33 Thomas Street is literally where everything telecommunications for North America & Europe lives. My mother worked for AT&T and she basically told me that, if something ever happened to that building, almost all forms of communication from Los Angeles to Paris would be down. We would be back to using a town crier or other kinds of primitive means of communication if something happened to that building. That's why that building is so secure.
Cash, you're a brave man.....outing these secret buildings that if destroyed would bring civilization to it's knees. Hopefully, your name won't be put on a list, a secret list where only the keeper of that aforementioned list knows your real name, assuming it is not Cash Jordan (I assume it is real because you're a man of integrity and wouldn't trick your followers that way.) Am I using my real name? Not on your life, boy. May your mouth be washed out with a soap called Lifebuoy or Palmolive!! This message will self destruct in five seconds. Everything will be disavowed. Yo.
My dad works at that AT&T building. He's been with AT&T for over 30 years now, and he is under an NDA and won't really say what he does there, only that it's very important to New York and that the quality of life in NY would decrease if the building wasn't there. He also said it's not really that serious and that if the building just looked normal then no one would even care.
In my town, the old post office building has been turned into a colocation for the ISPs. Its unmarked, looks like an old abandoned building. But at night, you can see lights from network switches blinking in series. Hidden in plain sight they are, but very essential to our communications.
A Building with massive Vents and no Windows usually suggests cooling. So realistically, that Building on 33 Thomas Street is simply used for Servers. Especially considering it belongs to AT&T. Also makes sense that if you put massive amounts of Servers somewhere to put it in a place that's extremely hard to compromise. Hence why "Cyberbunker" in Germany was a pretty smart idea.
Good guess. It turns out that telecom switching is now done using specialized computer systems of very high size and capacity (to the naked eye these will look just like massive servers) with specially designed software to execute insane levels of connection switching, billing handling, capacity management and similar functions. There are many other similar buildings in various nodes on the "backbone" of the internet. These places are also typically called "Long Lines". Another feature of a place like this is that it will have the ULTIMATE BACK UP systems for power. Typically this will be very large diesel generators providing power, and routinely tested to know that they work.
I worked for a company (no name) and we worked with AT&T at different locations. It's servers and cooling systems. I worked in many buildings like this. What goes on inside keeps the world going. That's all I'll say.
These "fake" buildings are actually more common than you think worldwide. In London and Paris, there are a lot of them exist to be used as ventilation inlets and outlets for the Underground (London) and Paris Metro/RER (Paris).
Funny cause Ripley's Believe it or Not featured one in England back in the 80s. The first one reminfed me of it but it was small and when you look in the window you can see trains go by.
The first fake building is located at 58 Jaman Street. It was originally constructed in 1847 as a private residence. In 1907, it was purchased by the INB Rapid Transit company to vent air from the subway underneath it. The building was completely hollowed out and now serves as an emergency exit for the subways. The second fake building is located on Roosevelt Island. It was built in 1892 as a laboratory for City Hospital. It was abandoned in the 1950s and is now a power conversion substation for the subway trains. The third fake building is located in the middle of the Hudson River. It was built in 1927 to vent air from the Holland Tunnel. The fourth fake building is located at Mulry Square. It was built in 2019 to vent air from the subway underneath it. The fifth fake building is located at 33 Thomas Street. It was built in 1974 and is owned by AT&T. It is rumored to be a National Security Agency mass surveillance hub.
The big ominous building in New York is a server building owned by AT&t. How did nobody guess this? Servers don't need Windows. Servers also don't need a lot of people to operate them. But being such a robust structure the city probably required that it be an emergency facility in case of disaster.
I use to build data centers and the security associated with them. It can't be a very large center, the cooling and backup generators would be visible. Yes you can put them on the roof but the requirements take space. In addition you can't use on as a shelter since the data centers are secure space (homeland security requirements for critical infrastructure) these buildings fail secure (fire alarm etc you can leave but no one enters). Also the major transatlantic data comes in and leaves southern VA now..its why it's a hot spot for building major data centers now.
There was a show many years ago (about 20 years ago) called "Secrets of New York.” One of their episodes, I remember, was about the subway system. Reportedly, there’s tons of water underneath our city, and if it weren’t because of massive water pumps, our subways would be flooded. I think some of these secret buildings may be for the purpose of having these machines running and for air vent purposes. Awesome video!!
That was one of my guesses, if only for the rainwater & everyday water that would find itself down there. I imagine ventilating & pumping the air & water for an entire underground city would take a lot of buildings! Now, that last building? I have no idea, but you can bet there’s some sketchy shit going on in that one🤣
I find the idea that new york is this city built on top these old ruins made of concrete and pipes that most residents don't even know about anymore mildly entertaining. You guys should make an adventurer's guild there and have people explore underground.
There is this book - of course I forget the name - about how fast nature would “return” to its prehuman form. I think it said the subway would take 36 hours to flood without any human intervention, which makes sense if only considering the city is at or below sea level.
