Nate, in place of the private lab that was never built, was a lab so secret that its origins are still obscure. The one constant in the story is that the gigantimous Wonderland facility was used for movie making after the war.
Ah! So you're thinking that 8935 Wonderland Avenue (that according to Wikipedia, became the temporary Los Angeles Flight Control Center by 1943 and then Lookout Mountain Air Force Station by 1947:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lookout_M ... ce_Station)
literally is the 1944 Townsend Brown Foundation Temple Hill lab? So the "Townsend Brown" name was perhaps being used as a cutout just for funding purposes? And that it might have been used for a whole bunch of other unrelated projects?
For some reason that possibility had never crossed my mind.
Okay, so here's what the LA Department of City Planning said in 2015:
https://planning.lacity.org/StaffRpt/CH ... 0Final.pdf
Los Angeles Department of City Planning
RECOMMENDATION REPORT
PROJECT: Historic-Cultural Monument Application for the
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AIR FORCE STATION
REQUEST: Declare the property a Historic-Cultural Monument
...
CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMISSION
HEARING DATE: September 17, 2015
TIME: 10:00 AM
...
CASE NO.: CHC-2015-2485-HCM
ENV-2015-2486-CE
Location: 8935 Wonderland Ave
...
The property at 8935 Wonderland Avenue was originally designed, built, owned, and occupied by the U.S. Air Force Facilities Command as the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station. The base was strategically placed in the predominantly residential neighborhood of Laurel Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains near the southwest intersection of Wonderland Avenue and Holly Place. In 1941 the Air Force developed the property as a defense center to coordinate Los Angeles area radar installations. Over time, additional facilities were added and the building was remodeled as the military’s needs evolved. In 1944, the station expanded to accommodate work on the Manhattan Project, the United States’ covert mission to develop nuclear weapons. A fully operational movie studio was built to edit and study film from atomic bomb tests. The classified films and still photographs never left the facility and were kept in climate controlled vaults on the premises. Those involved in the atomic bomb’s development came to the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station in order to view and study the footage, including Albert Einstein, General Curtis Lemay, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and President Harry S. Truman.
After the war, the facility continued to be used for military film production. The 100,000 square-foot building housed sound-stages, screening rooms, film-processing labs and even an animation department. It also featured a bomb shelter, a helicopter landing pad, 17 climate-controlled vaults, and two underground parking garages. The facility operated as a military film facility with the United States Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission, responsible for documenting atomic weapons testing, from 1947 until the facility’s decommissioning in 1968.
p20
the 100,000 square foot facility was built in two phases; The first phase was built in 1942 as an alternative War Time Air Traffic Control Center for Los Angeles. It was located on a 2.5 ac site in the Laurel Canyon Hills to hide it from potential Japanese air attack. In 1944 a fully-operational movie studio was added in secret for the Manhattan Project to build the Atomic Bomb.
p33
As part of America’s reaction to the surprise attack on Perl Harbor the Base is unique in that it placed a key defense facility into a unique residential neighborhood: Laurel Canyon. Hidden in the hills with a view to the east where inbound plane were approaching, the facility was perfectly suited for its job: direct Air Traffic and be in a difficult place for attacking Japanese bombers to find. As the war dragged on, the facility was recruited for the role of supporting the Manhattan Project – America’s effort to develop an Atomic bomb with which it could end the War quickly and save millions of lives. In developing the bomb, the only way to observe the test was to make a film. The Air Force had long range lenses for Ariel reconnaissance and Hollywood had camera and film technology as well as film makers who could film the test. The facility was enlarged and staff recruited from Hollywood’s creative elite. In fact the facility also served as a Prisoner of War Camp for the capture Atomic Scientists who were housed
there to collaborate on the development and refinement of the Atomic Bomb (Their German reading books are still at the base today). Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Curtis Lemay, Harry Truman were all at the base as the trinity films never left the facilities vaults
Very bad spelling there suggests not so great fact-checking for that section.
The 100,000 sq. ft. (9,300m) facility was built on 2.5 acres in 1941 as a World War II air defense center to coordinate Los Angeles area radar installations.[2] When the studio was established in 1944, its purpose was kept secret. The studio consisted of one large sound stage, a film laboratory, two screening rooms, four editing rooms, an animation and still photo department, sound mixing studio, and numerous climate controlled film vaults. Using the latest equipment, the studio could process both 35mm and 16mm color motion picture film as well as black and white and color still photographs
After an extensive survey of the Los Angeles area, the General choose the Air Force facility at 8935 Wonderland Avenue. The facility had been constructed on two acres of land in 1943 at a cost of $132,000 to house the Los Angeles Flight Control Center. After WW II, the Los Angeles Flight Control Center was closed and the grounds and building declared surplus to the needs of the Air Force. In the fall of 1947 the 1352d Motion Picture Squadron was activated at Wonderland.[4]
In January, 1948, the building was acquired from the War Assets Administration by the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission for the Wonderland Laboratory for use in support of JTF-7. Extensive remodeling commenced by the Los Angeles Office of the Army Core of Engineers and was paid for by the AEC.
..
In the fall of 1949, Lt. General Curtis LeMay decided that the production of motion pictures was not a proper function of the Strategic Air Command. Wonderland AFB Laboratory and all its staff were transferred to the Air Proving Ground under the command of Lt. General William E. Kepner.
Yep, conflicting histories (probably all sourced from Wikipedia).
But there seems agreement that it was already doing Manhattan Project film work in 1944. Not 1947. Yep, that does align with the Townsend Brown foundation date of 1944, doesn't it?
Security in 1944 must still have been a nightmare, if they were doing radar there as well... or is it easier to hide a secret project by attaching it to an existing not-quite-as-secret base, so it shares perimeter security and there's a covenient cover story for everyone, and you just have the secret staff do their stuff in a sectioned off area? So although the security seems worse, it's actually better? I don't have a slanted enough mind to think opsec, I guess.
Period details that do remain include corrugated glass, colored concrete steps, and steel windows. Original Air Force features remain such as the air traffic control tower, the tie-down points for the World War II camouflage netting that covered the building, and the security vaults built by Diebold to hold the secret atom bomb films.
An air traffic control tower suggests that it really was functioning as legitimate air traffic control as well as the completely unrelated to air traffic control stuff.
Have we read Lookout America? A 2018 book dedicated to the site. I wonder if it covers the years before 1947 at all.
http://act.mit.edu/2019/10/kevin-hamilt ... -cold-war/
Nate
