UWS Man Subject Of Popular New Christopher Nolan Movie

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Before Robert Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project and developed the devastating atomic bomb — and long before Christopher Nolan made a film about his life's work — the physicist was a child on the Upper West Side.

Oppenheimer was born in 1904 into a wealthy New York City family, who originally lived on Broadway and West 94th Street.

The address is now known as the Stanton apartments, but a residents poll in 2008 included Oppenheimer as a possible name for the new development. Instead, the building was named after another famous former resident, suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as outlined first by the Upper West Side conservancy organization Landmark West!

The Oppenheimer's would then move to 155 Riverside Drive, near the corner of West 88th Street, where Robert would spend the majority of his childhood and teenage years.

The family lived on the 11th floor of the 12-story building.

Here's how Landmark West! described the home.

"Oppenheimer’s childhood home was 155 Riverside Drive, in an apartment described as adorned with fine European furniture, and original paintings by Picasso, Rembrandt, and van Gogh," Landmark West! wrote.

"Oppenheimer grew up in privileged surroundings. His parents owned a chauffeur-driven Packard, and the Oppenheimer apartment was hung with magnificent modern artworks which ‘dominated a living room wallpapered in gold gilt’ written by Martin J. Sherwin and Kai Bird in their biography of the physicist."

Oppenheimer also went to school in the neighborhood, and it is a school that still exists on the Upper West Side in 2023.

The future physicist attended the Society for Ethical Culture School at 33 Central Park West, which later became the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

The building was constructed in 1904, and currently houses Fieldston's lower schools.

For more information on Oppenheimer's childhood on the Upper West Side, you can check out the Landmark West blog on the subject.

"Oppenheimer"

Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" opened nationwide on July 21.

The three-hour movie follows Oppenheimer through his leadership of the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons and subsequently when the Atomic Energy Commission stripped him of his security clearance in 1954 because of claims that he was a Communist sympathizer and an unreliable adviser.

Cillian Murphy portrays Oppenheimer to rave reviews, as the film has brought in $80.5 million in its opening weekend.

You can watch the trailer — HERE.