The ATT building is a pretty common design for hubs built by phone companies back when it was constructed. We have smaller version in the city I grew up in. It's around 6 stories tall no windows, only vents around the top, and was built in the same time frame. These are the major switch hubs for the wired phone system, miles of wire, rows and rows of relay switching boxes, offices, and where phone operators and maintenance crews worked out of. They were built solid to mitigate communications disruptions, needed to have strict climate control & ventilation for all the electronics, hence no windows, and tight security. Plus they were built during the cold war era, wired phones were the main form of communication at the time, including secure governmental lines, so another reason security was a factor in the design. Ours had security guards wandering around 24/7 back in the 60's & 70's. Gotta remember too, this was all before the digital age, there were no computers or micro-controllers, rotary phones were in use back then, and it was all electronic relays that connected every phone in the country to each other through hubs like these. I imagine NYC's is so big because, well, millions of people vs a city of 40,000 where ours is. Ours is no longer ATT, last time I was in the area it was branded Frontier internet & phone services, and still controls all the wired landline phones and DSL internet. All the rows and rows of relay boxes were replaced by racks of servers, and the vents now have windows installed.
The basement probably once contained battery rooms to provide fast emergency power to make sure that telecommunications were independent of the power grid.
Yep. Probably every city has something like this NYC AT&T building. NYC has a big one just because of the amount of communication that's goes on in NYC. There's one in San Francisco that has a small room that the CIA or the NSA has equipment installed. They're monitoring internet traffic. AT&T employees aren't allowed in that room. At least that's how it was back 25 years or so.
Yes I am a Central Office Technician in western ny and these buildings were built to withstand a lot. One of my offices even has a fallout area. They used to have cross bar switches in them which took up a lot of room very heavy and noisy.
Solid security, high ceilings (for air flow, and raised flooring for computer rooms), heavy load capability (again for computer racks)... this is simply a very large and secure datacenter, which is essentially the same thing as a Telco Central Office.
Ha, I haven’t heard heard that saying “had me in stitches” for a long time! I even forget the origins of the phrase? To be sewn up in stitches after laughing so hard??
The first thing I noticed about that first building is that they aren't actually trying to disguise it. $40 worth of white paint would actually make it fit in with its neighbors. Like, they aren't actually trying to make it look like an actual house. It looks more like a facade for a medium security document storage facility, but if it actually had important stuff in it, they would have spent that 40 bucks and taken two or three other measures like weathering, fake curtains, etc.
If it's just housing a subway vent and exit, there's no reason to go through the trouble of disguising it. Your motivation is simply aesthetic - making it look ok and a fit for the neighborhood is good enough. Now if it was a safehouse or a spy center then for security it is worth the extra expense of making it look as unobtrusive as possible.
A spy safehouse would just be a totally normal house, because spies are inconspicuous. The facade was built so the subway vent wouldn't devalue the properties around it. @@Qermaq
The vent for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel all the way downtown was used for the Men in Black HQ entrance. Roosevelt Island used to be called Blackwells island, and housed a hospital for patients needing to be quarantined, a prison and an asylum. The journalist Nellie Bly faked being insane to get checked into the asylum and exposed horrific treatment and conditions, which got the place shut down (it was akin to what Geraldo Rivera found at Willowbrook in Staten Island.)
The insane asylum (The Octagon) which was at the north end by Coler Hospital at the far north end is now the entrance for an apartment building. The exterior once a ruin is now fully restored. The original plan for the apt building was in a Victorian/Edwardian style with gables but the locals killed it. What's now there is a basic modern concrete block, but what was left of the Octagon building was saved.
This is the kind of UA-cam video worth watching. I wish they had a section for great videos that they could put stuff like this in and charge extra for and give the profits to the creators. That way you would not have to sift through the junk and clickbait.
Same here. Never lived in New York, have no plans to move there, much less plans to move to New York City with the crazy real estate prices. But he always presents things in such an entertaining way. Plus the editing is fantastic -- like a professional television show
Years ago I worked for an energy company and I had to go check a place which I presumed to be a building, it had an address but I couldn't find it on a map and I had to ask some other employees what was going on. Turned out it was a space under railway tracks and to get there I had to open a heavy duty steel gate and a steel door in a pedestrian underpass. Inside that quite a large place were huge number of computers in racks, I guess they were monitoring trains etc. It was kinda creepy place.
That fake building is in Brooklyn Heights. I use to live up the block. Comedian Bill Cosby use to live around the corner. There's a bunch of fake buildings in NYC.
I've worked at the dying pier 8 -9 for years.. years before the park was started and well after it was done. This building actually is an access point for FDNY, Con Ed, the EPA and other utilities. And it's no "secret". They be out there posted up with cones and big red utility vehicles sometimes within a year. You will see them working, coming in and out of the building. The real locals within that area knows of it's existence. Even myself, passing by to my once container job, when i didn't want to drive the 15 minutes to and from work, only to struggle for parking once arriving home. My doctor's office is still in that area as we speak.
