Describing it as “hidden” is a bit sensational. I don’t think I can walk past it in a group without someone throwing out this factoid. It’s also unapologetic about what it is—no fake windows or any of that garbage.
Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
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Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#12when I lived in NYC in the 90s there were rumors I heard from telecom guys that the NSA was in that building.
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fifty story windowless concrete building that's genuinely attractive. Not at all what I expected to discover on the Wikipedia page.
They could have put some fake windows to make it look normal. They do this with data center buildings in my city.
A jail I was held in has tinted glass windows all the way around it to make it look like a modern office building, but behind the glass... 99% wall.
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fifty story windowless concrete building that's genuinely attractive. Not at all what I expected to discover on the Wikipedia page.
How is it attractive? It looks extremely oppressive. I remember coming by that building while walking through Manhattan by chance and thinking this must be some government surveillance center or something.
I can totally understand why one would dislike it, but personally I'm a huge huge fan. My favorite features:
- the lack of glass gives the granite façade lots of space to shine.
- the off-center elevator shafts on the building's two long sides prevents the entire building from being disorienting at street-level: https://i.imgur.com/DQdWQ36.jpg
- the round-rect vent windows contrast with the sharp lines of the granite they're cut from, echoing an overall theme of natural skin versus high-tech innards just like the granite itself versus all the telecom gear inside: https://i.imgur.com/BQmYnuw.jpg
- the re-use of the roundrect windows to hide the former Long Lines microwave horn antennas on the roof of the building, coupled with a Disneyland-style perspective trick where the microwave windows are double the height of the vent windows so they look identically-square when you're on the street looking up: https://i.imgur.com/6TYn6Ug.jpg
Absolutely gorgeous building, probably my favorite in the entire city <3
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#15Anyone who has played Control will have a bit of deja-vu.
The architecture in that game is really beautiful, though I admit the brutalist look isn't for everyone. Neither was the gunplay or story, in my opinion, but I did have a load of fun exploring the moody, minimalist interiors of the game. It reminded me of the stark, arena-styled level design of old-school shooters like Half Life and Quake with much more modern lighting and linear storytelling.
Quite a bit of fun! Getting it to run on my aged GTX 1050Ti, on the other hand...
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#1633 Thomas Street (formerly the AT&T Long Lines Building) is a 550-foot-tall (170 m) windowless skyscraper in Tribeca, Lower Manhattan, New York City. It stands on the east side of Church Street, between Thomas Street and Worth Street. The building is an example of the Brutalist architectural style. It is a telephone exchange or wire center building which contained three major 4ESS switches used for interexchange (lon…
A fifty story windowless concrete building that's genuinely attractive. Not at all what I expected to discover on the Wikipedia page.
It looks oppressive and dystopian to the point of surreal.
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#17I'm more appalled by the need to lousily tape this 72pt Calibri label on what is indubitably an intercom at the entrance of an "intelligence" agency:
https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/11/st...
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#18I'm more appalled by the need to lousily tape this 72pt Calibri label on what is indubitably an intercom at the entrance of an "intelligence" agency: https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/11/st...
It's also an AT&T building.
It's possible that under it is a Ma Bell logo or something ancient from the long, crazy corporate history of American telecoms.
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fifty story windowless concrete building that's genuinely attractive. Not at all what I expected to discover on the Wikipedia page.
They could have put some fake windows to make it look normal. They do this with data center buildings in my city.
This was built during modernism, when architects developed an allergic reaction to what they considered excessive frivolity in ornamentation.
They did this to the Verizon tower in Lower Manhattan, and arguably I think it looks worse than the old design. https://www.6sqft.com/skyline-blights-ugly-verizon-building-...
Re: Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fifty story windowless concrete building that's genuinely attractive. Not at all what I expected to discover on the Wikipedia page.
How is it attractive? It looks extremely oppressive. I remember coming by that building while walking through Manhattan by chance and thinking this must be some government surveillance center or something.
>How is it attractive? It looks extremely oppressive.
not really mutually exclusive. More positive description would be that it looks imposing. Also it's in a sense aesthetically honest because it reflects what it does openly, which is rare for surveillance infrastructure and even kind of ironic
I find the opposite to be unattractive, which is this sort of Silicon Valley HQ childish design where surveillance and power is hidden behind rainbow colored ping pong tables and so on