Long Lines Building

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AT&T Long Lines Building
33 Thomas Street
AT&T Long Lines Building
Basic data
Place: New York City , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Opening: 1974
Status : Built
Architectural style : brutalism
Architect : John Carl Warnecke
Use / legal
Usage : Exchange
Owner : AT&T
Technical specifications
Height : 170 m
Height to the roof: 170 m
Floors : 29
Building material : Concrete , steel , granite

The Long Lines Building is a 16-foot, functional building at 33 Thomas Street, Manhattan . The windowless building was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke and completed in 1974. The owner is AT&T .

design

The Long Lines Building was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke and completed in 1974. Since it was built to accommodate telephone exchanges, the average floor height is 5.5 meters, which is much larger than in a conventional high-rise building. The floors are unusually strong and can carry up to 1.5 t / m².

The outer walls are prefabricated concrete slabs clad with flame-treated, textured Swedish granite. There are six large protrusions from the rectangular base that house air ducts, stairs, and elevators. There are a number of large protruding vents on the 10th and 29th floors. William H. Whyte, a New York journalist, claimed that it was the tallest blank wall in the world.

Often described as one of the safest buildings in America, it was designed to be self-sufficient with its own gas, water and electricity generation, protecting it from fallout for up to two weeks after a nuclear explosion. Its style has been widely recognized, including by the New York Times, for being a rare building of its kind in Manhattan that "makes architectural sense" and "blends in gracefully with its surroundings" more than any other skyscraper in the world Proximity.

NSA wiretapping center

As published by whistleblower Edward Snowden , AT&T has worked closely with the American intelligence agency NSA , which led to the rumor that there was a "listening room" in the Long Lines Building.

This theory is u. a. Justified by the fact that cables from all over the world run together in the Long Lines Building (hence the name: long (-distance) line for long-distance line) and also the buildings of other secret service agencies (such as the FBI office ) in the near future Surroundings are. In addition, one of Snowden's documents confirms that Titanpointe is in New York City, another document confirms that the location is managed by AT&T, and another document confirms that Titanpointe is intercepting satellite communications. Since there is only one AT&T building in New York that is capable of this, the journalists were able to confirm Titanpointe in this building without the address of the building being directly mentioned in any of the leaked documents.

Web links

Commons : Long Lines Building  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ AT&T Long Lines Building. The Skyscraper Center , accessed March 6, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Sam Roberts: Metro Matters; Urban Dance: Choreographing The City Streets . In: The New York Times . February 20, 1989, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed April 6, 2020]).
  3. ^ White, Norval, 1926-2009. Willensky, Elliot., American Institute of Architects. New York Chapter .: AIA guide to New York City . 4th ed. Crown Publishers, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8129-3106-8 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 6, 2020]).
  4. ↑ pn_prosiebensat1_glomex: Long Lines Building: This is behind the skyscraper without windows - building. In: Focus Online . January 27, 2018, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  5. ↑ https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article159563575/Das-Geheimnis-des-fensterlosen-Wolkenkratzers-in-Manhattan.html

Coordinates: 40 ° 43 ′ 0.4 ″  N , 74 ° 0 ′ 22 ″  W.