A woman poses for the camera inside a science lab.
Findings from research on AIDS.
Participants interacting during a 1993 science and technology conference.

1950

After hearing a talk by Eunice Miner in the late 1940s on the Academy’s need for a home, Norman Woolworth donated the Woolworth Mansion on East 63rd Street. This became the Academy’s headquarters for the next 50+ years.

1961

The Academy launched The Sciences, seven-time National Magazine-award-winning science publication for an audience of both experts and lay readers; publication continued until 2001.

1964

Leaders of the Academy had long been aware that advances in health and living could only be secured by developing a new generation of scientists and science-savvy adults. The launch of the Junior Academy fostered the next generation of scientist-researchers, including George Yancopoulos, co-founder of cutting-edge biotech company Regeneron. 

1966

Leading anthropologist Margaret Mead became a Vice President of the Academy in the 1960s. 

1970s

The first African-American woman to receive a PhD in Chemistry in the U.S., Marie Maynard Daly had a distinguished career in biochemistry and was an Academy Member, as well as a Member of the Academy’s Board of Governors.

1978

Charlotte Friend, renowned for establishing that cancer could be caused by a virus, became the Academy’s first female president. 

1979

The Science in Research Training Program was established, giving high school students an opportunity to do research in real laboratory settings. The Academy also established the Albert Einstein public lecture series, given by notable scientists including Sydney Brenner, Freeman Dyson, Susumu Tonegawa and Steven Weinberg.

1983 

When many were still fearful of addressing the AIDS crisis, the Academy took the lead and hosted the first major scientific conference on AIDS in December of 1983. Conference proceedings were published in a December 1984 volume of Annals.

1987

The Academy published a fifth volume of reports from the Moscow Refusnik Seminar, papers by persecuted scientists from the Soviet Union and by concerned colleagues.

1988

Physicist Andrei Sakharov and Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi credited the Academy for the coordination of international pressure around the human rights of scientists that resulted in their release. Both made the Academy their first stop during U.S. visits.

1993

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the Academy held science fairs for high school students, continuing a long tradition begun in the 1940s.

1997

With increasing focus on public health and policy, the Academy convened a landmark conference on the effects of cocaine on the developing brain.

2000-2020

Moving into the 21st century, the Academy returned to its roots in lower Manhattan and celebrated its bicentennial, marking two centuries of advancing science for the public good.

An illustration of the 7 World Trade Center building.

2005

Ellis Rubinstein became Academy President and CEO.

2006

The Academy moved downtown as the first tenant of the new World Trade Center at 7 WTC, 250 Greenwich Street—four blocks from its birthplace on Barclay Street.

2007

In November of 2007 the first-ever Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists were announced at the Academy’s annual gala. The Blavatnik Awards were created to honor exceptional young scientists and engineers by celebrating their achievements, recognizing their future potential, and providing them with unrestricted funding.  

2008

The Harbor Project achieved consensus among 70 stakeholder organizations on the industrial sources of contaminants in New York Harbor and ways to protect the watershed.

2010

In February of 2010, the Academy published one of its most downloaded volumes of Annals, “The Biology of Disadvantage: Socioeconomic Status and Health.” 

2012

The Academy convened a panel discussion to debate perceived censorship of highly controversial studies with the avian influenza virus H5N1.

2014 

On September 22, 2014, the Academy announced the Global STEM Alliance before a packed audience at the United Nations. The programs aimed to improve the STEM pipeline with a focus on mentoring and inspiring students and scientists at all stages. The GSA has evolved into Academy Learning [ck], which continues to be dedicated to STEM education for K-12 students and serves to keep the scientific career pipeline filled with promising young minds.  

2017

The Academy turned 200 years old, celebrating two centuries of bringing together extraordinary people to drive solutions to society’s challenges by advancing scientific research, education, and policy.

2020

On March 12, 2020, the Academy held a webinar “What You Need to Know About the New Coronavirus.” Attendance exceeded 5,000 participants. The Academy continued to provide important, unbiased scientific information on the spread of SARSCoV-2, and the development of therapeutics and vaccines against the coronavirus, convening nearly 25 events in the first months of the pandemic. In so doing, the Academy built on a proud tradition of bringing together diverse, international stakeholders to address global issues as was done with antibiotics in 1946, AIDS in 1983, SARS in 2003, and H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009.  

A man wearing a suit and tie poses for the camera.
A group of award winners pose for the camera.
H5N1 avian influenza virus particles, coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM). Each virus particle consists of ribonucleic acid (RNA), surrounded by a nucleocapsid and a lipid envelope (green). The natural hosts of this virus are wild birds, which show few symptoms. However, infected domestic birds suffer a 90-100% mortality rate. Humans that have contact with infected birds can become infected. The first such infection was identified in South-East Asia in 1997, and the virus has steadily spread across the world, with an outbreak in a poultry farm in the UK in 2007. There are fears that the virus may mutate into a human-transmissible form, which could lead to millions of deaths worldwide. Magnification: x670,000 when printed 10cm wide.

2020-present

An exterior shot of the U.S. Realty Building.

As the world was grappling with the COVID pandemic, the Academy introduced Nicholas B. Dirks as its next president, at a time when advancing science for the public good was crucial.

A man smiles for the camera.

2020

In June 2020, Nicholas B. Dirks took the helm as President and CEO of The New York Academy of Sciences.

2022

The Academy introduced the International Science Reserve (ISR), a global network of scientific experts committed to collaborating across borders to accelerate solutions to help mitigate global crises that may arise from another pandemic, a cyberattack, or disasters associated with climate change. In its first year, more than 2000 scientists from 100 countries joined the ISR community.  

2023

From May 23-24, the Academy presented another groundbreaking first—the first convening of experts to address “The New Wave of AI in Healthcare.” This was just the first of many upcoming Academy endeavors, including a multi-year AI fellows-in-residence program, that aims to examine the potential applications of AI in various sectors for the public good.

Then, on September 14, the Academy christened its newest home by welcoming the Academy community to 115 Broadway to hear stimulating discussions about the future of science and to engage in hands-on science activities. The spirit of discovery of Charles Darwin—an early Member of the Academy—is very much alive to this day. A sculpture commissioned by our Members welcomes staff and guests alike in the lobby of our latest headquarters.

 

Laying the Scientific Foundation in New York City

A black and white headshot of Samual L Mitchell

Described by his contemporaries as a “chaos of knowledge,” a “living encyclopedia,” and a “stalking library,” first Academy President Samuel L. Mitchill dabbled in a variety of disciplines, building a unique level of scientific proficiency that was very rare at the time.

Published May 1, 2017

By Douglas Braaten, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer and Editor-in-Chief of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Samuel Latham Mitchill was a rare polymath for his time.

Born in North Hempstead, New York, in 1764, he had remarkably varied interests, which ranged from medicine to geology, botany and mineralogy. A farmer’s son, Mitchill exhibited great interest in the natural sciences early in life. After studying the foundations of medicine with his uncle, doctor Samuel Latham, Mitchill went to the University of Edinburgh to earn his medical degree in 1786 and then returned to New York, where he received a license to practice medicine. The route he chose, however, was far from a typical doctor’s path.

