ABSTRACT
on turning off into cold spring harbor laboratory from Route 25A, which leads out to Long Island’s North Shore from New York City, I entered a charmed world—a cozy medley of small laboratory buildings and dormitories scattered over an enchanting tree-studded plot bordering the Cold Spring Harbor inlet of Long Island Sound, thirty-five miles from Manhattan. Some buildings dated back to the first half of the nineteenth century when Cold Spring Harbor was a major whaling port. Others had been built at the turn of the twentieth century when rich New Yorkers were building fancy dachas on the North Shore. Sensing the atmospheric electricity of a highbrow life, I instantly fell in love with the place.
