This windowless skyscraper was designed to resist a nuclear fallout – holding up to 1,500 people for two weeks, with 250,000 gallons of fuel to power generators, water, and food for the occupants. 33 Thomas Street, also known as the AT&T Long Lines Building is one of Manhattan's most unusual skyscrapers - a building made for machines, not people. Designed by architect John Carl Warnecke in 1969 for AT&T, 33 Thomas is 550 feet tall, clad in flame-retardant red granite panels, placed over precast concrete slabs. The building’s stepped massing, extruded volumes, and uniform rugged materiality represent the hallmarks of brutalist architecture. Inside, 33 Thomas houses an important telecommunications hub, which was the world's largest long-distance phone processing center when it was built. One of the major "4ESS switches" in the skyscraper acts as an "international gateway" for long-distance traffic. A recent investigation by The Intercept exposed the telephone switches inside 33 Thomas have come under the control of the National Security Agency, making the mysterious building one of the most important surveillance sites in the United States. To read more about the history of the skyscraper and its role in the NSA, visit Brutal NYC our survey on brutalist architecture in New York City. nycurbanism.com/brutalnyc (link in bio) #Brutalism #Brutalnyc #brutalist_architecture #brutalismo #brutalist #modernarchitecture #tribeca #urbanism #brutalist_architecture #betonbrut #concrete #modern #urbanism #urban #tribeca #manhattan #nyhistory #nychistory #nycarchitecture #33thomas #nsa #concretemodernism #modernism #skyscraper #skyline #nycurbanism (at 33 Thomas Street) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9AlCBgnYjP/?igshid=11hhffv1qk1lw