Because of his boundless thirst for knowledge, Mitchill couldn’t fully settle on pursuing any one scientific field. His contemporaries described him as a “chaos of knowledge,” a “living encyclopedia,” and a “stalking library.”

He kept dabbling in a variety of disciplines, building a unique level of scientific proficiency, which was very rare at the time. It wasn’t surprising that his wide array of interests and expertise earned him an appointment as a Chair of Natural History at Columbia University, at the age of 28. At Columbia, Mitchill’s scientific career truly flourished. He taught chemistry and botany, and expanded his work into other areas of science.

Promoting Geology, Agriculture, Chemistry

Mitchill was a prolific publisher and produced a variety of works, once again on a wide variety of topics. He prompted the geological survey of the New York State. He contributed to the development of agriculture by surveying the mineralogy of the Hudson River Valley. His chemistry studies led to improved detergents and disinfectants, and even better gunpowder. For 23 years, Mitchill served as a chief editor of the Medical Repository, one of the top scientific publications of the time.

It would only make sense then, that an erudite man like Mitchill would lay the foundation for the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1817, he organized the first meeting of the Lyceum of Natural History (the Academy’s early name), which took place at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Lower Manhattan. Later elected as the Lyceum’s first President, Mitchill remained in that post until 1823.

Under his supervision, the Lyceum hosted lectures, preserved samples of natural artifacts, and established a library. Seven years after the Lyceum’s commencement, it began publishing The Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York — one of the first American journals of natural history and science. The Annals published articles on myriad topics, from research on swallows by its Member John James Audubon, to descriptions of newly found species.

As the years progressed, the organization started by Mitchill continued to grow, adding more activities to its list. New York State commissioned the Lyceum to do a survey of its mineralogy, botany, and zoology. The Lyceum also became instrumental in launching organizations dedicated to scientific research and literacy, including New York University in 1831, and the Museum of Natural History in 1868.

Science and Politics

Like many other great scholars who sought to educate societies about science, Mitchill worked to emphasize the importance of scientific progress in the American legislature and politics. In 1801, he resigned his Columbia appointment and took a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Later, he served a term in the Senate, and then once again in the House. He was an advocate of quarantine laws, and an avid proponent of the Library of Congress.

Mitchill was also instrumental in the creation of educational institutions including Rutgers Medical College, where he served as Vice President during the college’s first four years. Despite being preoccupied with his political efforts and other endeavors, Mitchill never stopped working on his scientific pursuits, and remained very productive in his research publications throughout his life.

As historian Alan Aberbach once wrote, “To Mitchill it was axiomatic that with diligence and empirical practices, developing systematically and organically, one could come to grips with and resolve the historical plagues of mankind’s ills.”

The New York Academy of Sciences – A Concise History

An illustration of the Academy's original home in 1817.

Published May 1, 2017

By Douglas Braaten, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer and Editor-in-Chief of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Founded in 1817 as the “Lyceum of Natural History in the City of New York,” by a small group of science enthusiasts, led by Samuel Latham Mitchill, a polymath and prominent politician who represented New York in the U.S. Congress, determined to create an organization that anyone interested in natural science could join in order to learn from experts, and that provided a venue for public consumption of scientific ideas and advances of the time.

For the next 100 years, the trials and tribulations of the Academy were in many respects the trials and tribulations of progress of science in New York and other states of the new American republic. In March 1817, James Monroe became the fifth American president. That same year he was elected an honorary member of the Lyceum, along with the third American president, Thomas Jefferson.

The intentionally anti-patrician nature of the Lyceum not only distinguished it from other institutions of the day, it served as the basis for a new type of democratic institution that later was instrumental in the progress of science, especially in the New York City area, though this was also felt throughout New York State and beyond.

On the national scene, Philadelphia, originally owing to its centrality as the first American capital and birthplace of major figures in politics and science—e.g., Benjamin Franklin—was home to the first science societies in the nascent country, although with the exception of Franklin’s Academy of Natural History the societies were aristocratic and elitist. They were institutions largely, if not exclusively, for men of wealth who were not themselves scientists; nor probably even much interested in science. Membership was a symbol of status, indicating, among other things, that a person had the financial means to support these 19th century social clubs.

Even by name—Lyceum: an institution for popular education providing discussions, lectures, concerts, etc.—the first incarnation of the Academy was fundamentally different from other societies. Its raison d’être was not social climbing and show, but the dissemination of science, and bringing people who were keenly interested in science, together.

This fundamental democratic principle determined the course of the Academy’s history, and with it the development of key institutions of science and learning in New York City today, including Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden and New York University. It was by inclusion of people on the basis of only their interest in science that the Academy could bring together so many different stakeholders—indeed so many key individuals at just the right moments—to influence, if not forge the development of many New York City institutions.

The founding meeting of the Academy, then the Lyceum, occurred on January 29, 1817. To tell the history of the Academy’s accomplishments since then is to tell the history of science in New York State and America, and beyond. It is the history of an institution, but more importantly of the tens of thousands of individuals who have been Academy Members since 1817, from around the globe and from many diverse institutions, cultures and walks of life.

Indeed the history of the Academy would not have been possible without the devotion, energy and creativity of its Members. This collective engagement—today we refer to this as the Academy’s network—has enabled and driven fundamental changes in the landscape of science and science-based institutions in New York City and throughout the world. This is history worth telling, and re-telling.

Two centuries later, on January 29 2017, the Academy unveiled a permanent 200th Anniversary Exhibition in the lobby of its headquarters at 7 World Trade Center in New York City (see photos below). The folded timeline insert in this issue of the magazine provides a concise history of key Academy events, members and accomplishments since 1817. A prominent feature of the physical exhibition is a 17-foot-long timeline with images and text that tells the story of some of the enormous challenges and successes over the Academy’s 200 years.

In addition, as part of the 200th anniversary celebration, the Academy is publishing a revised edition of a critically acclaimed history of the Academy and of science in New York City and the early United States, Knowledge, Culture, and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences, 1817–2017 by historian and professor Simon Baatz (John Jay College).

Originally published as special issue of Annals (Ann NY Acad Sci 584: 1–269) in 1990, professor Baatz’s book provides an, “engrossing account of the role of the sciences within the great American metropolis”… “this masterly account of science in its social context will be of the greatest interest to everyone who cares about New York, about the growth of knowledge, and about the importance of voluntary associations in our national life.” The revised edition, published in January 2017, contains a new chapter on the Academy’s history from 1970 to 2017.

An even earlier account, A History of the New York Academy of Sciences, formerly the Lyceum of Natural History, published in 1887 by Herman Le Roy Fairchild, is also available in electronic form by contacting the Academy at annals@nyas.org. Fairchild’s account is a detailed discussion of many facets of the Lyceum’s early days, including biographical sketches of many of the important founders, lists of all of the first Lyceum officers and administrators, dates and addresses of locations of the Academy during its early peripatetic days, copies of the original constitution, by-laws and other legal documents.

Finally, a very brief history, “The Founding of the Lyceum of Nature History,” by historian Kenneth R. Nodyne, was published in 1970 (Ann NY Acad Sci 172: 141–149).