You really know how to romanticize New York. Always hated the idea of the city but you make it seem super interesting and the history is amazing. Im a super history nerd and never realized the history of New York is so great
The history of NYC goes wayyyyyy back. It’s been around since the 1700s so there’s plenty of history! You should look it up- there’s a lot of documentaries about the history of NYC and it’s all really fascinating!
Right! The NYC area had a lot of action during the Revolutionary War! There were forts all over the place, on up to the Hudson River to West Point. As a kid in the ‘60’s I loved riding over the Throggs Neck Bridge, it seemed to be the highest one in the world. Underneath the Bronx side is a fort called Fort Skyler. There was another fort across the way and I learned that there were huge chains from fort to fort in the water. They would be pulled tight and would block British ships from coming through. A lot of history right there in NYC!
How can you be a history fan.. and not have run into any of new yorks history? Like you can barely go back into American history without talking abt New York
I love how you have this whole list of "fake buildings" and then proceed to explain how each one is a completely real building with real stuff happening inside.
Well if it’s owned by AT&T and AT&T trucks parked around it then isn’t it obvious? It’s probably where they have routers, signals and whatever else they use to make the internet and tv work. Theres a place here in my area in Atlanta that looks exactly like it only it’s just one story and it’s also owned by AT&T.
Yep. From Wikipedia: "it is a telephone exchange or wire center building which contained three major 4ESS switches used for interexchange (long distance) telephony, as well as a number of other switches used for competitive local exchange carrier services."
We have one in Boston in Government center that is tall and also crazy looking owned by the telephone company at least when I was a kid .It is AT&T now . Government center in Boston has some serious crazy looking buildings anyways so it kinda blends but it is giant bunker looking because of the lack of normal windows . Now I want to check to see if it has the unusual cars ?????
The AT&T building at 33 Tomas Street is a telecom switching hub (node switches) for the tri-state area and the northeast. I used to work in the building
It’s not the NSA, that’s bullshit. It a massive windowless switch building like numerous others in the US. AT&T has ridiculous numbers of copper telephone wires throughout Manhattan. This building is the hub.
Incredible! I absolutely love old buildings structures and hearing the stories about them! When my old man takes me up on Garrett Mountain in Paterson to our landlords place on a clear day you an see that bridge to Manhattan on a good day!
33 Thomas Street is definitely some data center of sorts, I'd imagine. There are main hubs for internet backbones that have to live somewhere. Seems pretty reasonable to convert a beefed up building that was originally a telephone exchange into a highly secure data center. I wouldn't have any doubts of it also being used for government shenanigans as well.
Not understanding the whole "Fake Building" thing. If a building was built, it's a real building! If that building was used for a different purpose in the past than it is today, or abandoned doesn't mean it's a fake building. It only means that building had a purpose, or has a new purpose. With that said, a real building isn't based on it's purpose! A real building is what's physically there, and what's physically there is the building materials that make it a real building😳
while i get what you mean, i think you're taking things a bit too literally. he means 'fake buildings' as in buildings with no interior, no reason to enter them, and therefore register as fake.
I don't think you're taking things too literal as suggested. That first building is literally a real building and people lived there for decades; now it has another use. If my house was bought and the new owners removed all the interior and locked the doors from the outside would it suddenly be a fake building? No. 🤣
I've noticed a lot of fake buildings as I've traveled. I figured they were electric or telecommunications substations, held some type of pumps or are even server farms. I thought they made them blend in so it didn't look ugly in the area and also for security. I know one that's a server farm but all the employees work remotely, only coming in if there is an emergency. It's located in the middle of a busy downtown area with lots of clubs and bars. They only have like 10 parking spaces and they are very clearly marked "no parking ever - you will be towed at your expense. Please do not park here, even for" just a minute " As you can imagine, people park there. There are several security cameras and you can see them pull in, park, walk to wall with the no parking signs and the name and contact number of the tow company who will tow their car. They stare at the signs, look at each other, discuss, then teeter off in their stilettos. Within 10 minutes, the car is towed. When they come teetering back 4 hours later and are outraged and confused about their car, calling the police only to be told it's been towed.
I've been saying that for a minute. He could either be the permanent host of Saturday Night Live or a reporter on Sixty Minutes if not mayor of the greatest city on Earth. Maybe all three at the same time. While still showing us sink sprayers in shoebox apartments. No joke!
The “clear blue Hudson” made me laugh. That entire river is full of PCB from the Federal Dam in Troy, all the way to New York Bay. You can’t even eat fish out of the river, sadly. PS- great, informative video. Subscribed.
Down the road from me, which I live next to a watershed, is a abandoned small building. I was told it’s a well/pumping station and it’s pipes are underground, go down my road, to pump water into a stream that then fills a reservoir (lake) that supplies water to a nearby town. It’s used when there is drought, the watershed and stream dries up. Otherwise, it looks like an ordinary abandoned small barn.
@0:02, there is a similar grand looking fake facade building at 23-24 Leinster Gardens in London (UK) which serves as a vent for the Metropolitan tube line. The Strecker building is beautiful. Glad that it is being reused rather than falling into dereliction.
