Polaroid Corporation Files for Bankruptcy

On Friday, 75 years after Edwin H. Land, Class of 1930, dropped out of Harvard to research light polarization and start the Polaroid Corporation, the Cambridge-based company announced its plans to file for bankruptcy.

Operations will continue on a smaller scale while the company, famous for pioneering instant photography, continues its search for a buyer.

Headquartered on Memorial Drive past Peabody Terrace, Polaroid employs 6,700 employees worldwide, more than half of whom work in eastern Massachusetts.

It has been a powerful presence in Cambridge for the past six decades.

“It was a long-time source of employment opportunities for Cambridge people,” said Terrence F. Smith, chief of staff for Cambridge Mayor Anthony D. Galluccio.

Polaroid will be shutting down two of its three major manufacturing locations in Massachusetts, leaving one location in New Bedford still running.

Earlier this year, the company announced plans to eliminate 1,300 jobs by the end of 2002.

“It’s dollars and cents,” said Polaroid spokesperson Herbert N. “Skip” Colcord about how the company will determine which plants will close and which employees will lose their jobs.

Polaroid also announced last week its plans to eliminate health benefits and insurance payments to some retirees, many of whom live in Cambridge and surrounding areas.

Over the last decade, Polaroid has sold virtually all of its Cambridge land holdings, including the Memorial Drive office space that houses its headquarters.

Once one of the “Nifty Fifty” group of stocks, the company’s profits and sales havedeteriorated dramatically in recent years. At the height of the company’s growth in the late 1970s, Polaroid employed over 20,000 employees in the U.S., including a large number in the Boston area.

Gary T. DiCamillo, Polaroid’s chair and chief executive officer, said in a press release that the decision was “both prudent and necessary,” citing the company’s low profits in the context of an uncertain economy.

Pending the announcement to begin Chapter 11 proceedings, the New York Stock Exchange has suspended trading of Polaroid stock. The outcome of the Chapter 11 proceedings will determine the value of the stock.