I’ve been in this building when I was with AT&T. It was originally used for the transatlantic cable project. Needless to say, wireless service was horrible. The freight elevators are massive. When entering the floor we occupied, it was like stepping back to the 60’s.
Some sites look as if they set their coffee down and everyone left and didn’t come back ? If I were a architect of that motif…. What were they thinking 🤔
A video game titled CONTROL took inspiration from this building. Its brutalist architecture and minimal windows are just so mysterious and haunting. Definitely can see why the building in the video game and its design used this building as its inspiration.
@Truth Sorry7 yeah sure ofc, as seen on tv, what else might be going on in there? saw movies ? maybe a whole hunger game in the cave ? but what if it's bruce wayne's tower and it's the batcave ? Maybe spongebob lives there too huh ? who knows, it's the GOVernment !! GuesSigN manNy pEples died inThere.!,
@Truth Sorry7 1 answer, cold war. Also if there was a place for such a thing, you would not know about it, think for a minute... Not it Manhattan... I thought conspirationists were a little more intelligent.
@@dylanjordan4747 honestly alot of people just are lacking.....not the intelligence but just the understanding of the concept that you can find information with a quick Google search
I feel like the lack of windows makes the building look smaller... it keeps tricking my eye into thinking it's only 10 floors or so, until you really notice it next to the other buildings or film it straight up. Wierd. We really rely on windows as a frame of reference for determining size in buildings
I was upstairs in that building a few years back, which was a pretty cool experience. Raised floors and acres of racks with miles of overhead wiring. Checking in at the front desk is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie. Huge empty foyer, large imposing desk, and two sign-in books: one blue (AT&T) and one red (VZ). I am sure there were others for the various 3-letter agencies, but I didn't see them. VZ, I believe, used to be at the WTC, but then got space at Thomas St after 9/11. Apologies if I missed this being mentioned in the video.
@@VanguardEternal Sorry, just saw this question. I was in there working with one of the 2 companies I mentioned above as there is telco datacenter networking gear in there. I had no access to the other floors that may be used for more clandestine purposes. Still cool to have actually gone in there as it is a good story to tell.
Surprised no one came out to say, "hi". Years ago, while photographing (35 mm) buildings in downtown Houston, I had a couple of friendly guys in suits and sunglasses politely tell me, " It's not allowed to photograph this building." These guys were either one of the alphabet agencies or the Men in Black. Weird.
Very similar AT&T (Southern New England Telephone) building in Hartford. Built in late 1960s. Very strong structural steel frame. No windows. Switching equipment in it then was probably replaced by one iPad!!
I used to work in the area for years. 1 day at lunch passing by with coworkers we saw 3 men having a smoke break out front at the top of the stairs. We asked what the bldg was and they looked at each other and just shook their heads NO. It is a telecommunication hub, but it reportably also monitors all international calls. Certain key words on calls would trigger monitoring allegedly. Btw AT&T has another huge bldg further north on Church St as well. I think it's even shown in the background on this video.
32 Avenue of Americas, AT&T Long Distance Building (four blocks north on Church Street of 33 Thomas Street, Long Line Building) on *Walker* Street 60 Hudson Street, Western Union Building, on *Thomas* Street (two blocks west of 33 Thomas Street, AT&T Long Line Building) Both 32 Avenue of Americas and 60 Hudson Street were designed by R. Thomas Walker. Also, AT&T was at 550 Madison Avenue, 195 Broadway LLC (Western Union) on Church Street, 375 Pearl Street (Verizon), 140 West Street Verizon Building designed by R. Thomas Walker. Add, 811 10th Avenue.
The whole keyword thing has always been a joke because by the time you say the key word they haven't recorded the preceded conversation so it's pointless after that
@@thecloneguyz The entire conversation would be recorded and keywords would trigger the conversation to be saved and flagged, no keywords and it’s deleted.
@@kylerocket4904 you forget that there's literally a billion conversations happening every hour and it's scientifically impossible to record all of them and then have one person listen to it in real time
I have been in the windowless Chicago counterpart to the NYC building, as a cable splicing tech for Illinois Bell / Ameritech, known as "10 South Canal" The cafeteria was fully functional until at least the late 80's, (company cost cutting closed down most cafeteria's across the nation) mostly for employee convenience, as it would have been hard for most to go out to get a lunch and get back on the allotted lunch time of an hour or less. And as far as giving the government "access" to voice and data, there's a long history of that, even down to an event in the 1980's where a AT&T engineer checking an equipment facility on the coast in CA, noticed equipment in a fiber optic cable signal path that wasn't on company records. It turned out, it was a optical signal "splitter" that enabled the guvment to parse all data traffic going over that cable path (possibly to Hawaii and then to Asia), but his accidental whistle blowing raised awareness of such work. More recently, a "Room 641A" was disclosed by an AT&T employee ( wikipedia referenced info) disclosing a NSA access point to fiber optic signal paths.
I worked for AT&T as a technician and was assigned to 39 Thomas Street, then called 100 Broadway when it opened. For my last five years for AT&T I worked in this building. Back then, most of the floors were still empty.
I too worked at 33 Thomas. After a brief stint at 32 A of A ( NYCMNYAA) I moved to Thomas in late 1971. The building wasn't finished yet but we at Long Lines worked alongside the installers at Western Electric. It 'officially' started switching calls in June 1973. When I got there the address was 323 Broadway, but the plans to extend to the whole block at Broadway were dropped, probably due the the anticipation of smaller electronic switching replacing the 4A crossbar switches. The east wall wasn't even covered with granite until some time in the mid-70's probably anticipation of the expansion that never happened. 323 Broadway was the address of Stark's Steak house, but our correspondence came in at a small office above the restaurant. The address was later changed to 33 Thomas.
I worked as an MCI telephone operator in the very early 1990's. We had rooms that were locked off & we were told that it was for the use of government to do spying. I worked in a mid-western town.
Another weird structure in NYC: At the western end of Canal Street, there is what looks to be an innocent pier with some benches...until you see an odd structure at the end of it. And then notice there's another pier with the same structure on the NJ side. And you might wonder "What is that?". Those are ventilation shafts for the Holland Tunnel. The Holland Tunnel is named as such not because of the area's Dutch heritage but rather because of Clifford Milburn Holland, the tunnel's chief engineer who died from a heart attack three yours before it opened due to stress from the project. When the tunnel opened in 1927, it was the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in the world, as well as the world's first mechanically ventilated tunnel. The ventilation system was designed by Ole Singstad, a Norwegian who also worked on Lincoln, Brooklyn-Battery, and Queens-Midtown Tunnels.