When I goggle mapped it, (the 'fake house') and did the overhead satellite image, it said "IRT SUBWAY VENT" ! Wha?????? Now I can't wait to finish watching your video, thank you! SO interesting!
@@653j521Missing the point entirely. People want quality but not willing to pay the cost for it. That’s also not counting developers who cut corners and pocket the excess. Because developers can never be corrupt or greedy right? /s
That big, ugly, tall building may be AT&T's POP (which stands for Point of Presence) in NYC. The switches (now-a-days they're computers) that handle all the telephone traffic on the upper East Coast and transAtlantic may be housed in that building. Think about the call volume at any given moment in the northeastern US, along with call volume from the US and Europe, and you're looking at millions of calls at any given second. May also do some processing of cellular traffic as well. (Worked in telecommunications for 29 years)
That explains the ventilation, they probably have need to cool down the thousands of super-computers processing all of the regions internet and telephone traffic. Insane.
@@karlwithak. I never said storage of data... transitive data processing and routing is probably what goes on. You realize there is quite a bit of computation that needs to be happen for every single HTTP request? DNS lookup for example.
Every city has one of these windowlessCenter Office or Network Operation Centers managed by the phone company. Yes, it once needed to handle miles of copper cables converging and analogue switching. You'll also commonly see electric substations camouflaged as buildings.
It's depressing to know that we built so many great things at a time without computers, we invested in jobs and infrastructure, while today with massive wealth generated over the past 70 years of prosperity since ww2, cash is staying idle not going into new investments that can create so much positive change for the world. Talk about the rich hoarding money...
One thing the rich never do is hoard their money lol. You dont typically hit those levels of wealth without investing or having your own company. Dont forget, the rich, chances are great, sign your paycheck
Yea the erroneous repetitive use of the word “fake” is starting to erk me because they are clearly actual buildings and not just a wall meant to appear as a building but has no inside
I had no idea New York has all these fake buildings, the last one might be a data farm, you have to have ventilation for those gigantic computers. Thanks Cash
I think all major cities have real buildings that have been converted to other uses. I know here in St Louis we do. One not far from me is a power substation inside an old building.
damham5689, It's something I never thought about, nor has anyone ever pointed it out. So St. Louis too, I live in San Francisco, so now I've got to see what's up here. Thanks
@@NiaLaLa_V Only nitwits do that. Rule of thumb, ever since the AOL days and before (like 1989) you use "handles" or pseudonyms on the internet. You NEVER give out your real information. Never. That's why I have no idea that ever since Snowden so many people are ok with Smart Phones.
The AT&T massive building built during the Cold War Era can only suggest one conclusion - providing as secure communications center as possible, just in case. And I also have it quite easy to imagine that wired connection might still be of more value than cell phones in a big time emergency. And in fact, how are the cell tower transmitters getting their signals in the first place? Or where and how do they forward your cell phone calls? I think wired connections to some central switching facilities are to be expected even in the cell phone era.
People in Nashville found out fast how useless cell phones were when that RV bomber took out the AT&T hub. All their little idiotphones were destroyed but landline phones still worked.
Mind you, I'm not sure if that AT&T building would survive a Russian nuclear attack, though. The Russians still have missiles armed with a _25 megaton_ nuclear warhead specifically to attack underground bunkers and to take out large metropolitan areas, and the blast effects of a 25 MT warhead is probably strong enough to topple even this building.
@@Sacto1654 I don't know why you're even talking about that like it's relevant. If Russia did that then we would would press the big red button and life as we know it on this planet will be wiped out. I don't think it's relevant if this building would survive an end of the world attack.
Little known fact. Speaking of fake buildings, in the 1980's NYC's Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) decided to make some of the burned-out building shells in the south Bronx look a bit less awful by covering broken windows with a large plastic sticker portraying an intact window, a window shade, and a small flower pot with a few blooms. This was just a pilot/experimental program, with a $50,000 budget. The media and city planners almost universally praised the program and said it was 50G well spent. So the city expanded the program with a $500,000 budget. Then the same critics who said it was 50G well spent, turned around and called it an outrageous waste of a half million dollars. Go figure.
Many years ago, one was over the cross Bronx express way at Arthur Ave . From far you could see the flowers, curtains and so on. con Ed has one on the Bruckner express way in the 140s it looks like townhouse building.
Wowee Cash, your real estate and city videos have been really entertaining for the last couple years 🎉now with your excellent reporting I’m gaining real in-depth knowledge! Really appreciate all your hard work as a business and family man🤓
Cash, I don't know if you covered it yet, but the Irish Famine Memorial Park (?) is quite interesting. It looks like a city park located inside a giant concrete bowl.
I am a Canadian, this is one of the most unique videos that I have ever watched. Very informative about all these fake buildings in NYC. Thank you Cash for sharing your knowledge
Toronto has some buildings like this to hide electric generators? A quick Google search will give you some interesting looking houses made to look like houses built in the area
Because we’re not the ones that built them, these buildings were already here, New York City was already here before it became a City, the buildings were founded not built. They found them
33 Thomas St looks to me like a huge data center. I worked at one for ExxonMobil which was very small in comparison but I could understand the function of this building if that is what it is.
