Kodak has had many secrets. This one was hiding in plain sight

There I was in 1980, covering the usually sleepy affairs of the Gates Town Board.

I was new to the beat for the Rochester Times-Union. And, I was new to reporting, as well, having left my job as college English teacher.

As the board moved through its agenda, it quickly approved a motion to allow the Eastman Kodak Co. to erect a quite large building as part of its expansion of its huge manufacturing complex off Elmgrove Road in Gates, a complex that Kodak would later sell.

After the meeting I poked into Supervisor Jack C. Hart’s office and asked him if the paper had reported on the project.

“You already had that, Jimmy,” Hart told me quickly, using the nickname my parents had used.

Double-checking after the meeting, I went into the files and looked for any reporting on the matter. I could find nothing.

The next morning, I decided to check with Kodak. A spokesperson told me that, indeed, the company was going to add the building, and no, it had not been reported anywhere.

Thus, it was that the Times-Union broke the story of the expansion, right there on the front page under my byline.

Not long after the paper hit the street, I got a phone call.

“Jimmy,” a voice said.

It had to be Hart. I figured he might be upset.

Not so.

“Front page,” he continued. “Way to go.”

“Thanks, Jack,” I responded. “But you told me we already had the story.”

“Had to,” Jack said, or words to that effect. “Kodak wanted to save the news for its annual meeting.”

I thanked Jack again — he really was happy for me — and hung up, realizing I just had experienced the power of the Eastman Kodak Co. to keep a secret.

To be fair, it wasn’t quite a secret, rather it had been hiding in plain sight, as it glided through the approval process in Gates — Zoning Board, Planning Board, Town Board, the whole shebang.

But it was done quietly, efficiently and without much, if any debate. The press — that would be yours truly — wasn’t monitoring the process until the very end.

Nonetheless, secrets were second nature to Kodak and Kodak workers. There were more than 60,000 or so of them in 1980 in the Rochester area. Thousands of those lived in Greece, the other town I covered.

It would have been a dream come true if a Kodak worker had arranged to meet me in a downtown parking lot and told me about a revolutionary camera in the works at Kodak. Alas, that dream never came true. Kodak’s secrets stayed secret, except one, about a building in Gates. Who knew?

Other Kodak secrets

A reader, David Esan, called to my attention to an astonishing story of Kodak’s ability to discover and keep a secret, one far more serious than a proposal to build a manufacturing plant.

In 1945, strange spots on its X-ray film puzzled Kodak. Researchers led by Julian Webb would discover that the spots were caused by film packaging that had picked up radioactive fallout from the first atomic test in the U.S. In 1949, Webb revealed his findings, emphasizing his belief that the fallout was not large enough to cause harm.

Later, in 1951, Webb and others at Kodak realized that fallout from continued U.S. nuclear testing was damaging its film.

Kodak threatened to sue the government but agreed to remain silent if it got advance warning when tests were to occur so it could halt production.

In 1997, Kodak and the government were sharply criticized at a U.S. Senate hearing on this matter, senators arguing that the both the company and the government placed the safety of film over the safety of people.

A good deal has been written about Kodak’s research on nuclear fallout. One account on the matter can be found on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pSqk-XV2QM

From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Kodak has had many secrets. This one was hiding in plain sight