Some Prominent Members of the Academy

From its inception, the Academy has been a member-driven organization. And while it was a democratic organization that welcomed anyone, the Academy, for its first 100 years or so, proposed and voted on bestowing memberships.

As specified in the original constitution of 1817, admittance to the Lyceum was by three categories of membership. Resident members were from NYC and “its immediate vicinity” and thus could take part in Academy meetings, while Corresponding members, largely on account of travel times in the early 19th century—it took a day and a half to travel to Boston!—were less involved; Honorary members were selected on the basis of “attainment in Natural History,” no matter where they resided.

Categories of membership changed over the years. In the 1980s there were eight: Active, Life, Student, Junior, Institutional, Certificate, Honorary Life and Fellows. The total number of members had reached its highest, 48,000 from all 50 states and over 80 countries around the world. This membership apogee was in large part the result of two factors. One was the enormous influence of the Academy’s executive director from 1935 to 1965, Eunice Miner, whose zeal and “stubbornness” increased membership from 750 in 1938 to over 25,000 by 1967! The other influence was a membership policy in the 1980s of mailing out membership certificates to people worldwide.

Today’s Academy membership of 20,000 is composed of Professional, Student and Postdoctoral, Supporting and Patron, and—continuing a long tradition—Honorary Members. Over the course of our history there have been well over 200 Honorary Members, including 110 Nobel Laureates. Below are profiles of just a few of the Honorary Members.

Lord Kelvin (1824–1907)
Elected Honorary Member 1876

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, a Scots-Irish mathematical physicist and engineer who did important work on electricity and thermodynamics. Absolute temperatures are stated in units of Kelvin in his honor.

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)
Elected Honorary Member 1889

A French chemist and microbiologist known worldwide for his work on understanding vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. He was director of the Pasteur Institute, established in 1887, until his death. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1853, promoted to Commander in 1868, to Grand Officer in 1878 and made a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor—one of only 75 in all of France.

Niels Bohr (1885–1962)
Elected Honorary Member 1958

A Danish physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 for making fundamental contributions to the studies of atomic structure and quantum theory. He spent much of his life and worked in Denmark, where he founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen.

Barbara McClintock (1902–1992)
Elected Honorary Member 1985

An American cytogeneticist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983 for her discovery of genetic transposition. Her work concentrated on studies of maize, for which she developed techniques for visualizing the chromosomes; she produced the first genetic map for maize and demonstrated the important roles of telomeres and centromeres. McClintock spent her entire professional career in her own laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Rosalyn S. Yalow (1921–2011)
Elected Honorary Member 2006

Born in New York City, Yalow was a medical physicist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of the radioimmunoassay (RIA), an in vitro technique used to measure concentrations of immune proteins called antigens. This revolutionary technique helped to marshal in the modern era of immunological research. Yalow also won the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1976) and the National Medal of Science (1988).

The Science Behind Heart Attacks and Cholesterol

Meet the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in Chemistry in the US.

The first African-American woman to receive a PhD in Chemistry in the US, Marie Maynard Daly, PhD, had a distinguished career in biochemistry and was an Academy Member, as well as a Member of the Academy’s Board of Governors in the 1970s.

Daly was born in 1921, in the Corona neighborhood of Queens in New York City, to a father who immigrated to the US from the West Indies and a mother born in Washington, DC. She went on to earn her doctorate from Columbia University and helped make important contributions to our understanding of the links between cholesterol and heart attacks.

Who was her biggest science inspiration?

While we can’t say for sure, many of the available biographies of Daly speak about the influence of her father, Ivan C. Daly, on her early decision to study chemistry.

Ivan attended Cornell University as a young man and hoped to complete a degree in chemistry there but had to leave school before finishing because of a lack of funds. As a young woman, both her father and mother, along with her maternal grandfather, encouraged Daly to pursue a career in the sciences.

It was on a visit to her grandparents’ house in Washington, DC, where she discovered Paul de Kruif’s 1926 book The Microbe Hunters, which is also said to have been an important inspiration to her. However, the clue that seems to reveal just how important her father was to her comes later in her life, when she established a scholarship fund in his name for African-American students studying science at her undergraduate alma mater, Queens College.

Did she have a science mentor?

During her doctoral studies at Columbia University, Daly’s doctoral advisor was Mary Letitia Caldwell, PhD. Caldwell was the first and only female senior faculty member at Columbia for a number of years and spent the bulk of her career working to isolate the enzyme amylase.

Caldwell is credited in a couple of the available biographies with encouraging Daly to focus on studying aspects of digestion, and the title of Daly’s dissertation reflects Caldwell’s intellectual influence: “A Study of the Products Formed by the Action of Pancreatic Amylase on Corn Starch.” We can only speculate about the other early influences that Caldwell might have provided Daly, both of whom are remembered for being important “first” women in their fields.

What was one of her biggest career accomplishments?

In the mid-1950s, Marie began working with Quentin B. Deming, MD, first at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and later at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. The work they did together helped to lay important groundwork for our understanding of the relationship between heart attacks and cholesterol, along with other blockages in the arteries.

Click here and go to page 1340 to read the abstract for their paper, “Effect of Hypertension on Cholesterol Synthesis in Rats,” which they presented, along with three others, at the 1962 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Learn more about Daly

Also see:

Guiding the Academy in Growth

Eunice Thomas Miner played a significant role in growing the Academy’s membership in the 20th century.

Published January 1, 2017

By Marie Gentile and Robert Birchard
Academy Contributors

When Eunice Thomas Miner became involved with the New York Academy of Sciences in 1932, the Academy was in a state of great flux. Its records showed just $6,000 in assets and double that amount in unpaid bills. And its Membership numbers were dire.

“We had the grand total of exactly one active Member,” Miner later recalled in an interview, noting that while 317 people were listed on the books, only one was recorded as having paid dues.

But the worst part, in Miner’s view, was the general apathy about the Academy’s proceedings. She recalled a geology paper presentation attracting a total of four participants: “the section head, my husband, myself, and a janitor.” Miner, at the time a young research assistant in the American Museum of Natural History’s Zoology Department — the Academy’s offices were housed within the museum in those days — felt something had to be done to turn things around.

Bringing the Academy “Back to Life”

She decided to “bring the Academy back to life.” Her goal was more idealistic than merely increasing participation and reviving publications. Miner wanted to create a place for scientific debate, where researchers could share their work, present recent discoveries and argue new ideas.

“I felt the Academy, if it could be rejuvenated, would provide a true forum, a unique institution that scientists could call their own,” she later said.

Miner took the Academy’s future not only into her own hands, but also into her own apartment. To draw more participants, she and her husband, Roy Waldo Miner, hosted paper presentations at their own dinners. That earned the Academy 72 Members within a year.

A Goal of 100 New Members Each Year

Miner promised to hit 100 new people annually, with a total goal of 1,000 Members. That required significant time and energy, so she left her research position at the museum and fully devoted herself to the Academy’s needs.

Miner’s Membership drives, which she began running in 1936, exceeded all expectations. She recruited 110 new Members the first year, more than doubled that amount the next year, and by 1940 reached her 1,000 Member goal — much sooner than planned.

