On 25 June, a two-day commemoration of the centenary of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s birth kicks off with a dedication by Senators Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) at the house in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where Oppenheimer and his family lived while he headed the Manhattan Project. The house remains essentially unchanged—it still has the same baby grand piano that Edward Teller once played. Helene and Gerry Suydam, who bought the house in 1946, will stay there as long as they wish, and it will eventually become a museum.
Oppenheimer’s is the first of many houses of prominent Manhattan Project physicists that the Los Alamos Historical Society, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Washington, DC–based Atomic Heritage Foundation are trying to preserve. Eventually, those organizations hope to turn the area—including some structures currently inside the boundaries of the LANL weapons lab—into a national park accessible to the public....
