I’m surprised to read in Engadget that the old Bell Labs Holmdel research facility is slated to be demolished and turned into three office parks. I recently tossed out some old project papers from the days when AT&T still ran Bell Labs, and I had occasion to visit the site from time to time.
Aside from the long history of really cool projects there (radar, sonar, cosmic background radiation, cell phones, networking, etc), the building (designed by Eero Saarinen), is huge (six stories, two million square feet), and visually striking. Externally, it sits on a large parcel of land by itself, making it hard to get a sense of scale as you approach. Internally, the lobby atrium is vast, open to the ceiling, and surrounded by chrome, gray, and fluorescent-lit mezzanine floors. Stepping inside felt a bit like landing in the Death Star.
As interesting and historic as the building is, what I really miss is the broad scope and scale of activity at the pre-divestiture AT&T Bell Labs. The closest thing to it today is probably at Google, funding a lot of motivated smart people with its massive stream of ad revenues, trying out a lot of interesting but not always commercially viable ideas. I always thought Microsoft could have done more along these lines with revenues from Windows and Office. You pretty much need monopoly-level profits to fund big private research for any length of time.
