Model of the NACA's Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory during its Construction

Zella Morewitz poses with a model of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory, currently the NASA Glenn Research Center. The model was displayed in the Administration Building during the construction of the laboratory in the early 1940s. Detailed models of the individual test facilities were also fabricated and displayed in the facilities.

The laboratory was built on a wedge of land between the Cleveland Municipal Airport on the far side and the deep curving valley etched by the Rocky River on the near end. Roughly only a third of the laboratory's semicircle footprint was initially utilized. Additional facilities were added to the remaining areas in the years after World War II. In the late 1950s the site was supplemented by the acquisition of additional adjacent land.

Morewitz joined the NACA in 1935 as a secretary in the main office at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. In September 1940 she took on the task of setting up and guiding an office dedicated to the design of the NACA’s new engine research laboratory. Morewitz and the others in the design office transferred to Cleveland in December 1941 to expedite the construction. Morewitz served as Manager Ray Sharp’s secretary for six years and was a popular figure at the new laboratory. In December 1947 Morewitz announced her engagement to Langley researcher Sidney Batterson and moved back to Virginia.