Given her successes, the Scientific Council of the Academy appointed her as the organization’s Executive Secretary. By the time Miner retired from her role as Executive Director of the Academy in 1967, after serving in a number of positions, the Academy counted over 26,000 Members across the world. Among her many impactful achievements was securing the organization a new home, through a gift from wealthy philanthropist Norman Woolworth, who donated his mansion to the Academy.

The Role of the Academy

However, Miner’s vision for the Academy and the sciences it represented was far more than a permanent home and stable financing. She saw the organization playing a key role in fostering scientific collaborations and educating the public about scientific progress.

“The time has long since passed when the scientist could afford to isolate himself in his laboratory or think of his discipline as a world unto itself,” Miner said in one of her later interviews. “Today, more than any other time in history, disciplines interact with each other and are dependent upon each other, both in a research and social sense.”

Moreover, Miner wanted scientists to build public awareness of what was developing in their respective fields; to involve them in the inspiring process of discovery.

“More than ever, the public needs to be informed about science,” she said, emphasizing the critical role of research in modern society.

Miner envisioned the Academy as an enabler and disseminator of the scientific progress, and, a half-century later, the Academy still upholds this vital tradition.

Also see:

From Hypothesis to Advances in Cancer Research

How a cancer researcher in the 1950s persevered when others were skeptical about her hypothesis — and ultimately changed the scientistic mindset.

Published January 1, 2017

By Marie Gentile and Robert Birchard
Academy Contributors

It was the early 1950s and two female scientists at Sloan Kettering were peering into a new electron microscope when they saw something unusual.

Both of them, Charlotte Friend and her co-worker Cecily Selby, had already earned their PhDs in bacteriology and were conducting further research on Ehrlich ascites carcinoma, a type of mouse tumor often used in cancer studies. Suddenly, the women noticed that the arrangements of particles in the tumor cells looked similar to cells infected with certain types of viruses. Could this point to a possible link between viruses and cancers?

At the time, the hypothesis that viruses can cause cancer was in its infancy — a few researchers had pondered the idea, but most scientists viewed it as illogical. To make researchers consider this seemingly absurd concept required a major shift in scientific mindset. But Friend, who would go on to become the first female President of the New York Academy of Sciences, was not the type of person to give up easily.

Growing Up

A daughter of Jewish immigrants, she was born in New York City in 1921 in Lower Manhattan, and developed her interest in medicine early — possibly because her father died from a heart infection when she was three.

After the stock market crash of 1929, her family was forced to go on public assistance, but despite growing up poor Friend was very focused on school and education. At ten, she had already mapped a scientific path for herself, detailing it in her school essay “Why I Want to Become a Bacteriologist.” She studied at Hunter College, received her Ph.D. at Yale, and continued her research as an associate professor in a program run jointly by Sloan Kettering and Cornell University.

Friend spent several years testing the viral-cancer-link hypothesis on mice. After multiple attempts, she showed that it was possible to transmit leukemia from one rodent to another, by injecting one mouse with tissue taken from another.

Overcoming Skepticism and Ridicule

Conducting research proved easier than presenting its results. When Friend first spoke about her findings at the American Academy of Cancer Research, she was met with such strong skepticism and ridicule that the memory stuck with her for the rest of her life. Twenty years later she described that experience in her presidential address to the American Academy of Cancer Research: “By no stretch of the imagination could the violent storm of controversy that erupted after the presentation have been anticipated.”

She bravely submitted to the barrage of questions despite the emotional turmoil, but didn’t necessarily manage to convince the attendees of her theory. Despite the cold shower of skepticism, Friend remained convinced of her idea, and continued to pursue it.

In 1957 she published her controversial findings in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Shortly after, well-known researcher Jacob Furth replicated her results. Other scientists began pondering similar hypotheses, and the idea that cancer can be caused by a virus started to take hold. The scientific mindset was changing, finally.

An Overdue Recognition

By the 1960s Friend’s work was receiving its due academic recognition. In 1962 she became a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Cancer Research. She helped establish the concept of the oncovirus, a virus that causes cancer. Her research is now used in developing HIV vaccines, and the leukemia virus she discovered, which was named after her, serves as the model for viral leukemogenesis studies.

But Friend wasn’t finished. In 1966 she began working at the new medical school at Mount Sinai Hospital, directing their Center for Experimental Cell Biology. While there, she made another crucial oncological discovery: cancer cells can be stopped from multiplying and revert to being normal cells through a chemical treatment by a compound called dimethyl sulfoxide. Such treatment could lead to new ways of fighting cancer, different from the traditional chemotherapy that works by killing tumor cells.

In the 1970s, Friend finally received the recognition she deserved. She was asked to serve as President of the Harvey Society and the American Association for Cancer Research. In 1976, she was elected into the National Academy of Sciences, which was a great scientific honor. Only a year later, she was serving as the New York Academy of Science’s Chair of the Fellowship and Honorary Life Membership committee, charged with reviewing nominations from Academy Members.

The Impact of the Academy’s First Female President

Within another year, Friend became the first female President of the Academy. The appointment was well-deserved for such a visionary pioneer of the sciences, as the Academy’s newsletter noted: “The more than one hundred papers she has published have been in such fields as viral oncology, regulation of cell growth and differentiation, virus/host-cell relationships, immunology and molecular biology.”

While working as the Academy’s President, Friend continued her scientific quests, all the while serving as a role model for young female researchers who pursued a science career at a time when few women were able to choose that path.

Also see:

Pioneering Anthropologist Advances the Academy

Anthropologist Margaret Mead brought attention to cultural perspectives on scientific change.

Published January 1, 2017

By Marie Gentile and Robert Birchard
Academy Contributors

“The Academy has stood for new ideas, for the adventurous and experimental,” said Margaret Mead, at a celebration of the Academy’s 150th anniversary in 1967.

“Adventurous and experimental” well describes Mead’s own career. As a new PhD in the 1920s, she carried out pathbreaking—and controversial—anthropological fieldwork on childhood and adolescence among indigenous South Pacific peoples. She later turned her attention to the context of youth in her own society, famously commenting on the “generation gap” of the late 1960s.

An outspoken public intellectual, Mead became, during her lifetime, America’s most famous anthropologist. And she used her decades-long association with the Academy to bring attention to cultural perspectives on scientific change in an era that spanned the development of nuclear weapons to the energy crisis of the 1970s.

Getting Involved with the Academy

Mead first became involved in the Academy in the 1930s. By then she had already made her mark with her best-selling books Coming of Age in Samoa and Growing Up in New Guinea.

Her professional home was in New York City, at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), where she became Curator of Ethnology—and where the Academy’s headquarters occupied two rooms during the 1930s and 1940s.

It’s possible that Eunice Thomas Miner, the Academy’s Executive Director at the time, recruited Mead—Miner initiated an unprecedented Membership drive in the late 1930s. Both women held the title of Research Assistant at AMNH, where they became friends as well as colleagues.

For the next 40 years, Mead’s perspective as an anthropologist shaped Academy affairs. She understood science as a product of culture. In Academy forums and elsewhere, she compared science in different national contexts, professional and public understanding of science, and perception of science by young people and older generations.

