33 Thomas Street: The Strange 29-Story Building New York skyscraper with no windows. What’s the point?
A strange 29-story skyscraper with no windows stands tall and mysterious in the middle of Lower Manhattan. It is at 33 Thomas Street and has the code name Titanpointe. For years, this building has stumped people in New York.1
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When it was built in 1974, the building was made to withstand atomic blasts and was originally meant to hold important communications gear. John Carl Warnecke & Associates, an architecture firm, saw it as a communication hub that would be safe from nuclear threats.
This impressive building still stands. It’s a gray tower made of concrete and granite that rises 550 feet into the skyline of New York City. Unlike the nearby apartment and office buildings, this one doesn’t have a window, so it stays dark. It has a creepy presence at night and a huge shadow during the day. Its square vents make a faint hum that is often drowned out by the noise of the city.
New Yorkers have thought of 33 Thomas Street, also known as the “Long Lines Building,” as one of the city’s strangest and most famous skyscrapers for many years. The mysterious building’s real purpose, on the other hand, has largely been kept secret.
What’s Really Going On at 33 Thomas Street
33 Thomas Street hides a bigger secret behind its mysterious exterior. It looks like this building is more than just a place for communication. There is evidence that 33 Thomas Street was used as an NSA spy base, code-named Titanpointe, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, architectural plans, and interviews with former AT&T employees.
It’s more than just a guess that the NSA is involved. Inside the building, there is a large international gateway switch that lets calls go from the U.S. to any country in the world. It is thought that the NSA listened in on these calls from a secure area inside the AT&T building. This program of secret surveillance has gone after many countries, including U.S. allies, as well as international groups like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
The NSA and AT&T have worked together on surveillance, but not much is known about how facilities like 33 Thomas Street are used for top-secret programs. But the Snowden documents give us information about how NSA equipment has been connected to AT&T’s network in New York City that has never been seen before. This integration shows the ways and tech that the agency uses to get communications data from the company’s systems.
The fact that the NSA is in this famous skyscraper makes us think about how far we can go with surveillance in the modern world. The co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, Elizabeth Goitein, says, “This is yet more proof that our communications service providers have become, whether willingly or unwillingly, an arm of the surveillance state.” The NSA is deeply incorporated into the communications infrastructure of the United States. This challenges the idea that this kind of surveillance can be limited to targets outside of the United States.
AT&T, Your Privacy, and Legal Watch
The close relationship between AT&T and the NSA is well known. Even though AT&T has worked with the government for a long time, it’s not clear if the NSA was using AT&T’s space or equipment at 33 Thomas Street. This lack of clarity makes people wonder how much the government is watching what’s going on inside the building.2
In August 2015, the New York Times and ProPublica said that AT&T had worked with the NSA for decades and had been praised by the agency for its “extreme willingness to help.” There is no proof that the NSA was using AT&T space or equipment, though, in either the materials leaked by Mr. Snowden or the new reports. AT&T Inc. owns the land at 33 Thomas, but Verizon owns the rest of the floor space, leaving AT&T Inc. with only 87 percent.
There are big legal and moral questions about the NSA’s role in spying inside 33 Thomas Street. The building could become a symbol of both the fine line between privacy and security in today’s interconnected world and the difficulties of keeping an eye on things when technology is so advanced and the government is watching everything.
Finally, 33 Thomas Street is still a famous and mysterious skyscraper in New York City. Its concrete walls hold both the history of communications and the mysteries of modern surveillance. The full extent of its role in spying for the government may never be known, but it shows how difficult it is to balance privacy and safety in today’s connected world.