Without leaving Manhattan, we now enter tin-foil-hat territory. The largest building without windows that I know of in New York is the old AT&T Long Lines building on Thomas Street:
This building is one of many switch-equipment buildings located around the country, and one of several in Manhattan. Some of the buildings have some office space as well as the equipment spaces; some, like Long Lines, have only equipment space and therefore have no need of windows. At the risk of damning with faint praise, it’s arguably the best-looking of the equipment-only buildings. Yes, it’s unapologetic brutalism, but I’m not what other style is more appropriate for a windowless building 550 feet tall. Those big openings are not windows, but rather air intakes for cooling. If you look at some of the upper openings, you can see some of the steel around the cooling towers:
My understanding – and I could well be wrong, as this is second- or third-hand information – is that these buildings in general are less crowded than they used to be. Electronic switches of the early 1970s would take up much more physical space than equivalent-capacity modern equipment; even if we factor in the increase in telephonic and internet communications between then and now, the building may be bigger than required. I mention this solely because the presence of excess space may be feeding the strangest story about this building, which is that it is used by the NSA to spy on everyone in Manhattan.
Maybe the NSA does spy on everyone in Manhattan. If they do, I’m not sure why they would choose to do so from a building that looks like a villain’s lair rather than from a nondescript office.
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