Her many articles and talks on the implications of these different perspectives—whether for nuclear war, space exploration, science education, scientific literacy of the public, and other issues—converged with a growing concern within the Academy about the place of science in society.

Contributions to the Academy

Throughout this time, Mead contributed research to Annals, organized meetings, and served the Academy in official capacities, at different times as Chair of the Anthropology section, Vice President of the Scientific Council, and Vice President of the Academy.

The Academy first provided a platform for Mead’s research in 1942, when it published her book with Gregory Bateson, Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. Carried out from 1936 to 1938, Bateson and Mead’s fieldwork in Bali made unprecedented use of photography and film, generating some 25,000 still images.

Earlier anthropologists had taken photographs, but this project was the first to do so on such a large scale, and also the first to present the visual record as the primary scientific evidence with written documentation secondary. The book helped launch the new field of visual anthropology and it remains a classic today.

As she became more involved with the Academy, Mead valued its ability to convene experts in “symposia on the growing edge of knowledge,” as she put it—and “the structure it provided for creative interchange among the sciences.”

Considering the Cultural Implications

In October of 1957, one of these frontiers was launching earth-orbiting satellites. Mead later recalled that the announcement of the Soviet Sputnik launch came only two hours after she had mailed invitations to an Academy conference on the cultural implications of “man in space.” The conference was held later the same month, and the proceedings were published in Annals the next year.

By the 1970s, when the cultural relevance of science came more and more into public view, Mead returned to theme that she often explored—the distance between specialists and non-specialists; between scientists and the public. To her thinking, improving science education at all levels was vital to bridging this gap and ensuring both scientific advances and informed public debate and decision-making.

These and many other issues that Mead tackled in the 1960s and 1970s remain relevant to the Academy today, including childhood nutrition and the challenges faced by women in science. She was, “Always helpful to this Academy,” in the words of a 1973 citation praising her as an Academy Governor, and could “be counted on for sound advice based on high principles.”

Learn more about Mead

Also see:

Dispatches From the Democratization of Science

A cover shot of the publication Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences.

A look at the history and future of two groundbreaking bastions of knowledge dissemination.

Published August 1, 2014

By Gina Masullo
Academy Contributor

The cover for the September 1823 issue of Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York.

In an industry with more than 28,000 academic journals, to say that interested audiences have abundant choices for how they consume scientific information would be a gross understatement. But that wasn’t always the case. When the first issue of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Annals) was published in 1823, it was one of only a handful of scientific journals, most of them unsuccessful, and it had around 100 subscribers—a number that remained stagnant for several years.

Though the interdisciplinary peer-review journal had an inauspicious start, its debut publication sparked a rich tradition of excellence and innovation in scientific publishing. Annals evolved from a resource for local scientific elites into a much respected and cited journal that’s read the world over, one of the longest continuously published scientific serials in the United States and a powerful symbol of the democratization of cutting-edge scientific information. Today, the Academy’s flagship publication, Annals has published more than 1,300 volumes over 191 years.

As the Academy began researching a variety of topics in greater detail during its first decades, its popularity grew; and, by association, so did interest in Annals. Sales of the journal quadrupled in 1939, the same year Eunice Miner was appointed executive secretary of the Academy. Miner passionately expanded the number of Academy memberships and hosted events; accordingly, Annals’ distribution increased exponentially.

By the 1960s, the Academy was sponsoring several dozen conferences a year, and distributing Annals to an audience of about 40,000. Each issue informed readers about the Academy’s conference proceedings, on topics increasingly varied and newsworthy—and a look back through its pages is a window into the challenges the scientific community has faced and overcome throughout history.

The First Large Scientific Assembly on Antibiotics

In 1946, for instance, the Academy hosted the first large scientific assembly on antibiotics, with a particular focus on combating tuberculosis. Margaret Mead published several Annals papers during her time as vice president at The New York Academy of Sciences in the 1970s; other notable contributors over the years have included Paul Ekman, Franz Boas, Edmund B. Wilson, Joshua Lederberg, and Ralph Steinman.

The Academy’s Puerto Rico survey, initiated in the early 20th century, attracted perhaps the most attention of all. Co-founder of the New York Botanical Garden (and Academy member) Nathaniel Lord Britton initiated a four-year study of the island’s geology, botany, and zoology. Starting in 1914 and including research from scientists in various sectors, the survey was the first and most comprehensive of its kind.

Reports from the island, published in Annals as well as the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden and the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, were so well received that the project quickly grew in size, scope, and financial backing. By the summer of 1916, 23 research groups had visited the island to examine areas including entomology, mycology, anthropology, and paleontology. The groundbreaking project ultimately expanded to the Virgin Islands, incorporated research from an international community of scientists, and lasted more than 25 years, culminating in the publication of the multi-volume Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Expanding Scope & Reach

A cover shot of the publication Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences.

Annals has documented a large proportion of the conferences held by The New York Academy of Sciences, and, since 1981, it has covered news and discoveries from unaffiliated scientific conferences as well. With the expansion of technology and excitement for attention-grabbing efforts such as space exploration, interest in the Academy and its flagship publication continued to grow.

So, too, did the journal’s scope and reach. Annals is now available in 4,505 institutions worldwide via a partnership with the Wiley Online Library of licensed subscriptions, and in thousands of institutions in the developing world via philanthropic initiatives. During the last year (June 2013 – June 2014), Annals was the fifth-most accessed journal among Wiley’s 2,304 journals, where it received 2,283,137 visits. Google Scholar ranks the journal number 10 on its list of top health and medical science publications, in the company of esteemed publications like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.

Douglas Braaten, PhD, editor-in-chief of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and executive director of science publications, explains the journal’s continued relevance this way: “One of the most unique things about Annals is the ability to produce individually themed issues. We can essentially design what we publish; currently, that’s 28 individual projects per year, on varying topics—so readers really get both scope and depth into the topics.

“We also produce volumes stemming from conferences, which is one of the reasons Annals continues to be unique; we will commission papers from the invited speakers in a field from an international conference. The resulting collection of papers provides a state-of-the-art view of a topic for people who weren’t in the room. We have over a 100-year history of providing conference proceedings, the aim of which is to democratize scientific information.”

A Stellar Reputation

Also important to the publication’s stellar reputation is “a high-quality, peer-review process” and “traditional journal standards and ethics.”

Alongside its stalwart ethics, the Academy’s commitment to innovation ensures Annals’ growing influence and credibility. Within the last decade, annual reviews of specific scientific topics have become a staple of the publication.

George Uhl, PhD, chief of the Molecular Neurobiology Research Branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, serves as editor of the Annals series Addiction Reviews. “I don’t think there is anything like it in addiction, and I serve on several publication committees in this area,” he says. “The effort with Addiction Reviews is to try to review things that are getting to the point of being interesting rather than things that are already acknowledged by everyone as interesting, and I think that has helped the impact factor”—a statistic that calculates the average number of outside citations per article—which for this series is an impressive 13, compared to similar publications’ typical scores of two or three.