Speaking of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, if it wasn't for Jacqueline, the iconic Grand Central Terminal would've gotten the same fate as the original Penn Station. The original Penn Station was enormous, a majestic building that rivaled Grand Central. One describes it compared to the current Penn Station as "One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat.” When it was decided to demolish the building in favor of Madison Square Garden, there was outrage, but it wasn't enough to save it. It was a turning point in the preservation movement. Two years after its demolition, the city passed a landmarks preservation act, thereby creating the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Grand Central Terminal was next on the chopping block, as proposed by its then owner Penn Central in 1968. It was to be replaced by a Marcel Breuer office building design that looked like a shoebox lid on its side. Jacqueline Kennedy was having NONE of it. She joined the fight in 1975 with the Municipal Art Society and had a conference at the famous Oyster Bar where she said, "If we don’t care about our past, we can’t have very much hope for our future." Thanks to Jacqueline convincing the mayor (Abraham Beame), the terminal was ultimately saved by the city's LPC, but this was challenged by Penn Central in a Supreme Court case. In 1978, the court ruled in favor of the city. And the most beautiful building in NYC was saved.
I'm a retired AT&T Long Lines employee who worked before and after the divestiture of AT&T until the reconstitution of AT&T from the SBC / AT&T merger in Nov 2005. I heard many rumors about the building I worked in at 635 Grant Street in Pittsburgh, PA, e.g., that the building was strong enough to survived the annihilation of the USX building across the street if it fell on the AT&T building. It is absolutely true that AT&T monitored international phone calls in and out of the USA as early as the 1980's, when I started working there. I know, because I was an overseas telephone operator when everything still had an analog component. We used switchboards with cords, and we operators could listen into any conversation that was happening at anytime. We weren't permitted to do that, but we could monitor the line for transmission quality. I heard many interesting things, like drug deals from public phones here in the US and women calling their military husbands in Germany to complain about the kids or having no money. AT&T is a quasi government agency and trust that they monitor everything they possibly can. I finally left the company in 2009 when they started recording all of our customer interactions and searching our call records for any keywords like "fuck" or other swear words.
This is the most interesting and fascinating story I’ve ever heard about NYC, thank you for making this video! I didn’t even know (how ignorant of me) that this building existed!
AT&T has skyscrapers all over the country with no windows. They house telecom equipment. There is one at the corner of Madison and Canal in Chicago, for example. There isn't much of interest inside.
July 2019 I visited NYC fresh from the new mexico desert and late one night I decided to leave my temporary home in the bronx and walk around downtown Manhattan. Knowing nothing i rode the train and got off on a random stop, it was about 11pm and the nightlife in chinatown hummed in a crimson red. I got drunk in a noodle shop and got lost looking for the train station, deep inside of the urban canyon i looked up and saw this skyscraper. I may as well have been staring at a mothership floating in the sky. The long, flat, almost chimney like structure of the building filled me with a sense of dread and ignorance, i couldn't even look where I was going.
Most big cities have a building or two like this. They were used to house switching systems for telecommunications. The lack of windows were for environmental control. I think security was just a secondary concern.
Usually, I'm not a fan of the brutalist architectural style, but this windowless building is fascinating. Very interesting information...thanks, Ariel!
There’s a building like this in Nashville owned by ATT and it was partially blown up by a van parked by it a few months ago. The network in the southeast US went down for a while.
@@therocinante3443 It happened in 2020. Before exploding the RV also broadcast a warning stating there was a bomb and to clear the area so the only person killed was the bomber.
@@nikolatasev4948 So you compare the NSA and FBI intelligence gathering to Gestapos methods and purpose of supporting an undemocratic regime? So the US is a regime with evil intend?
@@Nebarus I am saying " the secrets of the building should not be shared in public and with potential enemies of the country" is a very convenient excuse that can be used for pretty much anything. And therefore is absolutely not a proof the people inside the buildings are "good guys".
Yes O'Kane Electric is a long time established NYC electrical contractor, they do residential and commercial work, and have decades of experience on large printing press machinery and communications and data services. I worked for them as a Journeyman Electrician in the mid 1980's
This was a fascinating and incredibly well done video I gained WAY more knowledge than I thought I would looking up on RUclips to simply find a video on this building with no windows in New York City.
I didn't even know this building existed until last year, and I'm a native New Yorker. It's crazy how nobody has ever really talked about it until in recent years.
I'm honestly shocked you weren't detained and questioned as to why you were filming critical infrastructure. Those guys don't play around, or so I'm told.
Duh, it's the NSA. They know who he is and what he is going to do from several blocks away. There is no need to question him and risk some weird shit appearing on youtube.
He is on a public sidewalk and can record anything and everything he sees. It’s a first amendment protected right. Can’t just illegally detain a person because of a camera in public. That would also create a huge scene. I’m sure this building gets recorded all the time. It’s what is inside that actually matters. No one is taking pictures of the inside and posting those. That would be a huge deal and done on private property. They wouldn’t be playing around then.
Love this subject material. Thanks for the video. We have an old AT&T building in my area, Appleton, wi. Similar architecture but with windows. The base is also granite. When I was younger I worked for a maintenance company that serviced the building. It also had a massive basement. There was the basement that the everyday employees had access to, but under that was one that had 20’ ceilings with massive fuel tanks to several generators, kitchen area, coolers, and other rooms we didn’t go in. I had only been in there twice. It was rather amazing to be in there, reminds me that there are plans for the potential of mass destruction on US soil and we need to stay prepared.
I grew up in Neenah and I remember the AT&T building since we went to downtown Appleton a lot. I don’t remember windows but then again we didn’t really hang out around it lol. We had a small windowless AT&T building (Bell)in downtown Neenah too. It always freaked me out when I was a kid.
It's only a mystery to someone under 35. Anyone over 36 knows exactly what that building was from the thumbnail. Because most cities have one. Bigger the city, bigger the building. The phone company has been a monopoly for most of its existence. The tallest building in downtown Santa Rosa for decades was the Pac-Bell switchboard building. I live in Reno NV now. And I'm looking at the back of the old Bell/At&t switchboard building not more than 600 ft across a city storage yard and the Truckee river right outside my front door. Both of them windowless buildings of concrete and/or metal. Reno is 7 stories tall. Santa Rosa was 10 or 12. Both with mind control rays..err, I mean harmless satellite dishes pointed at your hopes and dreams...ehh I mean pointed at nothing in particular or suspicious in any way... Thousands of these buildings in nearly every city in the country. From Reno to Tulsa to Midland to Topeka to Eureka to LA to New York... New York's got 3 of them actually. The NSA is there? No shit Sherlock. Ever read the Patriot act?
