AT&T owns the largest collection of nuclear hardened facilities in the world. This building is just the shiny object that distracts people from all the other mundane locations.

Walked by it everyday and not once have I been rewarded by an abduction. Total disappointment.

*Ah yes the Federal Bureau of Control* 👀

"We are the best kept secret in the galaxy. We monitor, licence and police all alien activity on the Earth. We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret, we exist in shadow."

I used to do consulting work for Pacific Bell in California in the 1990s and got a number of back-room tours of facilities. Rooms requiring NSA clearance were pointed out.

Little secret: every city in the USA has 'one of those' buildings. In Seattle, it was a Bell systems telephone switching center. Abstract art bits on the outside of the building, to distract from not having windows. I worked there for about two years installing cables, tearing out some old equipment. I never could find the cloning vats...

My father used to work for Bell Telephones. As a kid I remember going into the AT&T long lines building in downtown chicago on Clark Street. One of the rooms I saw was meant to be a command room in case of WWIII. There was a wall of large paper maps. Although I couldn't find my house on the map I did find my school and stuck a thumb tack the location denoting my school. My dad said 15 years later, the tack was still there. I suppose it's good they never had to use that room.

That was great Simon. Not only the content but also where the "film" stops and then backs up and then starts again, both the video and the audio. Fun!

I'm convinced that Simon has the same size building (and similar equipment) to produce and make all the videos and run all his channels. 🤣😂

Data centers just don't naturally have windows. When they buy out old buildings they just put walls up behind the windows too. I've been to plenty that you wouldn't look twice at but so much traffic goes through it

I have worked in data centres, some converted from old telecoms facilities. They were not especially secure ones though, just normal ones. I would have fingerprint, eye scanning, photo ID, "airlocks", and my access card would still only give me access to places I needed. The pipe workers would not get much more access than they did even if the building was just a plain old telecommunications building.

I've seen that building In person one time by accident. I was in the subway system when I had to get out at a different stop than I planned. I walked around a minute to get a bearing. I pulled my phone out to check how far off I was from where I was going. I had a feeling I was standing next to something weird. I'm in lower Manhattan and there weren't any ground level windows next to me. I look at the building 8 feet to my right and just followed a windowless wall straight up into the sky. I just froze looking up. It was creepy...

0:45 - Batman must hang out here at times 😅

There is an AT&T hub in Nashville, TN. A disturbed individual blew himself and part of the building up with a truck bomb on Christmas morning in 2020. Knocked out our phone and internet service for days. That might actually be a good story for your team. Kind of creepy, with the music and the countdown before the explosion.

Oh wow did you see the picture at exactly 12:47 of what looks like rows and rows of barrels? Those are all batteries!! I was in the business cell phone construction side and I worked at a mountain top facility and it also had rows and rows of batteries exactly like these in fact they were AT&T. All I'm getting at is they are so old and massive. I wonder how they will be safely disposed of? They weigh 100's of pounds each.

That last photo of the building reminds me of Steely Dan's album The Royal Scam.

I live in New York City, born and raised. I never knew about this building until now. This reminds me of the building that the Nazis used in The Man in the High Castle series.

Interesting. I worked for AT&T for 28 years, most of that time was spent in buildings like these. They’re everywhere in cities over 100,000 people, and the bigger the city the taller these buildings were. It was a fun job, but much more mundane than alleged here.

It really makes me wonder how much of it is still occupied. I have seen exchanges that are mostly empty now, the only reason they still exist in the property they are in is because they have access to the cables. They keep downsizing as tech gets better and better. Most could be knocked down and replaced with something the size of a small garden shed. They probably use it as a data centre, with a few upgrades it should be ideal.

Ok, so the bit about trade workers being denied access to certain rooms or information about what's inside *could* indicate covert espionage activity. But as the operator of a massive data network, you'd be kinda protective of it to extent of assuming anyone not thoroughly vetted to be a potential bad actor, and not only deny physical access to critical elements but also not leak any information on what those elements are or do, lest that information guide a subsequent attempt at infiltration. Should come as no surprise that a facility like that is being used for espionage, but it still needs to be aggressively defended against threats to its benign purpose.

I love the NSA T-Shirt 'In God We Trust, All Others We Monitor'.

I've been inside ATT switch gear buildings. All I ever saw was Buildings full of Batteries and Switch Gear. Never saw a single person. Not even an office for anyone.

The mechanism for directing calls is called THE FRAME . My Father worked at 33 Thomas and my Grand mother at PENN PLAZA for AT&Ts predecessor LONGLINES .

Never thought I’d hear Simon make a video about The Oldest House.

There's a few of these buildings around. Another in NYC, is 60 Hudson Street. In London, Telehouse West on Coriander Avenue.

