Why they called it the Mahattan Project

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/science/30manh.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

This article in the New York Times illuminates some of the history of Nuclear Weapons
development that took place in Manhattan during WW2. It is well known that the HQ of the
Manhattan Project was at 270 Broadway. Over 5,000 people were working on the project
in central Manhattan from 1942-43 under the command of General Groves. The article
covers the research of historian Richard Norris, who states that "hundreds of tonnes" of
uranium were also stored in Manhattan, at the Baker and Williams warehouses at West 20th
Street.

At 233 Broadway, the technology was developed to enrich natural uranium to increase the
percentage of U235:

"We walked past St. Paul's Chapel and proceeded to the soaring grandeur of the
Woolworth Building, once the world's tallest, at 233 Broadway. A major site, it housed a
front company that devised one of the project's main ways of concentrating uranium's
rare isotope [Uranium 235] - a secret of bomb making. On the 11th, 12th and 14th floors,
the company drew on the nation's scientific best and brightest, including teams from
Columbia. Dr. Norris said the front company's 3,700 employees included Klaus Fuchs....."

This passage from the article may be revealing:

"At one point, the [Columbia University] football team was recruited to move tons of
uranium. That work, [Dr Norris] said, eventually led to the world's first nuclear reactor."

The uranium originated in the Belgian Congo. The obvious question of course is why were
hundreds of tonnes of it stored in the middle of the most important city in the world?

This article shows that an enormous scientific and logistic nuclear effort was carried out
and kept secret in the heart of New York City during the war.

"It was supersecret," Dr. Norris said in an interview. "At least 5,000 people were coming
and going to work, knowing only enough to get the job done."

"He [General Groves] was nuts about not attracting attention," Dr. Norris said.

With everything required already in one location - uranium, enrichment technology, a
highly trained technical workforce, a port and the HQ of the Army Corps of Engineers
Atlantic Division, is it stretching imagination too far to conceive that they would have
naturally proceded on to the next step - the building of an "Atomic Pile"?

"Manhattan was central, according to Dr. Norris, because it had everything: lots of
military units, piers for the import of precious ores, top physicists who had fled Europe
and ranks of workers eager to aid the war effort".

What this article shows beyond a doubt is that all the conditions existed in New York to
build a nuclear reactor in complete secrecy. Even today, few people in New York have the
slightest idea that the buildings they work in were used for nuclear technology
development. For anybody who thinks it would have been impossible to build nuclear
reactors under the WTC and keep it secret, the evidence says otherwise. Not only would it
have been possible but indeed, given the confluence of circumstances, it would have been
entirely logical. With all the resources in place in New York and a war effort underway, it
would on the contrary have represented an enormous logistical disruption to break up the
teams and organisation established in New York in 1942. It may be more likely that this
continued while the "official" HQ was moved to Oak Ridge in 1943, permitting the
Manhattan operations to continue with even less attention and risk of discovery. At the
forefont of development, they could then have continued secret military nuclear
technology development throughout the Cold War with nobody the wiser. From a military
point of view, it would make perfect sense to have such a secret "non-existent" facility, this
time not hidden in a remote region of the USA but hidden in plain sight in the middle of
New York.