@helloperson readingthis what do you mean ? I was in Brooklyn when the towers were on fire . My company had contracts for the clean up with the towers and adjacent buildings. I only worked like 5 days due to me feeling sick cause of all the debri . Luckily I don't have health conditions and respiratory problems .
@helloperson readingthis we were wearing those n95 masks , had we knew how dangerous the conditions were we all needed those respiratory mask . That's why me n a few co workers stopped working there, we felt weak and sick it wasn't normal . By looking at the videos many times you can see burst at the corners where the beams are and it just dropping like nothing just like a demo job . That building should of never collapsed the way it did . I'm just glad I got out of there after a few days , I was weak all week . The pay was good but not worth my health and they didn't protect us like they should have . I lucked out . I can't imagine what those other guys went through
I used to work right across the street from that building and wondered what that building was for. I always knew that it had to be some kind of federal building, because there's a lot of federal buildings in that area.
When I first graduated architecture school in the late 1980’s, I worked for Warnekes firm, which was fairly small at that point. By that time he was a little hard of hearing and would basically yell questions at you. It was terrifying
We have on similar to that here but it is painted with giant murals on it's walls to make it more pleasing to look at. The building here houses PSTN switching equipment, fiber optic trunks, All the city and county officials departments servers. Long lines microwave transceivers, various cellular providers and a number of other internet relates systems like DNS servers, mail servers, web servers, etc.
Warnecke designed the 60's era Federal Building in San Francisco...when it opened people walked in front with placards reading "THIS IS AN UGLY BUILDING" it still is... San Fran has been surrounding it with other structures trying to hide it for years! The NY building is handsome by comparison. Strong forms clad in expensive granite...not cheap curtain wall! Thanks for an interesting video...!
Chicago has a similar ATT building at Canal and Madison. I believe it does have windows on some top floors of the building, but it's very similar to the one in this video.
Excellent video, however the reason it does not have windows is nothing to do with heat, but obviously to protect it from shockwave, radiation etc from an atomic bomb explosion.
I used to walk past this building all the time. I knew it had to have a nefarious purpose because why no windows? Well, apparently, you can decipher the vibrations of sound on glass, so you can hear conversations in the building by monitoring the windows. Always made me think of Pink Floyd and flying pigs.
Ive been in this building several times. It was, at least when I was there, a building affiliated with UN. There are several situation rooms with 1 foot thick steel doors.
From the title, I immediately guessed you were going to talk about an electronic communications building. AT&T has many other buildings with few windows. Now, I doubt they need all that space inside, given how technology has advanced over the years. I suspect inside there is a lot of unused space. Of course, for a building like this, there's not really anything else you can do with unused space, other than store stuff.
@@c_o_r_y You're right. I'm thinking of the mini phone network in my house, using VOIP adapters. Small stuff. In another time, it would take large and noisy mechanical phone switches.
I get visions of the Movie "The Day After" with Jason Robarts Shown in the late 1980's It was so terrifying that After the movie (ABC) had to show a disclaimer to calm everyone down!
What's scary is far too many people think the threat of Armageddon by nuclear war ended with the close of the Cold War, but in reality, the threat of nuclear annihilation is just as close as it ever was. People just don't talk about it as much anymore.
I live in Italy and it’s not uncommon to see this type of hideous buildings, especially at the edge of cities. Every time I see one, 1984 comes to mind
Wow. Where do you get all this info from. The building is an AT&T switch. There is three floors of underground because of the Cable and fiber leaving building goes underground. The fuel is for the generators that keep the Telco working in the event of a power outage. The electrical contractor is there to add or improve any AC issues with this building. The cafeteria is in the basement because it would take up valuable real estate on the above ground floors. Those above ground floors are probably 16 feet tall each. Did you notice the huge empty space beside the building. With just parking for AT&T vehicles. Below is more Cable vault for the massive amount of wire and fibre that feeds all the Lower Manhattan Buildings. Central offices do not need windows. Windows would inhibit the placement of equipment and the vertical cable rising to each floor. I would be surprised if there was more than 20 AT&T employees at any time in the building.
you don't see people going in and out much from the street. I would bet a dollar that this building had subway access or tunnel access from a less conspicuous spot, where there is a saturation of people always moving about.
Yes probably accessible from a parking garage. Many parking structures in NYC connect to numerous buildings in the surrounding areas via tunnels, underground walkways, above ground gardens (with food courts), and elevators.
Most people don't know that in comparison a termite mound would be four times taller than the world's highest skyscraper. Not to mention there is some termite mounds that are over 10,000 years old. The only way we can compete with that level of stability engineering superior genius. It would be to build with hemp. For it has been proven to be 10 times stronger 30% lighter than steel. Stronger and lighter than concrete stronger and lighter than brick far more versatile making the design possibilities practically limitless plus it is far easier to work with on site than traditional building materials. So we can easily rebuild faster stronger more efficiently at a fraction of the cost. Without leaving any excess poisonous toxic waste behind. I'm willing to bet if we add it volcanic ash to the hemp Creek the end result of the megalithic structure would be out of this world.
There is a smaller version of this building in Youngstown, Ohio also owned by AT&T. Similar building material, same style, and no windows, however several doors on the exterior with no outside fire escape attached, shear drop to the ground if someone stepped through them. Next to it is a 10 story metal tower with Youngstown State’s logo on it as well. I’ve never seen anyone go in or out either.
I'm pretty sure the Hugh O'Kane trucks are legit. I've worked in Mid-Town for years, and have seen them in front of legit office buildings (that have nothing to do with the Federal Government) many times. As well, there used to be another one of those windowless telecom monoliths nearby: the Verizon building, near the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. But they retro-fitted it with windows.
"Nuclear war was eminent" . . . . . Imminent. 'Eminent' is the quality of being famous and respected, 'imminent' is 'about to happen' . . . . . Great video and i do wish i had known about this during my visit a few years ago: next time.
In Moscow, there is a 21-story skyscraper without windows that also have a supercomputer inside that collects data about people in Russia. What a coincidence.
There's a similar building owned by AT&T in Nashville,TN. It was the target of the Christmas Day bombing a year or so ago. It was a disgruntled former employee that thought 5G was giving people cancer.
The word you were looking for is “Susceptible”. Also, if done correctly, a building without windows, built as a Faraday Cage would be impervious to EMP’s... and the equipment would continue to function.
I doubt that you or anyone who cares will ever review this comment, but I will leave it anyway. I encountered this video on “shorts”. Without a word being spoken I instantaneously knew who owned and used this building and I have never stepped foot into NYC. I’m from Rome, Ga. and we had a building that it reminded me of for some reason. This was not a skyscraper rather a three story building in our town. It too was originally built by Southern Bell. The parent company in the beginning that eventually became AT&T. At first glance I knew that the building in your video would be owned by AT&T as ours was and was a switching station for MaBell when built. Odd, huh??
