Monday, September 05, 2005
Albert Boni
Amazing People I Have Known
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CONTENTS:
Albert Boni, innovative publisher
Jewel of the Sea, Princess of Korea ("Amy Lee")
Milton Avery, prominent artist
Carol Bacher, "Jewish-American Princess"
Stanford Ovshinsky, inventor of hybrid car battery
Joan Rivers, TV star
Thitima, my former grad student
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(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
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ALBERT BONI, Publisher
(Article about him: N.Y. Times, December 1, 1965.
Obituary: N.Y. Times, August 1, 1981.
Also, obit. of his brother Charles, tells a lot about Albert: N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1969, page 27. And there is still more in the N.Y. Times Book Review "Firebrand," about Horace Liveright, July 16, `995, page 11. Also, some more in article about his pioneering Modern Library company, in N.Y. Times Book Rev., Dec.6, 1992, page42.)
[ NOTE: Because I used an old version of Microsoft Word in a new computer to make this blog, some quotation and apostrophe punctuation might come out looking quite strange, with weird symbols here. ]
When I was getting my Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Rutgers, I worked summers in the transistor lab at ITT. Part of the job involved microsopic photography (with "photoresist") and the elimination of vibrations (from footsteps, passing trucks, etc.) that was required for it.
My Rutgers Ph.D. research was on the chemistry of photography. I grew crystals that were isolated from vibrations, using springs and blown-up inner tubes that I had learned about from the transistor industry. I had to examine my new crystals, using a special microscope I had devised.
My professor, Dr. Peter A. van der Meulen ("P.A"), was hired as a consultant by a really amazing person named Albert Boni. Both of their families had come from Holland, and both worked on special photographic methods. Boni was very wealthy and wanted to invest in a new lab, to make improved microfilm, so that a lot of bulky books could be stored in archival form, in a much smaller space. My prof was planning to retire, and I was expecting to finish up my Ph.D., so Boni suggested that we all work together — that is, P.A. would retire and then become the boss of Boni’s new lab (near New Brunswick), and they would hire me as their first engineer. I would use my skills in vibrationless microscopy to make super-small microfilms of archival books, and Boni would sell the tiny films to libraries, and to the U.S. Patent Office, etc. (a really huge market).
P.A. had told me about Boni's many literary connections, which had helped get the New York Public Library as a customer. Boni had already started a company, Readex Microprint, which was successful in making and selling moderately small archival microfilms (20 to 1 reduction in size), but he wanted P.A. and me to make even smaller ones (100 to 1 reduction in size).
Of course, Boni had to meet me, and we briefly did. I name-dropped my own literary connections, which he immediately concluded were exactly right for this job (since good scientists were usually very nerdy). He thought those would help a lot in getting along with future customers.
Boni, with his brother Charles, and with a partner named Horace Liveright, had been a pioneering publisher of Hemingway, Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill, Upton Sinclair, Will Rogers, and other literary luminaries. They had started the Off-Broadway theater movement and the first inexpensive paperback books, among other things that later became famous.
As a friendly gesture, but maybe also as a sort of extended job interview, I was invited to a party in Boni’s triplex (three-stories high) penthouse, at the top of a Fifth Avenue apartment building that overlooked Greenwich Village. Several famous Dutch Masters paintings were on the walls, and fortunately I guessed correctly in identifying their styles. Lots of publishing and theater people were present. Boni stuck close to me for a while, to see how I would get along. I shamelessly name-dropped Milton Avery, the Royal Family of Korea, William Bacher (a movie and Broadway play producer whose new musical was just opening — and I had escorted Bacher’s daughter to the opening performance and party!). My connections to all three were through their daughters, but that was OK — Boni was suitably impressed. (The theatrical guests were just as much shameless name-droppers as I was, if not worse!)
P. A. van der Meulen let it be known that I had to sign up with Boni, for my first job after grad school (I needed to have him sign my thesis, of course), so I did. For a month or so, I obtained all the equipment we needed to outfit a vacant garage in Highland Park, NJ, and I set it up and then made our first 100 to 1 microfilms. But we couldn’t publish anything (it was all proprietary secrets).
I had been working summers and part-time at ITT, and I had been thrilled to publish several scientific "papers" that promptly attracted a lot of attention in the tech world. That was what I wanted to continue doing for a few years or decades. Eventually, my ambition was to work at the great Bell Labs, not in some secret little garage. I wanted to create new ideas and designs that people all over the world would then copy and use. I announced that to P.A. and Albert. Boni was astounded that I would pass up the great opportunity that he had offered to me, saying he was disgusted and never wanted to hear from me again.'
Readex was fairly successful, and P.A. and Albert died later. Boni’s son, a newspaper writer on the West Coast, came home and took over the company, which later was bought out by a bigger one.
I went to work for ITT, published a lot, and got hired by Bell Labs, joining the ERC in "Princeton" (really Hopewell), NJ. My work on ceramics became famous in that field (along with my hi-fi research in that field), and I became a "Professor II" at Rutgers (equivalent to Distinguished Professor elsewhere), retiring at age 71.
