New York’s Oddest: The Skyscraper With No Windows

If you think about a modern building , the thing that would instantly come into mind are skyscrapers with large glass windows that are extremely appealing to the eye. This, however, is not the case of one very unique building in New York. The building at 33 Thomas St., New York.

So what makes the 33 Thomas St., building in New York extremely different from the other metal skyscrapers in the Big Apple? Well, for one, it does not bare a single window.

Yes, that’s right, a commercial building that does not give its workers or residents a view at all. Although it is an odd concept for a building, the previous company that owned it had a legit reason for making it that way.

The building with no windows, a past AT&T HQ

The building was owned by the company AT&T back in 1974 by the architect John Carl Warnecke. AT&T asked Warnecke to create a building for them that was secure enough to protect their expensive technology in case of a nuclear blast. It is said that the structure could even survive for more than 2 weeks after a fallout.

Well, it looks like Warnecke delivered what AT&T asked for.

Looking like a modern fortress as it stands out from all the skyscrapers.

Previously, the skyscraper was called Long Lines Building. The reason behind this was AT&T housed all of their solid-state switches and their long distance phone company lines in the building, thus the name Long Lines. The building might look like it could have more than 40 floors but in reality. it only has 29 floors.

Air vents can be seen on the side of the building.

Each floor of the building is 18 feet high and was also designed to bare extreme heavy weights. But today the building is no longer operated by AT&T although it is still used by some local phone companies for telephone switching as well as high security datacenters. It is also no longer named as Long Lines Building instead it has been named accordingly to the street at where it is located.