There is a building in midtown with no windows, one steel door and one loading bay door, no name or signs on it, I've no idea what is in there. There used to be a dive bar near the Port Authority which again had no sign, no windows, just a dark derelict looking steel door with a red light over it. You had to know it was there. It wasn't pretty.
Bunch of bunk here. These buildings are all across the country, and once housed all of the main analog switching machines for a particular region. They were built as they were during a time of fear of surviving a nuclear blast, and they are built solid enough to do so! Remember dial phones and dialing 0 for an operator? Nearby buildings housed all of the local operators who could route your call through that nearby massive switching station. Nowadays, they are still the terminus of many underground cables and have the perfect climate control for mainframe computers. Won't be long before all of this is in the cloud!
Actually, over the years, equipment gets added, removed, replaced with newer equipment, to keep up with the times and technology. Crossbar type relay switching equipment often times required a constructed addition to replace it with digital electronic switching, which is now either being converted or turned down and replaced by IP based systems. T1 and DS3 carrier systems are all now using fiber optic multiplexers, and most any old SONET based service is now replaced with IP based systems, some carrying over 8.8Terabit/second or even faster on "Dense Wave Division Multiplexing" (DWDM) equipment. I know this because I got to install and maintain a varied array of this equipment, and visit many "Central Offices" in the suburban Chicago area while doing so.
@@poormanselectronicsbench2021 ya but if you think about how much data or phone stuff is going thru your system it’s truly amazing. But it’s still cool how empty most buildings are
I used to walk pass that building leaving the PATH train from WTC from Newark, for a while never knew what it was, until a friend told me there are computers inside designed like that to protect them.
I’ve been in this building when I was with AT&T. It was originally used for the transatlantic cable project. Needless to say, wireless service was horrible. The freight elevators are massive. When entering the floor we occupied, it was like stepping back to the 60’s.
hillcrest sd att
Some sites look as if they set their coffee down and everyone left and didn’t come back ?
If I were a architect of that motif…. What were they thinking 🤔
@@allensandven0 not sure
I service the air compressors here and it’s an absolute dead zone in the sub basement
The AT&T switch building in Denver is like that
A video game titled CONTROL took inspiration from this building. Its brutalist architecture and minimal windows are just so mysterious and haunting. Definitely can see why the building in the video game and its design used this building as its inspiration.
The oldest house is indeed, after all, in NYC...
I saw this building and immediately thought about the FBC and it's weird building
I wonder if the NSA is housing Polaris in there. I hope so. I have so many questions.
@Truth Sorry7 yeah sure ofc, as seen on tv, what else might be going on in there? saw movies ? maybe a whole hunger game in the cave ? but what if it's bruce wayne's tower and it's the batcave ? Maybe spongebob lives there too huh ? who knows, it's the GOVernment !! GuesSigN manNy pEples died inThere.!,
@Truth Sorry7 1 answer, cold war. Also if there was a place for such a thing, you would not know about it, think for a minute... Not it Manhattan... I thought conspirationists were a little more intelligent.
A few years back on my trip to NYC I walked past this building and got so confused, and it bothered me ever since then. Thanks for this!
I have seen other multi-storey buildings without windows. When you ask, they are always telephone exchanges.
why didn’t you just google it
@@dylanjordan4747 'twas a wee child
@@dylanjordan4747 honestly alot of people just are lacking.....not the intelligence but just the understanding of the concept that you can find information with a quick Google search
I feel like the lack of windows makes the building look smaller... it keeps tricking my eye into thinking it's only 10 floors or so, until you really notice it next to the other buildings or film it straight up.
Wierd. We really rely on windows as a frame of reference for determining size in buildings
I could imagine a whole city like this
Think tesla
This building reminds me of the Men In Black headquarters.
That's actually the the air control towers for the Battery Tunnel.
500 feet up, 500 feet down. That’s a nice server farm you got there.
I was upstairs in that building a few years back, which was a pretty cool experience. Raised floors and acres of racks with miles of overhead wiring. Checking in at the front desk is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie. Huge empty foyer, large imposing desk, and two sign-in books: one blue (AT&T) and one red (VZ). I am sure there were others for the various 3-letter agencies, but I didn't see them. VZ, I believe, used to be at the WTC, but then got space at Thomas St after 9/11. Apologies if I missed this being mentioned in the video.
Why were you there and how did you get to the floors above?
They started building down after 9/11
@@VanguardEternal Sorry, just saw this question. I was in there working with one of the 2 companies I mentioned above as there is telco datacenter networking gear in there. I had no access to the other floors that may be used for more clandestine purposes. Still cool to have actually gone in there as it is a good story to tell.
AT&T had a CO in the WTC. Verizon (Nynex) was in West St, Pearl St. and 100 Broad St.
In some ways not unlike the One Wilshire Building in Los Angeles.
Surprised no one came out to say, "hi". Years ago, while photographing (35 mm) buildings in downtown Houston, I had a couple of friendly guys in suits and sunglasses politely tell me, " It's not allowed to photograph this building." These guys were either one of the alphabet agencies or the Men in Black. Weird.
I think after the NSA leaks they chilled out. I also remember after 9/11 security was tight in NYC especially when it came to photography
@tangentomega, may I ask what building in Houston that was?
Men in black.... That's what this building is for sure! 👍 👽
@@jpabmx maybe, it absolutely has more than 3 basementm level
@@campandcook3118 ... and tunnels going everywhere
Very similar AT&T (Southern New England Telephone) building in Hartford. Built in late 1960s. Very strong structural steel frame. No windows. Switching equipment in it then was probably replaced by one iPad!!
I used to work in the area for years. 1 day at lunch passing by with coworkers we saw 3 men having a smoke break out front at the top of the stairs. We asked what the bldg was and they looked at each other and just shook their heads NO. It is a telecommunication hub, but it reportably also monitors all international calls. Certain key words on calls would trigger monitoring allegedly. Btw AT&T has another huge bldg further north on Church St as well. I think it's even shown in the background on this video.
32 Avenue of Americas, AT&T Long Distance Building (four blocks north on Church Street of 33 Thomas Street, Long Line Building)
on *Walker* Street
60 Hudson Street, Western Union Building, on *Thomas* Street (two blocks west of 33 Thomas Street, AT&T Long Line Building)
Both 32 Avenue of Americas and 60 Hudson Street were designed by R. Thomas Walker.
Also, AT&T was at 550 Madison Avenue, 195 Broadway LLC (Western Union) on Church Street, 375 Pearl Street (Verizon), 140 West Street Verizon Building designed by R. Thomas Walker. Add, 811 10th Avenue.