Interesting application of urban design. Interesting how most of them are ventilation units for the tunnels. That's something most folks don't think about until they have to.
That first building kinda elevates the aesthetic of the block because it's so neatly painted and provides some contrast. Also the history of Roosevelt Island itself is pretty interesting.
Cash-Your selection of content is absolutely fabulous! You present material that everyone is interested in. That was a great idea. A++ Keep going!☮️👏👏👏👏
I used to work in a building like 33 Thomas Street, but in a British city. The building facade was a British Telecom HQ and switching station, the basement and lower floors held offices and garage space and workshops for regular BT engineers so the regular coming and going of engineers would look normal. Through a heavily fortified security side gate (covered by CCTV) was a door. A key fob opened the door and revealed a single room, a small, square windowless lobby. In the lobby was one lift (elevator). A fob would open this lift, and take you to the top of the tower, only one floor was on the button panel. Exiting the lift at the top of the tower was another lobby, with a security guard and a set of double doors. At this point if you showed the guard your tucked away Ministry of Defence ID you could enter the floor proper, where various routing equipment, recording equipment, satellite equipment etc was in use by MOD staff. The big giveaway were the aerials and dishes on the top of the tower, but to the casual passer by it was an old office block and telephone exchange.
As a native New Yorker this video was quite enlightening, interesting, educational and also hilarious (some of your introductions were too funny). Thanks for this video. 👍🏻
The AT&T building could also house servers. When I used to live on Ave U near the N in BX. I lived across the street from a building that version owns. No windows, and was told its lower server hub for the company, hosting phone, cable, and internet.
This is one of the reasons I love NY. Story after story, mystery after mystery. It's not for everyone, a lot of people like it quiet and pared down. But if you like a good tale of paranoia and intrigue and fake brownstones...
The Roosevelt Island lab is beautiful. Romanesque Revival. Originally between a smallpox hospital and a charity hospital. I would love a home in this style. Designed by New York architects Frederick Clarke Withers & Walter Dickson, the building was constructed in 1892 and was administered under the direction of Charity (later City) Hospital to conduct pathological and bacteriological work. The building was the gift of the daughter of a Mr. Strecker, and as Dr. Charles G. Child Jr. wrote in his history of City Hospital (1904) it was “an illustration of what lasting good an intelligent woman can do to perpetuate the memory of a dear one.” Pathological medicine made rapid advances during the 19th century, and laboratories such as this one reflect the increasingly scientific nature of its study and investigation. Roosevelt Island Historical Society
I grew up on Roosevelt Island, and there were whole bunches of abandoned buildings with weird stuff in them at the time. By now, the whole south end of the island is quite effectively blocked off, but in the 1970s and 1980s there was a pretty pathetic wall that was easy enough to get past by any child with a little resourcefulness. Since no adults usually went to that area of the island, it was an endless play area for the kids, on the grass among the old buildings. The problems came when one idiot teen accepted a dare to walk along the window ridge of one of those abandoned buildings. That building had once been part of the public hospital, and it had all kinds of scary stuff dumped inside, left over from its previous use. The kid slipped and fell, sliced himself up on ancient gurneys and other things made of rusty metal, and had to have an arm amputated (at least according to the children's gossip network at the time -- take with a grain of salt). And that gave the adults a way to know where we kids were spending our time when we went out to play. They rebuilt the wall blocking off the south end of the island, in a way that was no longer trivial for kids to get around. We kids were deeply annoyed at the ones who got caught and ruined our fun... the rest of us knew better than to go anywhere near the buildings, though. We played outside in between them, but the abandoned buildings themselves were not to be messed with. We knew perfectly well that they weren't safe, and most of us weren't stupid.
The entire south area of RI is now redeveloped.from the former site of Goldwater Hospital, now Cornell Tech, Southpoint Park which belongs to RI, and the Four Freedoms FDR park which is only closed off on Tuesdays. I think its partl NY Parks but it was redeveloped by the FDR Foundation and is basically Louis Kahn brutalist style including a giant FDR head. Venue for private events as well. The old Smallpox Hospital is cleaned up as a stabilized ruin and fenced off. Those of us with long memories remember the 400 foot Delacorte Fountain at the far south end of RI, but that is long gone. Used to see it from my office floor at one of my first jobs at 800 Third by 49-50th street. Reputedly the mist used to dirty up the windows on Sutton Place (hard by the East River Drive, ha ha), defoliated vegetation, and was a hazard to navigation, so the city had it disabled by sometime in the later part of the 1980s. But it was quite lovely at a distance!
@@donnafromnyc I remember that fountain! I was still a teenager when they took it out of commission, but I lived on the island since 1977 -- we were literally the first residents who ever held our first co-op apartment there. I was only about eight when we moved in, so I spent most of my childhood there. My first wedding was held in one of the community center buildings, because I felt strongly about getting married from Roosevelt Island as the place where I had grown up. Really, they've developed the whole south now? I haven't been back in years, not since my mother died and I sold her apartment. At that point, they'd developed everything between the original town and the tramway, with the subway station and another set of buildings there, but past the tram was still pretty much closed off. Do you know when they opened it up?