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS:
Albert Boni, innovative publisher
Jewel of the Sea, Princess of Korea ("Amy Lee")
Milton Avery, prominent artist
Carol Bacher, "Jewish-American Princess"
Stanford Ovshinsky, inventor of hybrid car battery
Joan Rivers, TV star
Thitima, my former grad student
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ALBERT BONI, Publisher
(Article about him: N.Y. Times, December 1, 1965.
Obituary: N.Y. Times, August 1, 1981.
Also, obit. of his brother Charles, tells a lot about Albert: N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1969, page 27. And there is still more in the N.Y. Times Book Review "Firebrand," about Horace Liveright, July 16, `995, page 11. Also, some more in article about his pioneering Modern Library company, in N.Y. Times Book Rev., Dec.6, 1992, page42.)
[ NOTE: Because I used an old version of Microsoft Word in a new computer to make this blog, some quotation and apostrophe punctuation might come out looking quite strange, with weird symbols here. ]
When I was getting my Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Rutgers, I worked summers in the transistor lab at ITT. Part of the job involved microsopic photography (with "photoresist") and the elimination of vibrations (from footsteps, passing trucks, etc.) that was required for it.
My Rutgers Ph.D. research was on the chemistry of photography. I grew crystals that were isolated from vibrations, using springs and blown-up inner tubes that I had learned about from the transistor industry. I had to examine my new crystals, using a special microscope I had devised.
My professor, Dr. Peter A. van der Meulen ("P.A"), was hired as a consultant by a really amazing person named Albert Boni. Both of their families had come from Holland, and both worked on special photographic methods. Boni was very wealthy and wanted to invest in a new lab, to make improved microfilm, so that a lot of bulky books could be stored in archival form, in a much smaller space. My prof was planning to retire, and I was expecting to finish up my Ph.D., so Boni suggested that we all work together — that is, P.A. would retire and then become the boss of Boni’s new lab (near New Brunswick), and they would hire me as their first engineer. I would use my skills in vibrationless microscopy to make super-small microfilms of archival books, and Boni would sell the tiny films to libraries, and to the U.S. Patent Office, etc. (a really huge market).
P.A. had told me about Boni's many literary connections, which had helped get the New York Public Library as a customer. Boni had already started a company, Readex Microprint, which was successful in making and selling moderately small archival microfilms (20 to 1 reduction in size), but he wanted P.A. and me to make even smaller ones (100 to 1 reduction in size).
Of course, Boni had to meet me, and we briefly did. I name-dropped my own literary connections, which he immediately concluded were exactly right for this job (since good scientists were usually very nerdy). He thought those would help a lot in getting along with future customers.
Boni, with his brother Charles, and with a partner named Horace Liveright, had been a pioneering publisher of Hemingway, Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill, Upton Sinclair, Will Rogers, and other literary luminaries. They had started the Off-Broadway theater movement and the first inexpensive paperback books, among other things that later became famous.
As a friendly gesture, but maybe also as a sort of extended job interview, I was invited to a party in Boni’s triplex (three-stories high) penthouse, at the top of a Fifth Avenue apartment building that overlooked Greenwich Village. Several famous Dutch Masters paintings were on the walls, and fortunately I guessed correctly in identifying their styles. Lots of publishing and theater people were present. Boni stuck close to me for a while, to see how I would get along. I shamelessly name-dropped Milton Avery, the Royal Family of Korea, William Bacher (a movie and Broadway play producer whose new musical was just opening — and I had escorted Bacher’s daughter to the opening performance and party!). My connections to all three were through their daughters, but that was OK — Boni was suitably impressed. (The theatrical guests were just as much shameless name-droppers as I was, if not worse!)
P. A. van der Meulen let it be known that I had to sign up with Boni, for my first job after grad school (I needed to have him sign my thesis, of course), so I did. For a month or so, I obtained all the equipment we needed to outfit a vacant garage in Highland Park, NJ, and I set it up and then made our first 100 to 1 microfilms. But we couldn’t publish anything (it was all proprietary secrets).
I had been working summers and part-time at ITT, and I had been thrilled to publish several scientific "papers" that promptly attracted a lot of attention in the tech world. That was what I wanted to continue doing for a few years or decades. Eventually, my ambition was to work at the great Bell Labs, not in some secret little garage. I wanted to create new ideas and designs that people all over the world would then copy and use. I announced that to P.A. and Albert. Boni was astounded that I would pass up the great opportunity that he had offered to me, saying he was disgusted and never wanted to hear from me again.'
Readex was fairly successful, and P.A. and Albert died later. Boni’s son, a newspaper writer on the West Coast, came home and took over the company, which later was bought out by a bigger one.
I went to work for ITT, published a lot, and got hired by Bell Labs, joining the ERC in "Princeton" (really Hopewell), NJ. My work on ceramics became famous in that field (along with my hi-fi research in that field), and I became a "Professor II" at Rutgers (equivalent to Distinguished Professor elsewhere), retiring at age 71.
