New York. From songs sung by Alicia Keys or Frank Sinatra, to series and movies that take place in the big city where no one sleeps, this metropolis has enjoyed great popularity for various reasons. Among them, we can find its imposing architecture.
What would this great city be without its skyscrapers? Probably the figure of power that rises thanks to its large and important buildings, would not be the same.
Generally these structures are also characterized by their large windows that give a “bright” and alive touch to this concrete jungle. However, there is only one building that stands out for its gray and flat facades.
That architectural work that is located at number 33 Thomas Street, it is known as the ‘Long Lines Building’ (LLB). Its popularity is due both to its appearance – typical of the brutalist current – and to how enigmatic it has become.
(You may be interested in: What happens to checked baggage at airports? Video solves mystery).
It was designed in 1974 by San Francisco architect John Carl Warnecke, character who was very close to the Kennedy administration. This is why the style and structure of this building is striking, being that it is located in the middle of other skyscrapers, totally different from it.
A bunker proof of everything
The building is made of concrete, has no windows and is 169 meters high. It is totally gray and it is in the middle of the heart of the city.
This is because its design is typical of the brutalist current, which is a style that was born in European communist countries and was famous throughout the world in the 1960s. After World War II, cities that had been bombed needed to rise again. The truth is that according to the critic Charles Jencks, the main objective of the movement was to question the aesthetic values of the architecture of the time, seeking a contrast with reality.
Now back to New York, Seeing such a structure can be shocking and terrifying (or at least that’s what some Internet users say).
It is assumed that once its construction is finished, this architectural work it became the headquarters of one of the most important telecommunications companies in the United States: AT&T. However, there are theories that say this is not true.
(Also: He gave him a trunk to store and he had a corpse: the crime was solved after 40 years).
The ‘New York Times’ said in 1994 that it was the base of the National Security Agency and that “it could be part of a gigantic Global Intelligence Network, which receives an average of 175 million phone calls a day.” This in turn agrees with an investigation carried out in 2016 by ‘The Intercept’, in which it was ensured that this skyscraper really was a base of the United States National Security Agency.
In both it is said that this intelligence center really has more secrets than we think. For example, before being called ‘Long Lines Building’, its code name was ‘Project X’ and it is said that it was really intended so that the government could covertly monitor phone calls, faxes and internet data from all over the country.
Although this can be confusing, in 1997 there was an error on the part of AT&T, which caused more than five million calls to be blocked. It even put several planes in great danger, as the private lines of the Federal Aviation Administration were also interrupted.
On the other hand, the structure is supposed to be able to withstand any nuclear attack on the city. And not just from the outside, but from the inside, its structure allows it to provide enough food, water and energy for 1,500 people for two weeks.
(We recommend: The criticized complaint of a woman for flying next to obese: ‘I was trapped’).
This can be corroborated by Roger Piqueras, a worker who was in the building for five years, who in an interview with the newspaper ‘La Vanguardia’ said that even inside there were “a well of drinking water and astronaut-type food in dry packages, in addition to having its own electric generator”.
It is also important to note that, despite not having windows, the concrete structure has large vents through which the air inside is renewed, and a powerful lighting system that is “all-proof”. So much so, that according to Piqueras, when Hurricane Sandy struck, the LLB did not sustain any damage.
But why would a telecommunications building want to have all of that? The truth is that there are no official statements about it, but small investigations that try to reveal what happens there, with the little information that they have been able to obtain.
You can also read:
The life of the ‘dirtiest man in the world’: he lasted more than six decades without bathing
‘Kaiser’: the sought-after footballer who never played a game in his 20-year career
Megan Fox’s strange love letter to Machine Gun Kelly: ‘Kill me or impregnate me’
Woman goes for a walk in the park and finds a rare 4.3-carat diamond
Trends WEATHER
#story #York #skyscraper #doesnt #window