@@donnafromnycI would love to see what the old Smallpox hospital looks like now. It was so creepy when I saw it. If there was ever a place that looked haunted that was it.
Hello Cash!! Have you ever thought of doing a live chat so we can ask you questions about Real Estate and about yourself?! That would be awesome!!! Maybe interview some of your colleagues and get their opinions on what their favorite Apartments and their least favorite Apartments that they have ever toured?!? Love you!!! 😊
Another journalism masterpiece by Cash! The last building is most intriguing! Is it truly owned by AT&T, or the NSA? Is the AT&T just a ruse ? Has anyone ever done license plate checks on those AT&T vehicles and those darkly tinted window cars parked around the building ? Has any investigative journalist ever surveled the building? Seen who is going in and out of the building, or followed any of the cars leaving the building? Has anyone ever posed as a homeless person sitting out in front of it, to see how long it is and who tells them to move on? Would it be regular police or someone else? Does the city inspect it like any other building? Does it have a fire escape plan? Could it even have a fire? What about terrorist sabotage? Is it a bunker? Who is it a bunker?Is it actually vented some how? Does it have its own air filtration system? What is under it? Intriguing.
So it's a material building. It isn't empty. It's being used for a specific purpose. Where's the fake? It's a real building with a real ventilation shaft or servers or whatever. That's not fake.
I worked with a guy (VERY smart man) who used a slide rule in calculations all the time, back in the late '70s. I hope he's still alive-such a smart guy.
I work in a building that can hold 3000 lbs per sqft. It was because there were 2 or 4 wires for every household and they were on massive racks to make phones work. These buildings are now mostly data centers
Just think, a couple fake windows a few houseplants and no one would give a damn about the building. Instead, they hire Darth Vader's personal architect to make a hell-hole even more hell-holish.
I’ve never had the chance to visit New York City, I love that I can get a guided tour of the city from someone so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the city.
That "Townhouse" looks normal except for the windows. The laboratory building looks nice, I like the brick work. The 100yr old buildings for the tunnel stay maintained but not the New York sewer system- go figure.
I am an electrician and worked at the Roosevelt Island “biolab” back in like 2016. Worked for a contractor that was hired to do a lot of work there. I knew nothing of its history when I was there, so cool just seeing this randomly haha. Some of the best electricians I’ve met built the upgrades in that place. MTA wanted to get it done quickly. They had around the clock shifts guys working 10-12hr shifts 7 days a week (everyone there wanted to be there and the overtime money was ridiculous). I was more part of the work in the tunnels going on underground there. Interesting video!
😮This video was very interesting. You are so funny and gave me my morning chuckles. I would not want to have an apartment with a view of that ugly building with graffiti.
Are those doors watertight and the doors where those cars going down in the garage area are they waterproof a building w no windows how did the doors above where u shown are they glass or u can’t see through them also ??
33 Thomas Street is literally where everything telecommunications for North America & Europe lives. My mother worked for AT&T and she basically told me that, if something ever happened to that building, almost all forms of communication from Los Angeles to Paris would be down. We would be back to using a town crier or other kinds of primitive means of communication if something happened to that building. That's why that building is so secure.
most of the large physical switching buildings are no longer in use, the switching is done virtually now.
But is the meaning today as actual? Everybody communicating with mobile phone and no one cares about good old telephones.
really????
Cash, you're a brave man.....outing these secret buildings that if destroyed would bring civilization to it's knees. Hopefully, your name won't be put on a list, a secret list where only the keeper of that aforementioned list knows your real name, assuming it is not Cash Jordan (I assume it is real because you're a man of integrity and wouldn't trick your followers that way.) Am I using my real name? Not on your life, boy. May your mouth be washed out with a soap called Lifebuoy or Palmolive!! This message will self destruct in five seconds. Everything will be disavowed. Yo.
North America, yes, Europe, not even close :)
My dad works at that AT&T building. He's been with AT&T for over 30 years now, and he is under an NDA and won't really say what he does there, only that it's very important to New York and that the quality of life in NY would decrease if the building wasn't there. He also said it's not really that serious and that if the building just looked normal then no one would even care.
In my town, the old post office building has been turned into a colocation for the ISPs. Its unmarked, looks like an old abandoned building. But at night, you can see lights from network switches blinking in series. Hidden in plain sight they are, but very essential to our communications.
..?:‘man bun
>under NDA
>"Not even that serious"
I was looking for this comment, i was going to say same thing.
It's a data center.
*i have some nsa relatives as well
@@Doobus_Goodus Not unusual in the telecommunications industry.
A Building with massive Vents and no Windows usually suggests cooling. So realistically, that Building on 33 Thomas Street is simply used for Servers. Especially considering it belongs to AT&T. Also makes sense that if you put massive amounts of Servers somewhere to put it in a place that's extremely hard to compromise. Hence why "Cyberbunker" in Germany was a pretty smart idea.