When this building was constructed almost all telephones in use were connected by copper wires. Calls were routed through massive electro-mechanical switches. That's why the ceilings are so high and the building requires so much ventilation. That old equipment took up a lot of space and generated a lot of heat. Soon after this structure was completed the mechanical switches were replaced with fully electronic equipment that took up much less space. Today most phones are cellular but that doesn't mean there are no 'wires'. When someone makes a cellular call..text, whatever...the signal is transmitted to a nearby cell-site. The cell-site is connected to switching equipment via fiber optic cables. The calls still need to be processed and routed but now instead of tens of thousands of 'twisted pairs' running into a switching facility there are only a few fiber optic cables that flow massive amounts of data to machines that take up a fraction of the space that was needed for the old mechanical gear. I'm sure that building still houses tel-com equipment, but it probably only takes up a small part of the build. The the question begs: What's the rest of the space being used for?

We have pretty much the SAME EXACT building in Massachusetts and its a AT&T building in Worcester looks exactly like that. Plus they will not let you in there NO MATTER what. They have the intercom and it takes seriously 10to 15 minutes for anyone to get to the door and when they open it you cant see anything inside the building from the door. I honestly thought that was the building Im talking about the second I seen it on this video. I sis Electrical work and they made me have a back round check to be able to get in to the building back in the 90s. It has its own self-sufficient living facilities and engines to run everything inside it. The things crazy and idk if its still owned by At&T or not anymore but its just exactly like this one. They said similar things about the nukeclear bomb stuff about it as well. This thing can take a hit and still be there basically. The building has 33 floors in the tall building. The thing is 617 feet tall and I'm telling you not much difference n the looks. They said similar things about the one in Worcester that he said in thie video about spying stuff. But seriously no Lie look it up 421 Grove st Worcester,MA I'm sure there's some way like google earth or someway to be able to see it.

We have a windowless building in Anniston, AL and it is a AT&T building. it is connected to an older AT&T building but the public can't access the building. It located at 1316 Noble Street and the windowless building can be seen at 26 E 14th Street, Anniston, AL. There is also abandoned ATM machine building located at 1205 Leighton Ave, Anniston, AL. The property is supposedly owned by the nearby Baptist church but no one uses it and its covered partially by a parking lot. A little strange; don't you think.

nevermind 33 Thomas Street. I want to know what that Jenga-looking building to the left is at 3:39 !

I did installation work in this building in October 2000. It was then, as it is now, a telco switching center and a data center. :)

Control. Oviously The Oldest House.

OH MY! The Federal Bureau of Control is real!

Why would a pipefitter be allowed to go into any room they weren't working in anyways?

holy hell!! you did a video on my favorite skyscraper!!

It may be difficult to believe, but once upon a time connecting a phone call required actual machines designed to physically connect wires together, and the volume of calls from one heavily populated area to another required really large buildings to house all of that automated machinery. Over time, the size of the connecting machinery shrank until you reach the modern router which is about the size of a ham sandwich and does about 95% of the connecting work all by itself.

During September 11th 2001 when I worked there Simon you’re mostly right. Some of us called it the bunker or the cage. 3 inches of rebar at the base is what I was told the building was anchored to. I was on the 24th floor for over 2 years. There’s at least 4 ways to enter without being seen. Your videos are amazingly accurate.

It's been known for years that the Russian embassy's residence in Riverdale New York City is a listening post for their foreign intelligence service. The building was built one floor at a time and raised into position. It's called suspended street floor construction.

Ya ! I always wondered what that building was.

This was the inspiration for "The Oldest House" in the videogame Control. 👍🏻👍🏻

There were similar, smaller AT&T facilities across the US, also with off-limits areas. AT&Ts partners had a lot of presence. Things have changed. The increasing capacity of fiber optic lines and improvements in computing power has allowed both AT&T and their unnamed partners to relocate much of the actual work to central headquarters instead of using these old faclities directly. That is, they still gather sigint but the work is now done back at home base and these high security buildings are a lot emptier than they once were. AT&T has totally decommissioned some of their facilities like this and left them as empty rooms or with racks of derelict call switching gear, long ago turned off. It's all done remotely now.

Shhhh! Elvis stays here!

Thank you for the positive intro of my city, not perfect but definitely unique

I've worked in a lot of modern datacenters, with the technology today a "listening post" would look pretty much exactly like all the other equipment. You could have a cage with a few racks of gear sucking data for the NSA under some no-name shell company logo and you'd never notice or even blink an eye.

This is where the Harkonnens stay when they visit NYC.

We have a similar at&t building in Sacramento too, always so spooky

I work across the street from this building. It's fun watching all the tourists staring at it.

Been there several times doing telecom surveys for AT&T. Just a couple blocks north from the WTC memorial.

Nice job on the MGS exclamation sound effect.. metal gear for the win

The HAI video is good too

Hey simon, putting this here because I assume new videos are more closely monitored - Atoms For Peace project video! All the mad stuff that was considered and anything that ever went beyond the drawing board

Telephone House owned by British Telecom on May Street in Belfast is similar. All major communications went through it, it housed British soldiers to protect it and has a bunker incase of a serious conflict. There was a small fire in a server room a few years ago that caused mayhem throughout N Ireland.

isn’t this the building where Control takes place?