The whole keyword thing has always been a joke because by the time you say the key word they haven't recorded the preceded conversation so it's pointless after that
@@thecloneguyz The entire conversation would be recorded and keywords would trigger the conversation to be saved and flagged, no keywords and it’s deleted.
@@kylerocket4904 you forget that someone has to listen to it in real-time so it's all fake
@@kylerocket4904 you forget that there's literally a billion conversations happening every hour and it's scientifically impossible to record all of them and then have one person listen to it in real time
If they tried discovering my secrets they'd be bored shitless.
🧐🙄🧐🤪👍👍😂😂
Same here lol..xx
😂😂😂😂 Stop!!
Yes, there's something dreary about you.
The 131 dislikes are the people who entered this building but were never able to leave.
Lmao 🤣
... "welcome to hotel california"
people born in the 1990s
\
But are still allowed wifi access and RUclips?
Backroom Boys
I have been in the windowless Chicago counterpart to the NYC building, as a cable splicing tech for Illinois Bell / Ameritech, known as "10 South Canal" The cafeteria was fully functional until at least the late 80's, (company cost cutting closed down most cafeteria's across the nation) mostly for employee convenience, as it would have been hard for most to go out to get a lunch and get back on the allotted lunch time of an hour or less. And as far as giving the government "access" to voice and data, there's a long history of that, even down to an event in the 1980's where a AT&T engineer checking an equipment facility on the coast in CA, noticed equipment in a fiber optic cable signal path that wasn't on company records. It turned out, it was a optical signal "splitter" that enabled the guvment to parse all data traffic going over that cable path (possibly to Hawaii and then to Asia), but his accidental whistle blowing raised awareness of such work. More recently, a "Room 641A" was disclosed by an AT&T employee ( wikipedia referenced info) disclosing a NSA access point to fiber optic signal paths.
I worked for AT&T as a technician and was assigned to 39 Thomas Street, then called 100 Broadway when it opened. For my last five years for AT&T I worked in this building. Back then, most of the floors were still empty.
I too worked at 33 Thomas. After a brief stint at 32 A of A ( NYCMNYAA) I moved to Thomas in late 1971. The building wasn't finished yet but we at Long Lines worked alongside the installers at Western Electric. It 'officially' started switching calls in June 1973.
When I got there the address was 323 Broadway, but the plans to extend to the whole block at Broadway were dropped, probably due the the anticipation of smaller electronic switching replacing the 4A crossbar switches. The east wall wasn't even covered with granite until some time in the mid-70's probably anticipation of the expansion that never happened. 323 Broadway was the address of Stark's Steak house, but our correspondence came in at a small office above the restaurant. The address was later changed to 33 Thomas.
I worked as an MCI telephone operator in the very early 1990's. We had rooms that were locked off & we were told that it was for the use of government to do spying. I worked in a mid-western town.
Another weird structure in NYC: At the western end of Canal Street, there is what looks to be an innocent pier with some benches...until you see an odd structure at the end of it. And then notice there's another pier with the same structure on the NJ side. And you might wonder "What is that?".
Those are ventilation shafts for the Holland Tunnel. The Holland Tunnel is named as such not because of the area's Dutch heritage but rather because of Clifford Milburn Holland, the tunnel's chief engineer who died from a heart attack three yours before it opened due to stress from the project. When the tunnel opened in 1927, it was the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in the world, as well as the world's first mechanically ventilated tunnel. The ventilation system was designed by Ole Singstad, a Norwegian who also worked on Lincoln, Brooklyn-Battery, and Queens-Midtown Tunnels.
Wow
The sacrafices. ❤❤
Speaking of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, if it wasn't for Jacqueline, the iconic Grand Central Terminal would've gotten the same fate as the original Penn Station. The original Penn Station was enormous, a majestic building that rivaled Grand Central. One describes it compared to the current Penn Station as "One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat.” When it was decided to demolish the building in favor of Madison Square Garden, there was outrage, but it wasn't enough to save it.
It was a turning point in the preservation movement. Two years after its demolition, the city passed a landmarks preservation act, thereby creating the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Grand Central Terminal was next on the chopping block, as proposed by its then owner Penn Central in 1968. It was to be replaced by a Marcel Breuer office building design that looked like a shoebox lid on its side. Jacqueline Kennedy was having NONE of it. She joined the fight in 1975 with the Municipal Art Society and had a conference at the famous Oyster Bar where she said, "If we don’t care about our past, we can’t have very much hope for our future." Thanks to Jacqueline convincing the mayor (Abraham Beame), the terminal was ultimately saved by the city's LPC, but this was challenged by Penn Central in a Supreme Court case. In 1978, the court ruled in favor of the city. And the most beautiful building in NYC was saved.
Yes! Thank you for remembering her contribution.
I'm a retired AT&T Long Lines employee who worked before and after the divestiture of AT&T until the reconstitution of AT&T from the SBC / AT&T merger in Nov 2005. I heard many rumors about the building I worked in at 635 Grant Street in Pittsburgh, PA, e.g., that the building was strong enough to survived the annihilation of the USX building across the street if it fell on the AT&T building. It is absolutely true that AT&T monitored international phone calls in and out of the USA as early as the 1980's, when I started working there. I know, because I was an overseas telephone operator when everything still had an analog component. We used switchboards with cords, and we operators could listen into any conversation that was happening at anytime. We weren't permitted to do that, but we could monitor the line for transmission quality. I heard many interesting things, like drug deals from public phones here in the US and women calling their military husbands in Germany to complain about the kids or having no money. AT&T is a quasi government agency and trust that they monitor everything they possibly can. I finally left the company in 2009 when they started recording all of our customer interactions and searching our call records for any keywords like "fuck" or other swear words.
Isn't it common for call centers that the calls are recorded for quality control?
That’s the Federal Bureau of Control, you’re not even supposed to be aware of the building’s existence ;)
unless you're looking for it
The Oldest House!
Looks like a fortress to me, like the last man standing type of building when all else fail.
Screams look at me I crave attention I’m different and edgy
This is the most interesting and fascinating story I’ve ever heard about NYC, thank you for making this video! I didn’t even know (how ignorant of me) that this building existed!
A more fascinating story would be how Central Park was built! Look it up if you don’t know
AT&T has skyscrapers all over the country with no windows. They house telecom equipment. There is one at the corner of Madison and Canal in Chicago, for example. There isn't much of interest inside.
When was the last time you went inside this place?
Thanks nsa haha
You’re not the builders buddy. You better hope you don’t work for the nsa. Better hope
8:54 the undercover casually smoking a cigarette keeping an eye on our presenter lol
Dude!!! you totally spotted it!