It's a wind catcher they were usually built in the deserts since Roman times. It's odd to have it in New York
publically available knowledge readily accessible by operators of Ill intent , Whee !
Good guess. It turns out that telecom switching is now done using specialized computer systems of very high size and capacity (to the naked eye these will look just like massive servers) with specially designed software to execute insane levels of connection switching, billing handling, capacity management and similar functions. There are many other similar buildings in various nodes on the "backbone" of the internet. These places are also typically called "Long Lines". Another feature of a place like this is that it will have the ULTIMATE BACK UP systems for power. Typically this will be very large diesel generators providing power, and routinely tested to know that they work.
I worked for a company (no name) and we worked with AT&T at different locations. It's servers and cooling systems.
I worked in many buildings like this. What goes on inside keeps the world going. That's all I'll say.
These "fake" buildings are actually more common than you think worldwide. In London and Paris, there are a lot of them exist to be used as ventilation inlets and outlets for the Underground (London) and Paris Metro/RER (Paris).
Funny cause Ripley's Believe it or Not featured one in England back in the 80s. The first one reminfed me of it but it was small and when you look in the window you can see trains go by.
Ministry of Love, NY NY branch
The London one is in Leinster Gardens and conceals part of a tube line.
@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist1Amen 🙏.
Chicago
As a native New Yorker this is one of the most informative video about NYC that I've ever seen. Thanks Cash for always creating great videos
There are NO native New Yorkers, just slaves who come and go from time to time.
You do know he is stealing other people content. no reason to praise a content thief.
Douglas Envious much?!?☺
@douglasonney9576 says the person who has no videos on their page. who are you?!?
Haven't watched Cash's videos in a while. But it seems he's still about NY reality. 🎉
“The clear blue waters of the Hudson River.” The deadpan is real. 😆
The first fake building is located at 58 Jaman Street. It was originally constructed in 1847 as a private residence. In 1907, it was purchased by the INB Rapid Transit company to vent air from the subway underneath it. The building was completely hollowed out and now serves as an emergency exit for the subways.
The second fake building is located on Roosevelt Island. It was built in 1892 as a laboratory for City Hospital. It was abandoned in the 1950s and is now a power conversion substation for the subway trains.
The third fake building is located in the middle of the Hudson River. It was built in 1927 to vent air from the Holland Tunnel.
The fourth fake building is located at Mulry Square. It was built in 2019 to vent air from the subway underneath it.
The fifth fake building is located at 33 Thomas Street. It was built in 1974 and is owned by AT&T. It is rumored to be a National Security Agency mass surveillance hub.
You seem to be straight forward
If you say so. Lol.
Thanks! Saves a lot of time.
And I would guess you're a real life genius or computer wiz
But that's me and my simple mind process 😔
I wonder who can spot the fake post?
The big ominous building in New York is a server building owned by AT&t. How did nobody guess this? Servers don't need Windows. Servers also don't need a lot of people to operate them. But being such a robust structure the city probably required that it be an emergency facility in case of disaster.
I use to build data centers and the security associated with them. It can't be a very large center, the cooling and backup generators would be visible. Yes you can put them on the roof but the requirements take space.
In addition you can't use on as a shelter since the data centers are secure space (homeland security requirements for critical infrastructure) these buildings fail secure (fire alarm etc you can leave but no one enters).
Also the major transatlantic data comes in and leaves southern VA now..its why it's a hot spot for building major data centers now.
Making clones .
they don't need windows? so it's running on linux or similar?😂
Why would you place servers in such an expensive spot
Server of what?
There was a show many years ago (about 20 years ago) called "Secrets of New York.” One of their episodes, I remember, was about the subway system. Reportedly, there’s tons of water underneath our city, and if it weren’t because of massive water pumps, our subways would be flooded. I think some of these secret buildings may be for the purpose of having these machines running and for air vent purposes. Awesome video!!
That was one of my guesses, if only for the rainwater & everyday water that would find itself down there. I imagine ventilating & pumping the air & water for an entire underground city would take a lot of buildings!
Now, that last building? I have no idea, but you can bet there’s some sketchy shit going on in that one🤣
@@goldenageofdinosaurs7192 No doubt about that last building! 🤣
I find the idea that new york is this city built on top these old ruins made of concrete and pipes that most residents don't even know about anymore mildly entertaining. You guys should make an adventurer's guild there and have people explore underground.
There is this book - of course I forget the name - about how fast nature would “return” to its prehuman form. I think it said the subway would take 36 hours to flood without any human intervention, which makes sense if only considering the city is at or below sea level.
I vaguely remember that! was it on a public access channel? I recall an episode on the steam system too
The ATT building is a pretty common design for hubs built by phone companies back when it was constructed.
