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3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

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246 6 Life in North America during World War II<br />

Fig.6.1. Ernst Mayr on Blackford Porch, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1950 (Photograph<br />

courtesy of E. Mayr)<br />

supervision from the other children. Adults were also usually nearby. Children<br />

could entertain themselves at the water or in the woodlands. Even young children<br />

attended some afternoon seminars and listened to the adults talk science. As<br />

adolescents, the Mayr girls both worked as lab assistants in the Bio Lab, washing<br />

Petri dishes and sterilizing equipment. After the Mayr family had moved to Cambridge<br />

in 1953, their younger daughter spent two summers in CSH during college<br />

vacations working at the Bio Lab on her own.<br />

Ernst Mayr’s reminiscences of five friends from the days at CSH follow below:<br />

A. Buzzati-Traverso, E. Caspari, M. Delbrück, B. Wallace, and C. Stern:<br />

(1) Adriano Buzzati-Traverso (1913–1983): “Adriano was my closest Italian friend.<br />

We met in Cold Spring Harbor and we were equally interested in modern population<br />

genetics. Adriano, however, in contrast to many others, tended to study<br />

the genetics of wild populations and was very much interested in scientists who<br />

worked on freshwater organisms or like myself on birds.

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