Excellent call👍
By the way, that call was monitored by AT&T😂
July 2019 I visited NYC fresh from the new mexico desert and late one night I decided to leave my temporary home in the bronx and walk around downtown Manhattan. Knowing nothing i rode the train and got off on a random stop, it was about 11pm and the nightlife in chinatown hummed in a crimson red. I got drunk in a noodle shop and got lost looking for the train station, deep inside of the urban canyon i looked up and saw this skyscraper. I may as well have been staring at a mothership floating in the sky. The long, flat, almost chimney like structure of the building filled me with a sense of dread and ignorance, i couldn't even look where I was going.
Sounds high 😂😂
Most big cities have a building or two like this. They were used to house switching systems for telecommunications. The lack of windows were for environmental control. I think security was just a secondary concern.
Yes.
Usually, I'm not a fan of the brutalist architectural style, but this windowless building is fascinating. Very interesting information...thanks, Ariel!
There’s a building like this in Nashville owned by ATT and it was partially blown up by a van parked by it a few months ago. The network in the southeast US went down for a while.
Oh I remember that incident
How the hell wasn't that huge national news?
@@therocinante3443 It was.
lol under attack
@@therocinante3443 It happened in 2020. Before exploding the RV also broadcast a warning stating there was a bomb and to clear the area so the only person killed was the bomber.
Wonder how often people working there are thinking "Are we the bad guys?"
If they're like the average person they don't.
Or they know they are the good guys who also knows the secrets of the building should not be shared in public and with potential enemies of the US.
@@Nebarus I'm sure this is exactly what the Gestapo were telling themselves.
@@nikolatasev4948 So you compare the NSA and FBI intelligence gathering to Gestapos methods and purpose of supporting an undemocratic regime? So the US is a regime with evil intend?
@@Nebarus I am saying " the secrets of the building should not be shared in public and with potential enemies of the country" is a very convenient excuse that can be used for pretty much anything. And therefore is absolutely not a proof the people inside the buildings are "good guys".
Yes O'Kane Electric is a long time established NYC electrical contractor, they do residential and commercial work, and have decades of experience on large printing press machinery and communications and data services. I worked for them as a Journeyman Electrician in the mid 1980's
This was a fascinating and incredibly well done video I gained WAY more knowledge than I thought I would looking up on RUclips to simply find a video on this building with no windows in New York City.
I didn't even know this building existed until last year, and I'm a native New Yorker. It's crazy how nobody has ever really talked about it until in recent years.
AT&T actually has several windowless buildings here in California ,I’ve seen one in the Central Valley and also in east Los Angeles
I'm honestly shocked you weren't detained and questioned as to why you were filming critical infrastructure. Those guys don't play around, or so I'm told.
easier to let people do it and ramble on, plausible deniability.
He’s probably on a dozen lists just because of filming and on another dozen just for posting the video on YT
Duh, it's the NSA. They know who he is and what he is going to do from several blocks away. There is no need to question him and risk some weird shit appearing on youtube.
@@ElectricityTaster You think this video would have appeared here if he was questioned and detained ? :)
He is on a public sidewalk and can record anything and everything he sees. It’s a first amendment protected right. Can’t just illegally detain a person because of a camera in public. That would also create a huge scene. I’m sure this building gets recorded all the time. It’s what is inside that actually matters. No one is taking pictures of the inside and posting those. That would be a huge deal and done on private property. They wouldn’t be playing around then.
Love this subject material. Thanks for the video. We have an old AT&T building in my area, Appleton, wi. Similar architecture but with windows. The base is also granite. When I was younger I worked for a maintenance company that serviced the building. It also had a massive basement. There was the basement that the everyday employees had access to, but under that was one that had 20’ ceilings with massive fuel tanks to several generators, kitchen area, coolers, and other rooms we didn’t go in. I had only been in there twice. It was rather amazing to be in there, reminds me that there are plans for the potential of mass destruction on US soil and we need to stay prepared.
I grew up in Neenah and I remember the AT&T building since we went to downtown Appleton a lot. I don’t remember windows but then again we didn’t really hang out around it lol. We had a small windowless AT&T building (Bell)in downtown Neenah too. It always freaked me out when I was a kid.
It's only a mystery to someone under 35. Anyone over 36 knows exactly what that building was from the thumbnail.
Because most cities have one. Bigger the city, bigger the building. The phone company has been a monopoly for most of its existence. The tallest building in downtown Santa Rosa for decades was the Pac-Bell switchboard building. I live in Reno NV now. And I'm looking at the back of the old Bell/At&t switchboard building not more than 600 ft across a city storage yard and the Truckee river right outside my front door. Both of them windowless buildings of concrete and/or metal. Reno is 7 stories tall. Santa Rosa was 10 or 12.
Both with mind control rays..err, I mean harmless satellite dishes pointed at your hopes and dreams...ehh I mean pointed at nothing in particular or suspicious in any way...
Thousands of these buildings in nearly every city in the country. From Reno to Tulsa to Midland to Topeka to Eureka to LA to New York... New York's got 3 of them actually.
The NSA is there? No shit Sherlock. Ever read the Patriot act?
That’s New York for you. I’ve been here 5 years now and I’ve never heard of this street till now
We always used to say that if the planes had hit 33 Thomas they would have bounced right off.
@helloperson readingthis what do you mean ? I was in Brooklyn when the towers were on fire . My company had contracts for the clean up with the towers and adjacent buildings. I only worked like 5 days due to me feeling sick cause of all the debri . Luckily I don't have health conditions and respiratory problems .
@helloperson readingthis we were wearing those n95 masks , had we knew how dangerous the conditions were we all needed those respiratory mask . That's why me n a few co workers stopped working there, we felt weak and sick it wasn't normal .
By looking at the videos many times you can see burst at the corners where the beams are and it just dropping like nothing just like a demo job . That building should of never collapsed the way it did . I'm just glad I got out of there after a few days , I was weak all week . The pay was good but not worth my health and they didn't protect us like they should have . I lucked out . I can't imagine what those other guys went through
@@eagleeye8916 Pure liar.
Who would or could work in a windowless building for 8 hours? Sounds crazy as hell. Yet I am fascinated...
Oddly enough most people do, I worked in a kitchen for about 10-11 hours, Without ever seeing any sort of day light till I went to go home.
Warehouses, production, and so on...
I work in a building originally built for the FBI.. 4 stories, no windows.
North Texas high school buildings barely even have windows..
The Matrix doesn’t need windows.
I used to work right across the street from that building and wondered what that building was for. I always knew that it had to be some kind of federal building, because there's a lot of federal buildings in that area.
