Simone M. Scully

Entering Holographic Studios, New York City’s underground laser laboratory, is not unlike walking into a mad scientist’s lair.

“Have you ever seen ‘Silence of the Lambs’?,” asked Dr. Laser, the founder of Holographic Studios, which opened in 1979 and is considered the world’s longest operating gallery of holography. Laughing, he turned on his heels and disappeared into the dark room, his white lab coat all that could be seen through the blackness.

This was hardly the first joke that Dr. Laser — whose real name is Jason Sapan — had made since our tour of the gallery started — and it wouldn’t be his last. In fact, that’s part of the appeal.

He’s the science teacher you wish you had in high school, someone who makes physics and chemistry fun and who talks with infectious excitement. The nickname was given to him by a colleague 45 years ago.

“I decided, at some point, people are not going to remember my real name,” he said. “Dr. Laser though, I say it once — nobody forgets.”

Dr. Laser is the last remaining professional holographer in New York City. He learned the art by playing with the lasers in the basement that his father, an electrical engineer, had brought home from work. But being the last in his profession in a city of over 8.5 million people seems to have only fueled his passion for the medium.

Once inside the lab, he lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the room, revealing a red laser beam in the darkness. He pointed out the a thick steel plate that the equipment rests on, which is there to absorb the vibrations of the city and warned that the laser was “very powerful” and “industrial” so we should keep a safe distance — then, of course, he purposely waved his hand through it with a mock scream before bursting into laughter.

It was hard not be captivated by his demonstrations. He showed how holograms are created, how he made a crystal “talk” for a TV project, and how he created various laser special effects, including one that he set up by asking, “Remember when Marty and Doc Brown get into the DeLorean and it hits 88 miles per hour… ever wonder what [they] saw?”

“I think it was the tunnel of laser time travel,” he said in a dramatic voice, before sending green lasers dancing in circles through the swirling smoke in the air.

Sitting on a floral couch in the main gallery, where his hologram portraits of celebrities hang in plastic cylinders on a brick wall, every story that he told felt as playful and silly as his name. Dr. Laser animatedly recounted memories from his work making hologram portraits of President Bill Clinton and Andy Warhol. He gave goofy accents to the elements in the periodic table and he put on over-the-top voices as he reenacted conversations from his adventures of making props for his corporate holographic projects. He sprinkled in jokes as he explained the science behind lasers and holography.

“Holography is a science based upon the fact that light is a wave and when light hits something, it actually conforms to its shape” he explained. “So a hologram is like a muffin pan: you pour batter into it, you put it in the oven, you pull out the muffins. Only my batter is light and it takes the shape of the device: the hologram.”

That hologram is a three-dimensional image on a piece of photographic film. The film that he uses is either glass or plastic coated with an emulsion — which, he said, is basically a Jell-o-like substance — made up of reactive chemicals, notably silver halide, that get triggered when light hits it.

“So photography — and by extension holography — is the science or the art of recording images by tarnishing silver inJell-o,” he explained. “But what I am doing is echoing and shaving [a] light wave pattern inside ten microns of Jell-o. Since the lightwave is only half a micron in size, it’s 20 times smaller than the Jello-, so the shapes are photographed in the thickness of the Jell-o.”

The Holographic Studios are located in a space in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood that was once a blacksmith’s forge and later a medical equipment manufacturing plant for the nearby hospital. This history, for Dr. Laser, made the site the perfect setting for his work.

“Blacksmiths took rod iron, made it glow red, gave it shape. Medical guys took stainless steel, made it glow red, and gave it shape,” Dr. Laser said, beaming. “I take objects, I make them glow red with the laser and record their shape. Cowinkydink? I think not.”

Dr. Laser didn’t want to be “up in a warehouse,” and preferred a storefront gallery, that people can walk past and see. This was especially important when he first started. “Back then, nobody really knew what I was doing.” So to get clients, he had to educate them on what he was doing in order to sell his work. And it wasn’t easy, he said — one of his early potential clients even confused holography with calligraphy.

Today, Dr. Laser personally leads almost every group tour of his lab Monday through Friday, as well as the private tours booked by appointment.  He also offers a number of classes at the studios and the gallery offers guests the chance to buy and bring home their own fun hologram, such as a Klingon portrait from Star Trek or a mouse on a keyboard. And on the way out of the lab, it’s hard to miss the wall where his famous patrons — including Gene Simmons —  have left their autographs.

There’s no question that Dr. Laser’s dedication to the art is likely why he is the last holographer in the city and the uniqueness of his gallery tour has surely kept patrons interested all of these years.

“[Success] is as much about persistence as it is based on talent,” Dr. Laser said. “If you don’t persist, you cease to exist.”

“I became the last… not through intention, but through damn stubborn belief that what I was doing was the right thing.”