Cremated Remains of 'Space Prophet' Willy Ley Found in N.Y.C. Apartment Building Basement More Than 50 Years After His Death

Yahoo

27-04-2025

Willy Ley was a German-American science writer who died on June 24, 1969, at the age of 62
Ley's cremated remains were discovered in a cluttered co-op basement in New York City in 2024, though there is no record of Ley ever having lived in the building
Ley, born in 1906, was considered a "prophet" of space travel and rocketship design, having authored hundreds of articles and a number of books on the subject
The remains of a visionary science writer who died more than half a century ago were recently discovered in the basement of an apartment building in New York City.
Willy Ley, who died on June 24, 1969, at the age of 62, was a German-American writer and 'prophet of the space age,' according to one biographer. He fled Nazi Germany in 1935 and spent the rest of his life in Jackson Heights in the N.Y.C. borough of Queens, where he lived with his wife and two daughters.
So it was an unexpected turn of events when Michael Hrdlovic, the superintendent of a co-op on 67th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side — miles from Jackson Heights — found a can labeled 'Remains of Willy Ley' while cleaning out the building's cluttered basement in 2024, per The New York Times.
Hrdlovic brought the can to Dawn Nadeau, the co-op board president, who told the outlet that she set out to figure out who the deceased man was and if he had any next of kin.
'We needed to handle the remains as respectfully as possible,' she told the outlet.
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After doing some citizen's detective work, which entailed Google research and calls to a funeral home and several crematoriums, Nadeau was able to positively identify the remains as belonging to the German-born Ley of Jackson Heights — though she noted that there are no records that he ever lived in her building in Manhattan.
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Ley, who published hundreds of articles and numerous books on space travel and is widely considered to be one of the key architects of space flight and rocketships, has no surviving relatives — which means the matter of his final resting place is now up to Nadeau.
'I thought, 'We might not ever know how he got here, but we can at least make sure he ends up in the right place,' ' she told The New York Times.
And where does Nadeau ultimately think Ley's ashes should be laid to rest? The moon.
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The co-op president said that in reading about Ley's life and death, she learned that while he had passionately predicted humankind's eventual trips to the moon, he died of a heart attack a mere three weeks before the world's first moon landing on July 16, 1969.
'I knew we had to somehow get him into space,' she recalled.
Nadeau is currently working on ways to make this dream a reality and has been looking into private space flight options. However, she told The New York Times that most options are too cost-prohibitive to pursue, noting that one company she looked at charges a fee of $12,500.
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Until then, Ley's ashes will remain in the superintendent's office in the N.Y.C. co-op building.
'I think about this person's whole life; no matter who they are or what they accomplished, it's an important life and now they are here in this can,' Hrdlovic told the outlet.
Read the original article on People