I worked at 20 Thomas right across from that building always thought of it as the at&t building
@@luiscraze169 You guys FBI? That’s what’s right across from the entrance iirc.
@@hackjealousy no it was a law firm back then early 90s
Thanks for this, I had no idea this building existed!
my pleasure! yea the building is surprisingly easy to miss I didn't know about it till only about 3 years ago
When I first graduated architecture school in the late 1980’s, I worked for Warnekes firm, which was fairly small at that point. By that time he was a little hard of hearing and would basically yell questions at you. It was terrifying
lol that's hilarious
1980s. It's plural not possessive so there's no apostrophe.
We have on similar to that here but it is painted with giant murals on it's walls to make it more pleasing to look at. The building here houses PSTN switching equipment, fiber optic trunks, All the city and county officials departments servers. Long lines microwave transceivers, various cellular providers and a number of other internet relates systems like DNS servers, mail servers, web servers, etc.
Absolutely one of your best videos, I loved it and learned something new! Well Done!
Warnecke designed the 60's era Federal Building in San Francisco...when it opened people walked in front with placards reading "THIS IS AN UGLY BUILDING" it still is... San Fran has been surrounding it with other structures trying to hide it for years! The NY building is handsome by comparison. Strong forms clad in expensive granite...not cheap curtain wall! Thanks for an interesting video...!
Forget expensive it was built to survive a nuke old man 🤣🤣🙏🙏
Love the dramatic music at 7:31 when introducing the building ... not only that but also the way the camera panned upward to the top of the structure
I subscribed afew hours ago, but am already addicted to watching this channel. Wow....so much architectural designs! And secrets too!
This building is fascinating in many ways. Thank you so much for letting me be aware of it. The ventilation system must be a marvel of technology.
This is the building that the video game Control uses as inspiration
Chicago has a similar ATT building at Canal and Madison. I believe it does have windows on some top floors of the building, but it's very similar to the one in this video.
Excellent video, however the reason it does not have windows is nothing to do with heat, but obviously to protect it from shockwave, radiation etc from an atomic bomb explosion.
This is just your opinion. Most telecommunication buildings have no windows. Get your facts straight. It’s not bombs either.
EMPs
I used to walk past this building all the time. I knew it had to have a nefarious purpose because why no windows? Well, apparently, you can decipher the vibrations of sound on glass, so you can hear conversations in the building by monitoring the windows. Always made me think of Pink Floyd and flying pigs.
Defeats laser mics and parabolic mics.
No doubt children have been sacrificed their... 33 thomas street.
This building soon makes me think of Duga Radar,also known as "the woodpecker" in the Chernobyl area... both interesting & mysterious at the same time
The fact that the address has "33" in it tells you who in control.
@TYS02 Masons
The Teletubbies
@@vwsaiphone tinky winky to be exact
Of course. Black magic
aaaaa scary devil demon religious number!!111!111!!!!11
I just walked by this building yesterday during my vacation in New York. We wondered what it was and now this video pops up in my suggestions.
Android phone?
Ive been in this building several times. It was, at least when I was there, a building affiliated with UN. There are several situation rooms with 1 foot thick steel doors.
What were you doing there? Could you describe more of what you saw?
@@trizzybones Sure I can tell you. So we went in to…..wait, a black car just pulled up to my house and 2 men are approaching, Ive said too much
@@Burritosarebetterthantacos So you didn't actually visit there... (eye roll)
Silly trolls
This building is SUCH an old topic and has not been a mystery for years.
From the title, I immediately guessed you were going to talk about an electronic communications building. AT&T has many other buildings with few windows. Now, I doubt they need all that space inside, given how technology has advanced over the years. I suspect inside there is a lot of unused space. Of course, for a building like this, there's not really anything else you can do with unused space, other than store stuff.
I bet even with the advancements of technology that ever square inch of this building is used. I bet most floors are floor to ceiling servers.
Server racks take a lot of space and make a lot of heat
@@c_o_r_y You're right. I'm thinking of the mini phone network in my house, using VOIP adapters. Small stuff. In another time, it would take large and noisy mechanical phone switches.
Dude, this is awesome. First time Ive heard a comprehensive explanation on this.
yea my pleasure!! there's a few videos on it, but none really went in depth. I wish I could go inside!
I get visions of the Movie "The Day After" with Jason Robarts Shown in the late 1980's It was so terrifying that
After the movie (ABC) had to show a disclaimer to calm everyone down!
oooh interesting, now I'm curious to check that movie out
@@UrbanistExploringCities That movie was scary AF!
I remember watching that. It freaked a lot of people out.
What's scary is far too many people think the threat of Armageddon by nuclear war ended with the close of the Cold War, but in reality, the threat of nuclear annihilation is just as close as it ever was. People just don't talk about it as much anymore.
I distinctly remember this building just visiting NY as a tourist, really sticks out
this video will self destruct in 30 seconds...
lmao 😂 that explains the black suv outside my home... jk!
When I worked for AT&T in London I used to talk to people who worked in this bulding all the time.
Never got to go inside myself, though.
Is anyone really surprised that NSA is recording all the communications coming and going from the US though?
I live in Italy and it’s not uncommon to see this type of hideous buildings, especially at the edge of cities. Every time I see one, 1984 comes to mind
Fascinating information as usual - thank you Urbanist!
I'm so happy you enjoyed it!! thanks so much for watching :D
Wow. Where do you get all this info from. The building is an AT&T switch. There is three floors of underground because of the Cable and fiber leaving building goes underground. The fuel is for the generators that keep the Telco working in the event of a power outage. The electrical contractor is there to add or improve any AC issues with this building. The cafeteria is in the basement because it would take up valuable real estate on the above ground floors. Those above ground floors are probably 16 feet tall each. Did you notice the huge empty space beside the building. With just parking for AT&T vehicles. Below is more Cable vault for the massive amount of wire and fibre that feeds all the Lower Manhattan Buildings. Central offices do not need windows. Windows would inhibit the placement of equipment and the vertical cable rising to each floor. I would be surprised if there was more than 20 AT&T employees at any time in the building.
you don't see people going in and out much from the street. I would bet a dollar that this building had subway access or tunnel access from a less conspicuous spot, where there is a saturation of people always moving about.
Yes probably accessible from a parking garage. Many parking structures in NYC connect to numerous buildings in the surrounding areas via tunnels, underground walkways, above ground gardens (with food courts), and elevators.
@@DJXcalibur ... or possibly a tailors shop?
It’s the Hawkins lab. 😉
Another great video Ariel. You always bring varied and interesting information. So grateful I found your channel. Keep it up Ariel!
If you were my history teacher I probably would have been a historian.