Other annual review topics include The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience, edited by Michael Miller, PhD, professor and vice chair of psychological and brain sciences at UC Santa Barbara, and Alan Kingstone, PhD, distinguished university scholar and professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia.

“Starting up an annual review in cognitive neuroscience was such an obviously brilliant idea,” explains Kingstone. “The field was nearly 20 years old, and there was a real need to provide those in cognitive neuroscience with a place to pull together key ideas on an annual basis.”

The Value of Themed Volumes

He continues, “The value of the themed volumes is evident in the impact that it has had on the field since its initial publication in 2008. As of last year, the reviews contributed to The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience have averaged 38 citations. The very first article in the 2008 edition, “The brain’s default network,” has been cited over 2,500 times. This impact rivals some of the most highly regarded journals, and demonstrates the high value the field places on these review articles to keep researchers up to date on a quickly evolving field.”

The Academy remains committed to quality of research, as well as innovation in information delivery. The number of methods the Academy uses to communicate research and ideas to the scientific community and beyond continues to grow. The 191 year-old journal has evolved from a print-only publication to a robust collection of interactive multimedia tools. Thanks to its partnership with Wiley, Academy members and institutions with Annals benefits can access every volume ever published via the Academy website; they can even read archives via a free mobile app.

eBriefings: Multimedia Science Reports

Further illustrating its commitment to bringing comprehensive, cutting-edge scientific information to a truly global audience, in 2003 the Academy introduced eBriefings: interactive, userfriendly web resources that increase the longevity and impact of Academy events. Conceived in the wake of the Academy’s interdisciplinary SARS conference, eBriefings are now a standard offering, providing the benefits of Academy events and conferences to those who are unable to attend in person.

The multimedia presentations include meeting summaries written by science writers and scientists, a selection of speakers’ slides and audio, and links to related information. Over the last decade, eBriefings have been cited by news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, and Med News Today. They receive around 10,000 unique page views each month; in the last fiscal year, the presentations were accessed from more than 140 countries.

Explains Brooke Grindlinger, PhD, executive director of scientific programs at the Academy: “eBriefings offer everyone within the global scientific community access to today’s cutting-edge knowledge conveyed by world-renowned leaders in almost every discipline in science and technology. It’s your science, on your schedule, sowing the seeds for your next big idea.”

The Academy produces approximately 60 eBriefings each year; recent topics have run the gamut from Alzheimer’s disease to the use of “big data.” The online resources are presented in partnership with a global network of partners, including The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, The National Institutes of Health, and The U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Expanding Interest in Emerging Topics

Jeanne Garbarino, PhD, director of science outreach at Rockefeller University, led an Academy panel in September 2013 titled “Crowdfunding: An Emerging Funding Mechanism for Science Research.” She explains that the eBriefing helped expand interest and research in this emerging topic: “It allowed me to connect with others who are interested in this topic, and also provided an opportunity to discuss more ways in which crowdfunding could be applied to scientific research.”

Garbarino adds, “Given the disproportionate distribution of scientific and educational resources in our nation, providing free access to high quality materials is always a good thing.”

This egalitarian approach to the dissemination of scientific knowledge is quite fitting in the context of the Academy’s history. As early as 1903, audiences filled the lecture hall at the American Museum of Natural History to hear Academy presentations on topics such as the Mount Pelée volcano on Martinique or the physical and economic aspects of Mexico. These presentations were particularly appealing because they incorporated cutting-edge technology of the time—lantern slides and stereopticon—that helped bring scientists’ invaluable research to life.

Hints Braaten, the editor of Annals: “A new contract with Wiley is reinvigorating Academy publishing and opening new avenues, such as Academy book publishing.” And as the technology and science fields continue to evolve, you can be sure that the Academy’s approach to disseminating vital information will, too, ensure that scientists and non-scientists alike will have access to globe-changing ideas and evidence for generations to come.

About the Author

Gina Masullo is a journalist in New York City.

7WTC: A New Home, A Return to Downtown

The Academy’s new home features elegant architecture, intriguing conceptual art, and advanced environmental and safety engineering.

Published July 1, 2006

By Glenn Collins
Academy Contributor

Image courtesy of quietbits via stock.adobe.com.

7 World Trade Center was the last tower to fall on September 11, 2001, and the first to be reborn at Ground Zero. This shimmering, sharp-edged, 52-story parallelogram redefines the cityscape, and the arrival of new occupants fulfills a dream for those who dealt firsthand with the rubble that preceded it.

Fortunately for incoming tenants—and those from The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) will be among the first, following the developer of the building himself, Larry A. Silverstein—there is much more than the burden of memory to be acknowledged. There is also the promise of award-winning new architecture, state-of-the-art design, intricate technological solutions to daunting challenges and constraints, and a tower that is not only more environmentally responsible than any other in the city but, not incidentally, safer than any other as well.

A Poignant Transparency

There’s one aspect of the building—known simply as “Seven” by its designers and builders—that fascinates those who know it well. They call it the “stealth building” because its glass skin scatters light, and at times lets the building, from many different angles, inhabit the boundary between transparent and reflective.

The intensity of this magical effect is greatest in the early morning and late afternoon. Sometimes the shimmering surface takes on a seemingly supernatural glow, especially when viewed from the Hudson River. Its shining aspect changes dramatically during shifting light and varying weather conditions, and at times, when the conditions are perfectly correct, “the elements of the building seem to merge with the sky,” said James Carpenter. He is the glass artist and MacArthur Fellow who helped design Seven, and envisions it as one huge prism.

Despite its eerie transparency, though, it is an office building. And Seven embodies the antithesis of insubstantiality in its vital statistics: it is 741 feet tall, it cost $700 million to build, and has 1.7 million square feet of office space on 42 tenant floors. The tower is sheathed in 538,420 square feet of glass, more than 12 acres. Bounded by Barclay Street on the north, Vesey Street on the south, Washington Street on the west, and Greenwich Street on the east, it is within five minutes of 13 subway lines, the PATH system, and New York Waterway ferries. It takes just one sharp right turn from its doors to reach the West Side Highway.

Zip Code: 10007

But Seven has always been more than just a building. Many of those involved in the new Seven have searing memories of the day when the old one fell, including Mr. Silverstein of Silverstein Properties, the developer of both the original tower and the new one, on land leased from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Mr. Silverstein had a dermatology appointment on September 11, and therefore missed a breakfast meeting in Windows on the World, where no one survived.

Rebuilding Seven was an especially emotional experience for the workers who built it twice, like Elio Cettena and Mike Pinelli, who were onsite supervisors for Tishman Construction Corporation, the construction manager of both the new tower and the old in 1985.

And it is no exaggeration to say that every milestone of the building’s creation was followed avidly, from its November 2003 groundbreaking to its topping-out ceremony on October 21, 2004. Then, after installing 15 tons of steel, the final beam was positioned on the 52nd floor as 500 construction workers, Governor George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Silverstein looked on. With smiles, salutes, and not a few tears, the steel beam—which was adorned with the same American flag used in the topping-out ceremony for the original 7 World Trade Center—was hoisted 750 feet in the air to its place at the summit of the building.

