Around Town

[lydy]

While I was in NYC, Patrick took me on a sort of walking tour. We didn't really have a destination or particular highlights to see, we'd just walk in places that Patrick thought of as interesting, and he'd keep up a running commentary. It was grand fun.

At one point, we came up to a building which Patrick described as "the ugliest building I've ever seen." It is an amazing structure. Tall, very tall, brown, angular, and without a single window anywhere. Not one. I said it looked more like a smokestack for an ominous underground factory than a building. Patrick said he could never remember whose building this was, so we decided to walk around it to see if it said, anywhere.

At street level, there's nothing but flat walls, occasional alcoves with doors which are always behind locked iron gates, the gates themselves entirely unornamented, all sharp corners and parallel lines. Every so often, about 15 feet up, there are a pair of spy eyes, one pointing one direction down the sidewalk, the other pointing the opposite direction.

The paranoia was contagious. Walking down the sidewalk towards the corner, being stared at by spy eyes every 20 feet, past unrelieved stone walls, no sign of human life visible, it felt spooky. "Are you sure this isn't a jail?" I asked at one point.

Close to the corner, there was a toll booth for an underground parking garage. I looked forward to seeing it, figuring to glean at least some information. Little booths containing extremely bored people for many long hours tend to accumulate stuff. When we got close enough to get a good look, I was even more spooked. There was nothing on it. No name. No sign sayying, "Make check payable to..." No rates. No warning to wait until the gate was fully raised before proceding. Nothing personal inside the booth, either, not even a candy wrapper or a magazine. It was worse than sterile. It felt inhuman.

We rounded the corner. About half-way up the block, there were stairs that led up to an open area shaded by a black overhang protecting ranks of glass double doors. There was no lettering on the edge of the overhang, as one might expect. A few steps more, and I caught sight of a brass plaque embedded in the wall. I saw it at an extreme angle, and was only barely able to make out what it was.

I shrieked and fell against the wall, laughing hysterically. I pounded my head against my forearm, which I had providently put between my forehead and the wall. I fought against my usual impulse to simply let myself fall to the ground, instead pounding my fist against the wall. Patrick, at first worried, told me if I didn't stop it they really would come and take me away to the funny farm, and anyway, what was so funny? I tried to gasp out, "TPC*," but I was not intelligable. Helplessly, I pointed to the plaque, and Patrick took a few steps towards it, stopped abruptly, and said, "My god, it's the Death Star!" This made me laugh even harder, for a while.

How could it have been otherwise? Of course a threatening, paranoid, windowless building would belong to AT&T. How else?


* If you haven't seen the movie "The President's Analyst," you should. At least, if you want to get this joke, you should either see the movie or get someone who has to explain it. The movie itself is dated, what with it being 30 or 40 years old, but it still has brilliant moments.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

It's a switching station. There are buildings like that all across the country.

Although many of them are in more rural settings.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I can show you several around MPLS, if you like, though none with this "Fortress America" look to 'em.

K.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Switching station? Ok, I can buy that. But why then does it have such an office building look at the ground level? And why are they parking it in expensive land in Manhattan? Does it really have to be that centrally located? (Honest question. I know nothing about switching stations.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I don't know how local they have to be these days, but when that one was built it certainly had to be geographically close to the telephones it was switching.

The further away the station is from the phone, the more power that has to be pumped into the wire.

B

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

They want it to look like an office building because they don't want it to look like a switching station. Somebody gets to feeling like doing some mischief and they could fuck things up really badly with the phone system. They don't want it to look like a target.

I don't know if it has to be centrally located, but the fact that is suggests that it does.

I liked your observation about the charming clutter in parking lot attendents' shacks. The Happy Meal toy collection in the lot on 13th and Harmon always impressed me.

K.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Here's a picture of the building in question. The mid-air view does little to convey its oppressive effect on the streets over which it looms. Bruce and Karen are right, though: it's a long-lines switching operation, engineered to encase and protect a zillion dollars worth of equipment.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Jeez, I just realized that you yourself linked to a much better picture. nevermind!

Central Offices

[(Anonymous)]

Take a look at 200 South 5th Street in Minneapolis. This just looks like your average downtown office building until you check out all the security cameras and the Qwest/ATT signs. This is the main central office facility for downtown Minneapolis. Not nearly as ominous as the one Lydia saw but the security is just as intense.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Goodness me, it's a Babylonian skyscraper. There's one of those, though with more step-pyramidy levels, just off Place d'Armes in Montreal; I must check the name of the thing next time I'm there so I can Google for a picture.