Ed Westcott passed away at the end of March. He was 97.
Mr. Westcott was the photographer at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project era. Note I said “the photographer”: Mr. Westcott was the only person authorized to take photos at Oak Ridge. (There were also photographers at Los Alamos and Hanford.)
Thousands of his negatives were stored at Oak Ridge, and then at the National Archives in Washington, before they were declassified years later.
He also developed aerial reconnaissance photos of the devastation wrought by the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as armed guards waited outside his darkroom.
Kind of related: I got curious about the Cemestos houses, did some DuckDuckGoing, and found this piece from McSweeney’s. I know, but I actually thought this was pretty good: Anne Wheeler’s a charming writer, and I’d love to hit some nuclear tourism spots with her.