Gateway to a New Downtown

Back in the clean-up phase after 9/11, open forums had made it clear that the public wanted streets to run through the redeveloped Trade Center site, unlike the former 1960’s design with a “super-block” pedestal that brought street traffic to a dead end. Both community activists and Seven’s lead architect, David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, advocated that Silverstein reduce Seven’s footprint to reestablish Greenwich Street, one of the city’s oldest north-south thoroughfares.

Silverstein acceded. Instead of proceeding directly south on Greenwich Street, travelers will take a jog around a new, triangular, 15,000-square-foot park and pedestrian plaza. Planted with 60 sweetgum trees and boxwood shrubs, the plaza will serve as an amenity to occupants and also, in the words of Childs, “as the gateway to the Trade Center site.” To come is a complex of office towers including the 1776-foot-tall Freedom Tower, a retail center on Church Street, the World Trade Center Memorial , and a commuter station designed by architect Santiago Calatrava. In front of Seven, a short stretch of Greenwich Street will serve as a private drive for taxis and limos.

As for the building itself, Mr. Childs was aiming for “restrained beauty and perfect pitch,” he said, that would derive its effect not only from formal restraint but also from attention to detail.

Lighting the Way

But to do so, the architects had to respond to “a unique set of design challenges,” Silverstein said. Those challenges are so unusual that the building is actually a feat of architectural legerdemain: Childs had to place a delicate skyscraper a top one of the ugliest pedestals in any Manhattan building, a monumental $100 million Con Edison substation.

Sheathed in concrete like the old substation, which was destroyed on September 11, the new substation has three transformers putting out 80 megawatts of power not only for Seven, but also for Battery Park City and, eventually, the buildings of the rebuilt Trade Center site. It can accommodate seven more transformers up to a total of 10, one more than the inventory in the original substation.

The facility, one of 24 substations in Manhattan, reduces 138,000-volt power from generating stations into more manageable, 13,000-volt current distributed to residential and commercial customers. If the $1.1 million, 20-foot-tall, 168-ton transformers are unsightly, then the shifting of the base of the new Seven to the west of the previous Seven (to create the park and reestablish Greenwich Street) made the Con Edison vaults even uglier, because the transformers had to be stacked vertically to save space.

Free Flow of Air

Since the transformers generate heat, they posed another constraint: The wall around them had to permit air to flow freely. Worse, atop the seven-story concrete substation, three floors of the building had to be devoted to mechanical equipment. Rentable offices, therefore, could not be situated until the 11th floor.

While it was obvious that the lower floors had to be clad in some sort of curtain wall (an independently supported outside screen), Childs was adamant that the solution to the quandary of the skyscraper’s base be “something integral, that was designed from the start,” he said, adding that it could not be some fig leaf-like “external piece of art.”

Hoping, as in the haiku and the sonnet, that limitation would be the catalyst for art, Childs sought out Carpenter, a sculptor and architect whose designs have summoned effects from the characteristics of light.

The substation problem came down to one question for Carpenter: “How do you turn an absorptive concrete block,” he asked, “into a reflective, emotive surface?”

A Solution

Carpenter’s solution was to design a sculptural installation for the base of the building, “a stainless-steel scrim that is animated with light,” he said, visually shifting naturally by day with the changing light conditions, and artificially at night with programmed illumination sequences using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). At the same time, the wall could also second as a porous ventilator for the hidden vaults of the three-story transformers, dissipating their heat.

And so, the wall is built of elegantly polished and machined 15-foot-tall, 5-foot-wide panels—each weighing 1500 pounds—of precisely crafted, high-precision triangular steel prism bars set in inner and outer rows.

During the day, these 130,000 prisms reflect ambient light and make the wall an active surface, capturing the sky in different directions, since the prism sections are set off by 15 degrees from each other. “The wall creates a moiré effect that moves by you, as if you are walking past stretched silk,” Childs said.

At night, on the north and south walls, 220,000 blue and white LEDs illuminate the wall of prisms from within, subtly reflecting off the steel and into the street. The diodes are easy to maintain, and give off little heat. At night, 12 motion-sensing cameras are programmed to follow passers-by, marking their passage in columns of multistory blue light on a white ground.

Art and Innovation

The building lobby, which has the postal address of 250 Greenwich Street, posed another architectural challenge: It had to be sandwiched between two banks of transformer vaults framed by unsightly structural columns five feet in diameter. Childs opened it all up with a street side, 46-foot-tall curtain wall of glass that welcomes daylight into the lobby; he cladded the columns in reflective stainless steel.

Then Childs commissioned an artistic centerpiece: A dominating, floor-to-ceiling, 14-by-65-foot wall of acid-etched translucent glass illuminated by whitish light-emitting diodes, created by Carpenter and the conceptual artist Jenny Holzer. Like Chinese calligraphy, Holzer’s work uses words as art, at the same time as it plays with the power of commercial billboards.

At Seven, she has programmed the wall to display thousands of ghostly white, streaming words of text. This never-ending ribbon of poetry and prose by dozens of authors—from Elizabeth Bishop and Allen Ginsberg to Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman—evokes the history of New York. Though the artwork resides in the lobby, it is visible to pedestrians outside, as well as to those congregating in the Greenwich Street park; it even can be seen blocks away, on Church Street.

The sum of these architectural efforts helped 7 World Trade Center to win a Municipal Art Society annual MASterwork award for urban design this year.

Building Safe

But Seven is far from being just a provocative pretty face. It is also the first office tower in New York City to win gold certification for its green—or environmentally sensitive—architecture, which seeks to reduce energy and natural-resource consumption and lower the building’s impact on the environment. The design incorporates the recycling of rainwater and the use of natural light and air in an interior where toxic materials have largely been eliminated.

Given the building’s location, security was also a crucial concern. “It was a challenge to put an office building on top of a power substation, but it was equally a challenge, if not more so, to create a building that would be safe—safer than anything that had previously been built,” said Silvian Marcus, chief executive officer of WSP Cantor Seinuk, the building’s structural engineers. For its work on 7 World Trade Center, his company recently won the 2006 award for engineering excellence from the New York Association of Consulting Engineers.

Marcus said that Seven’s steel framing “has sufficient redundancy to prevent a progressive collapse,” which was the failing of the Trade Center towers. Nevertheless, “the framing could not interfere with the exterior look of the building, so we tried to make the framing invisible,” he said.

The Bulky Base

Among the building’s security consultants was an Israeli firm experienced in blast effects. Ironically, the bulky base of 7 World Trade Center dramatically enhances its safety, security experts say, since its tenant space starts at the 11th floor above grade, well above immediate street-level blast effects from vehicle-borne explosives. Indeed, the New York Police Department has insisted that the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero—also being designed by Childs—incorporate a similar structurally massive base that is distinctly different from its upper office floors. The designers are likely to use stainless-steel cladding to hide it, adopting design and artistic strategies similar to those pioneered at Seven.

At the base of 7 World Trade Center, the architects have utilized glass, including the 46-foot-high lobby facade, that is laminated with layers of polyvinyl butyral, which stabilizes blast-shattered panes and keeps shards in place. Holzer’s language wall is also a security blanket. Not only does it screen the private precincts of the building, its lamination acts as a blast shield and its high-strength steel members will yield if they counter an explosion.