Exactly. And he's not obnoxious in the least
Brutalism ❤️
Most people don't know that in comparison a termite mound would be four times taller than the world's highest skyscraper. Not to mention there is some termite mounds that are over 10,000 years old. The only way we can compete with that level of stability engineering superior genius. It would be to build with hemp. For it has been proven to be 10 times stronger 30% lighter than steel. Stronger and lighter than concrete stronger and lighter than brick far more versatile making the design possibilities practically limitless plus it is far easier to work with on site than traditional building materials. So we can easily rebuild faster stronger more efficiently at a fraction of the cost. Without leaving any excess poisonous toxic waste behind. I'm willing to bet if we add it volcanic ash to the hemp Creek the end result of the megalithic structure would be out of this world.
Secret Service, FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, Google all in one building
There is a smaller version of this building in Youngstown, Ohio also owned by AT&T. Similar building material, same style, and no windows, however several doors on the exterior with no outside fire escape attached, shear drop to the ground if someone stepped through them. Next to it is a 10 story metal tower with Youngstown State’s logo on it as well. I’ve never seen anyone go in or out either.
Those fire escapes sound dangerous, what's the point?
Maybe your best video so far
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! :D thanks for watching!
"I just need green. I need to wake up and see grass and squirrels. I don't want to see skyscrapers" Andre Leon Talley
Then live in the country side like me
@Mwalk the NY is definitely the wrong place for you
@@sebby324 Oh the countryside, I love it!
I hate squirels and I love skyscrapers so I'll stick with them. Lol I hate tree rats with a passion.
Andre said that after Anna threw him away & he was suddenly persona non grata. 😂
I'm pretty sure the Hugh O'Kane trucks are legit. I've worked in Mid-Town for years, and have seen them in front of legit office buildings (that have nothing to do with the Federal Government) many times. As well, there used to be another one of those windowless telecom monoliths nearby: the Verizon building, near the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. But they retro-fitted it with windows.
I was expecting you to go inside.
when I live in NYC I always thought this building was a gas-off-air flow exchange for the subway system. I guess not!
Wow, super interesting. Thanks for sharing.
"Nuclear war was eminent" . . . . . Imminent. 'Eminent' is the quality of being famous and respected, 'imminent' is 'about to happen' . . . . . Great video and i do wish i had known about this during my visit a few years ago: next time.
Every place/state has its quirks and features. Wisconsin has a alot of schools connected to underground bunkers.
I mean he also said soho was a portmanteau for south of houseton its Houston or as its property pronounced hewston :p
There's a slightly older AT&T Building at 53rd and 10th, also windowless, made of white bricks. It still says AT&T on it.
“Granite is flame resistant” - you cannot set fire to rock, you’ve heard it hear first people.
*here 🤷🏻♀️
@@bk2342 feel better now?
@@AJS_117 ehh it still says hear.
@@bk2342 🤣😁😂👍👍
An old telephone building in Chelsea was turned into condos. The 2ft thick walls and floors are a big selling point.
In Moscow, there is a 21-story skyscraper without windows that also have a supercomputer inside that collects data about people in Russia. What a coincidence.
Its the control matrix.
This is not the only building owned by att in nyc that’s windowless. There is a second building on 10th ave and 53rd street in Manhattan
Are they high-rises like this one?
There's a building like this one in downtown Bryan, TX that also has no windows and says at&t on it but its not as tall
There's a similar building owned by AT&T in Nashville,TN. It was the target of the Christmas Day bombing a year or so ago. It was a disgruntled former employee that thought 5G was giving people cancer.
The word you were looking for is “Susceptible”. Also, if done correctly, a building without windows, built as a Faraday Cage would be impervious to EMP’s... and the equipment would continue to function.
Man that building looks expensive but obviously durable. Kool thanks
That building is owned by AT&T, for a communcations center and telephone communication HQ ran by AI. It's callname is "TitanPointe".
8:44
I doubt that you or anyone who cares will ever review this comment, but I will leave it anyway. I encountered this video on “shorts”. Without a word being spoken I instantaneously knew who owned and used this building and I have never stepped foot into NYC. I’m from Rome, Ga. and we had a building that it reminded me of for some reason. This was not a skyscraper rather a three story building in our town. It too was originally built by Southern Bell. The parent company in the beginning that eventually became AT&T. At first glance I knew that the building in your video would be owned by AT&T as ours was and was a switching station for MaBell when built. Odd, huh??
wish the video was longer, thank you man.
There is a building in midtown with no windows, one steel door and one loading bay door, no name or signs on it, I've no idea what is in there. There used to be a dive bar near the Port Authority which again had no sign, no windows, just a dark derelict looking steel door with a red light over it. You had to know it was there. It wasn't pretty.
Thank you for telling us what this building is all about!!, walked by for 20 yrs and couldn’t figure it out!!!
Bunch of bunk here. These buildings are all across the country, and once housed all of the main analog switching machines for a particular region. They were built as they were during a time of fear of surviving a nuclear blast, and they are built solid enough to do so! Remember dial phones and dialing 0 for an operator? Nearby buildings housed all of the local operators who could route your call through that nearby massive switching station. Nowadays, they are still the terminus of many underground cables and have the perfect climate control for mainframe computers. Won't be long before all of this is in the cloud!
I always watch urbanist before i go to sleep, its a daily routine 😎
Most major cities have telecom switches like this. Most are converted office buildings. This one is dedicated for that purpose.
Your clever mind, your memory and your fluent speach amazes me everytime :) You are a great guy and this is good information!
That's a Central Office, there's no windows because its easier to temperature control all the telecom equipment.
I’m a c.o tech and I noticed that from the thumbnail but this guy lol
It’s always a let down going into old telecom buildings. They used to be full of electronics now it’s a couple racks.
Actually, over the years, equipment gets added, removed, replaced with newer equipment, to keep up with the times and technology. Crossbar type relay switching equipment often times required a constructed addition to replace it with digital electronic switching, which is now either being converted or turned down and replaced by IP based systems. T1 and DS3 carrier systems are all now using fiber optic multiplexers, and most any old SONET based service is now replaced with IP based systems, some carrying over 8.8Terabit/second or even faster on "Dense Wave Division Multiplexing" (DWDM) equipment. I know this because I got to install and maintain a varied array of this equipment, and visit many "Central Offices" in the suburban Chicago area while doing so.
@@poormanselectronicsbench2021 ya but if you think about how much data or phone stuff is going thru your system it’s truly amazing. But it’s still cool how empty most buildings are
I used to walk pass that building leaving the PATH train from WTC from Newark, for a while never knew what it was, until a friend told me there are computers inside designed like that to protect them.