 He established the district headquarters on the 18th floor of 270 Broadway in New York City, with the innocuous name of the Manhattan Engineer District, following the usual practice of naming engineer districts after the city in which their headquarters area were located.He selected the Boston firm of Stone & Webster as the project's principal contractor.Marshall and his deputy district engineer, Kenneth Nichols, visited Tennessee on 30 June 1942 to examine the proposed location for the production plants in the Clinch River area, but Marshall chose to delay the actual purchase of the land until it was needed.