Exploring The Fly Room and the foundation of modern genetics

An unlikely collaboration between science and art results in the re-creation of a turn-of-the-century laboratory filled with fruit flies

The fly room, Brooklyn, N.Y.
(Image credit: (Amy Kraft))

The fruit flies are everywhere. Thousands are trapped inside glass milk jars stuffed with gauze, while others circle the small laboratory's ceiling or gather around the shelves crammed with brass-knobbed microscopes. Three dusty wooden desks are cluttered with notepads, pencils, magnifying glasses, and metal tins of Chesterfield tobacco.

The room is undoubtedly a mess, but it's a beautifully orchestrated mess meant to replicate a laboratory that existed 100 years ago. The original lab at Columbia University, nicknamed "The Fly Room," was the home base for scientists Thomas Hunt Morgan and Calvin Bridges, among others, who conducted their famous experiments on fruit flies that laid the foundation for modern genetics.

Today's Fly Room was temporarily housed in Pioneer Works, a warehouse art space in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in New York City. It was fastidiously created by scientist-turned-filmmaker Alexis Gambis for his feature film The Fly Room, which tells the story of Betsey, the precocious daughter of geneticist Calvin Bridges, who uncovers secrets about her father while visiting his lab.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Gambis, who is also the founder and artistic director of Imagine Science Films, became obsessed with fruit flies while studying them in the lab as a PhD student at Rockefeller University. He said that the more he learned about The Fly Room and the eccentric scientists who worked there, the more he wanted to share the story with the public. A teaser of the film was shown at the Imagine Science Films Festival last fall and Gambis is submitting it to film festivals this year.

To hear about how this filmmaker got the story, and about his transition from scientist to filmmaker, listen to the podcast posted above.

Photos of The Fly Room as reconstructed in Brooklyn, N.Y., and shown to the public during the summer of 2013.

Listen to more audio explainers:

  • Woody Allen, nihilist
  • The curious life of urban Christmas tree sellers
  • This week I learned you smell different when you're sick, and more

*You can also find The Week's mini podcasts on on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Swell.*

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

Amy Kraft is a print and radio reporter based in New York. She reports on science and the environment for publications including Scientific American, Discover, Popular Science, Psychology Today, and Distillations, a podcast out of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She is currently working on a book of humor essays. You can check out more of her writing on her blog Jaded Bride.