We have a similar att building in Binghamton NY(concrete no windows). I think that one was actually for processing phone calls.

I remember the telephone exchange building in the village near to us in the 70’s……housing the switchgear for old rotary dial phones.

you have to wonder how much of that building is empty. This was built in the days of analog switches were racks of relay-type mechanical switches. Now everything is digital. I would imagine a lot of those analog switches replaced with racks of internet routers instead. Still, the tech has gotten a lot smaller. Who knows, maybe it still has entire floors filled with decommissioned switches?

Watching my neighbors through their bedroom window is “illegal”…but the gov can look at/listen to anything I do or say and it’s just “for my protection”.

I worked in the area soon after this monolith was built. A strange and menacing monolith rising above lower Manhattan.

We’ve lived under absolute tyranny since 2001.

We have one of these in Chicago also, right on Ida B Wells Blvd, aka Congress Parkway……the main East-West artery of downtown.

Social media is a two way mirror w everyone should know this.

I live just a few blocks from AT&T's windowless building in New Orleans, makes me wonder how many of these data centers there are around the country and everything that goes on inside them. I never see anyone go inside, there's one column of windows along one side, 2 doors, and some vents, that's it.

Interesting... Norfolk Va has a similar building

The AT&T building in San Francisco with the NSA gear is at the corner of 2nd and Folsom. With so many international fibers it's probably not as useful as it used to be.

SBC /AT&T building downtown Fort Worth has that barren look.

It’s watching you Simon. And the drives are filling up quick.

The steam workers not being able to go into certain areas is completely normal for a central office.

I have a suggestion for a video (which you've probably already done). How about a video on technological advancements of war, and how modern wars like Ukraine may influence the future.

The news media was discussing this building and its use by intelligence agencies as long ago as the 1980's. Seriously; I can remember reading about this place that long ago.

I mean, todays digital phone switching and routing equipment takes at most about 10% of the physical space that was need for the electromechanical switching equipment used in the 70s. Unless AT&T has left 26/27 of the 29 floors completely empty, something doesn't add up here 😄

hadabuddy comment. i had a buddy who told me about this place. he had to go in there in the late 80s early 90s when the internet went ballistic. he said getting into the place when the sun was up was no problem. after the sun went down in that part of town, it didn't matter how secure it was inside, the taxi driver would be his lookout and give him the "coast is clear" to run from the taxi to the entrance without getting robbed/mugged.

You should do a video on the “five eyes”.

It's still there. Watching. Listening. Paying attention to.. YOU

Petition for “complete history of fighter/military aircraft” vid 👇

The AT&T building in Downtown South Bend IN looks very similar.

Try times square during a Super Bowl..🤯 Only thing close I've experienced was Mardi Gras in New Orleans following Katrina. Freaking epic on both accounts.

My mom worked in the American Embassy in Moscow. The Russians had built it and there were so many listening devices the US just built rooms within the rooms. But the running joke was the "Church" across the street. A church that everybody called Our Lady of Divine Reception. Yep - it was a listening post.

There is two more in midtown they stare at me through my window. They are on 10th ave and 53 and 54st

The fact that no one from the public ever enters the building and security with guns should tell you all you need to know

I lived for 16 years only a few blocks away, and it was always uneasy when I was standing around outside of there, walking my dog, sitting down to eat or whatever. I was absolutely certain there was a snipers’ rifle pointed at me.

My mother retired from that building.. Built to withstand a nuclear war hit as all the phone data processing is in it..

A nice hideout for a zombie apocalypse I see, A well fortified and supplied building, only thing is humans are more treacherous than the undead, at least you know a zombies sole intention.

There is another windowless building on the UWS for a phone company, too.

It is the Ministry of Truth from 1984 (George Orwell).

Can you do the other building, the Verizon 375 Pearl street building?

I’ve walked by so many times and never noticed it.

As it happened I walked past that building just last Wednesday. I thought it was something to do with utilities.

In the context of the current global situation of east vs west, this is err... interesting.

Nashville has one. A crazy guy tried to blow it up on christmas morning in 2020

Every big city had a building like that one. In the business they're called "The Switch". They connect and route landline phone calls. Remember the old dial-tone? Made there.

You'd think they could just hang a bunch of fake windows...

I lived nearby for quite some time and heard some call the building the tower of doom and that is what I called it. I learned it was a telephone switching building along the way.

My dad worked there for many years. He never thought anything weird was going on.

There's an AT&T marked bullding near where I work. It must also be a data center, since only two faces have any windows, and they look rather small.

An Army base on the Southern border records every bit of information between the US and South America. I saw this back in the early 90s.

I remember looking at this building from the top of the old WTC Twin Towers back in 1999 and thought it might be a prison or something, now I know differently!!!

I hope this park will be fine in the long run.

33... that's all I need to know.

Fascinating but relatively mundane. Hmm..

It's a CO. They're all over the country. AT&T has several in plain site that many folks don't notice.

That's Wayne tower, duh.