Massive Concrete Central Core

Further than this, the architects’ principal answer to disaster at Seven is its massive concrete central core, which extends from the base to the top, placing a shield around the stairways, the elevators, sprinkler pipes, and electrical conduits.

The base-to-top core, for the most part two feet thick, is double-constructed with steel reinforcing bars. Its two stairwells will be located at opposite sides of the core, about 110 feet apart, cutting down the possibility that they could be damaged at the same time.

The stairways are oversized, five and a half feet wide—20 percent wider than required by the city code—to permit rapid evacuation. They are fitted with independent emergency lighting and glow-in-the-dark paint and are pressurized to prevent the intrusion of smoke in case of a fire.

The stair landings are extra deep—8 feet by 11 feet—to enable employees in wheelchairs to wait for rescue while the more mobile are able to step past them. The stair treads are wide enough to permit people to walk down, Silverstein said, while emergency workers are walking up. The four fire stairs exit directly to the building’s exterior, preventing bottlenecks or the possible confusion that might result from exits that lead through the main lobby.

A Renaissance, With a View

The beauty of the execution is that the Academy’s visitors will remain indifferent to all this contingency planning. They can simply enjoy the building’s location, elegant architecture, and the Academy’s striking new offices on the 40th floor. Seven will be a welcoming landmark on the route from trendy Tribeca, with its mix of shopping and restaurants, to the cultural institutions of Lower Manhattan. Looking out the Academy’s office windows, or pausing in Seven’s park, its new tenants will have a privileged close-up view of New York’s oldest neighborhood being made new again.

Also read: Academy’s Past: Where It All Began

About the Author

Glenn Collins reports on Ground Zero for The New York Times.

Advancing Science 40 Stories Atop New York City

The Academy’s new home on the 40th floor of 7 World Trade Center will convey our distinguished heritage while also establishing an efficient environment for new ideas.

Published July 1, 2006

By Hugh Hardy
Academy Contributor

Reception area at 7 WTC. Image courtesy of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture.

In 1950, a mansion on East 63rd Street was the answer to The New York Academy of Sciences’ (the Academy’s) dreams. With its sixteenth-century Italian mantel in the entry hall and a library of carved English oak, the building exuded an air of old-world scholarship and elegance that suited members and impressed visitors.

Today, however, the Academy needs more office and meeting space than the mansion can provide. What’s more, the building’s traditional interiors and furnishings give no hint of the Academy’s progressive nature and mission. Rather than shrink from change, as its current rooms dictate, this institution embraces it. This outlook will become astoundingly clear when members make their first visit to the Academy’s new home, forty stories in the air, at 7 World Trade Center. With spectacular urban and water views from all points of the compass, this aerie will dramatize the institution’s central role in New York’s scientific life and signal its vitality to visitors who come from around the world to participate in its activities.

Of course, the Academy is not abandoning its traditions. Science is built upon the work of previous generations and on many legacies of investigation and thought, even as it crosses frontiers into the unknown. This project’s design challenge lies in conveying the Academy’s distinguished heritage while also establishing a contemporary and efficient environment for its forward-looking activities.

A Magnificent Blank Slate

The Academy looked for space in many older office buildings, where it would have had to make decisions about what lobby space, offices, and conference rooms to keep and what to change. Instead, by renting (on advantageous terms) the entire 40th floor of a spanking new building, the organization was presented with an expanse of raw space, a magnificent blank slate. Seven World Trade Center is the only structure in the city whose floor plate is a parallelogram from bottom to top, and it offers 28,000 usable square feet per floor, without a single column between its central core and its perimeter walls of glass.

Our floor plan for the Academy bisects the building’s parallelogram on a north-south axis to accommodate two basic functions, one private, one public. The eastern portion is devoted to public areas, containing a lobby, reception space, three meeting rooms, “breakout” areas, and the president’s office. The western half of the floor contains offices for the staff and support areas.

The Academy’s links to the past are made clear in the entrance lobby, where a monumental bronze bust of Charles Darwin, which long graced the Academy’s garden, is prominently displayed to the left of the entry. Behind the reception desk is a sculptural metal “art wall.” Its openwork filigree echoes nineteenth-century street patterns and illustrates the Academy’s three original downtown locations. This patterned surface forms a sloping wall, dividing the entrance lobby from a generous socializing space by the windows. From here, views of Lower Manhattan will astonish visitors. At this vantage point, flatscreen monitors will direct participants to their meeting areas, announce current activities, and present the latest multimedia web offerings from www.nyas.org.

A Focus on Flexibility and Sustainability

A meeting room at 7 WTC. Image courtesy of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture.

Conferences and meeting presentations require concentration, without the distraction of fascinating views. Therefore, three meeting rooms are fashioned so that each can shut out the panoramas. One of the conference rooms, shaped like a pod, is totally enclosed, while the others have shades that can hide the view. Groups from 30 to 300 people can be accommodated.

To the northeast, in one of the wide corners of the parallelogram, movable walls provide further flexibility, permitting corridors to be joined with the largest presentation room. A pantry permits catered food service for special events. Throughout the project, we worked with the goal of flexibility, knowing that activities will change within rooms from hour to hour, day to day.

Green concerns informed our planning. Lighting zones are monitored by motion sensors, and lights turn off after an allotted time if no one is present. Photometric sensors tied to westernmost lights automatically turn lights off during bright afternoon sunlight. In addition, almost all of the lighting is energy efficient fluorescent. Carpet tile is being used to reduce waste.

If areas of the carpet wear out over time or are stained, only those tiles need to be replaced instead of an entire run of carpet. The desk chairs are 44 percent recycled and 99 percent recyclable, and offices and workstations use high proportions of recycled materials, including steel paneling and mineral board, and glues and finishes that do not contain volatile organic compounds. Fabric for all of the upholstered walls and cubicles is 100 percent recycled polyester.

Combining Utility and Aesthetics

This institution has long held art in high esteem, using many forms of expression to suggest the shared interests of artists and scientists. An 80-foot-long gallery runs the length of the building’s interior core and will contain artworks relating to the Academy’s programs. Photographic panels, designed by the graphics firm 2×4, will decorate the conference rooms.

Those large images—some in black-and-white, some in color—depict details of the natural environment as seen through an electron microscope, as well as flowers distorted by anamorphic projection. The Academy’s new interior design utilizes materials that juxtapose tradition with innovation. We custom-designed a red carpet woven with a decorative gray-and-blue version of the DNA double helix. The carpet will offset paneling of light-colored wood.

After the Academy’s move this fall, visitors will enjoy a distinctive new facility that will encourage communication, discovery, and the generation of research and ideas. The Academy’s physical transformation represents its confidence in the future and its prominent role in the scientific and intellectual leadership of New York.

Learn more about the Academy’s history.

About the Author

Hugh Hardy and his firm, H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, are designing the space. Among Hardy’s well known projects in New York are the redesign of Bryant Park, the visitor center at the New York Botanic Garden, and the restoration of the BAM Harvey Theater.

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