We have smaller version in the city I grew up in. It's around 6 stories tall no windows, only vents around the top, and was built in the same time frame. These are the major switch hubs for the wired phone system, miles of wire, rows and rows of relay switching boxes, offices, and where phone operators and maintenance crews worked out of. They were built solid to mitigate communications disruptions, needed to have strict climate control & ventilation for all the electronics, hence no windows, and tight security. Plus they were built during the cold war era, wired phones were the main form of communication at the time, including secure governmental lines, so another reason security was a factor in the design. Ours had security guards wandering around 24/7 back in the 60's & 70's. Gotta remember too, this was all before the digital age, there were no computers or micro-controllers, rotary phones were in use back then, and it was all electronic relays that connected every phone in the country to each other through hubs like these. I imagine NYC's is so big because, well, millions of people vs a city of 40,000 where ours is. Ours is no longer ATT, last time I was in the area it was branded Frontier internet & phone services, and still controls all the wired landline phones and DSL internet. All the rows and rows of relay boxes were replaced by racks of servers, and the vents now have windows installed.
The basement probably once contained battery rooms to provide fast emergency power to make sure that telecommunications were independent of the power grid.
Yep. Probably every city has something like this NYC AT&T building. NYC has a big one just because of the amount of communication that's goes on in NYC. There's one in San Francisco that has a small room that the CIA or the NSA has equipment installed. They're monitoring internet traffic. AT&T employees aren't allowed in that room. At least that's how it was back 25 years or so.
Yes I am a Central Office Technician in western ny and these buildings were built to withstand a lot. One of my offices even has a fallout area. They used to have cross bar switches in them which took up a lot of room very heavy and noisy.
A Central Office… very common, no windows for security, the equipment would require a much smaller footprint today.
Solid security, high ceilings (for air flow, and raised flooring for computer rooms), heavy load capability (again for computer racks)... this is simply a very large and secure datacenter, which is essentially the same thing as a Telco Central Office.
Cash, your videos are SO good! The way you tell a story is phenomenal! You could make a video about dirt exciting! Love ya. Keep up the great work!
I love that you aren’t afraid to show the real New York. I enjoyed this video
It’s a fake ny ?😂 writing from ny .. 😂
"I don't think they did a very good job at hiding the fakeness of this fake building" had me in stitches! 🤣 unfinished disaster, indeed!
Post modern art installation.
Yeah, Cash said a lot of funny things in this vid 😅
Ha, I haven’t heard heard that saying “had me in stitches” for a long time! I even forget the origins of the phrase? To be sewn up in stitches after laughing so hard??
This guy presentation style is crazy, am subscribing
I love your friendly way to tell things: important, weird, funny, strange or special.
The first thing I noticed about that first building is that they aren't actually trying to disguise it. $40 worth of white paint would actually make it fit in with its neighbors. Like, they aren't actually trying to make it look like an actual house. It looks more like a facade for a medium security document storage facility, but if it actually had important stuff in it, they would have spent that 40 bucks and taken two or three other measures like weathering, fake curtains, etc.
If it's just housing a subway vent and exit, there's no reason to go through the trouble of disguising it. Your motivation is simply aesthetic - making it look ok and a fit for the neighborhood is good enough. Now if it was a safehouse or a spy center then for security it is worth the extra expense of making it look as unobtrusive as possible.
A spy safehouse would just be a totally normal house, because spies are inconspicuous. The facade was built so the subway vent wouldn't devalue the properties around it. @@Qermaq
Up
There's something in there. Something that wants to get out. And when it does, all hell will break loose.
@@benjamindover4337 Oh go watch Poltergeist.
You’re so creative with your transitions, b roll, and editing
The vent for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel all the way downtown was used for the Men in Black HQ entrance.
Roosevelt Island used to be called Blackwells island, and housed a hospital for patients needing to be quarantined, a prison and an asylum. The journalist Nellie Bly faked being insane to get checked into the asylum and exposed horrific treatment and conditions, which got the place shut down (it was akin to what Geraldo Rivera found at Willowbrook in Staten Island.)
I knew it! I was thinking "That reminds me of that huge building in _Men In Black_."
The insane asylum (The Octagon) which was at the north end by Coler Hospital at the far north end is now the entrance for an apartment building. The exterior once a ruin is now fully restored. The original plan for the apt building was in a Victorian/Edwardian style with gables but the locals killed it. What's now there is a basic modern concrete block, but what was left of the Octagon building was saved.
@@cathoderaytube7497
AT&T Employee: " Can I help you?"
Job Applicant: "Yeah, this dude gave me this ca..."
AT&T employee: "Elevator....."
We have fake buildings in Ontario in the suburbs that look like regular houses but are hydro substations. Always loved those buildings. Great video!
Yup there's one in Guelph I've seen. At Carden street near the Guelph Central Station
Heh. Talk about hidden in plain sight! lol
Any idea who actually owns all these 'fake buildings' ? Foreign investors ?🤔
The whole world protects itself in this manner. This reporter, as a traitor, is identifying targets for our adversaries. Treason.
This is the kind of UA-cam video worth watching. I wish they had a section for great videos that they could put stuff like this in and charge extra for and give the profits to the creators. That way you would not have to sift through the junk and clickbait.
You're god damned right. Tired of internet crap.
I don't even know how but I've become addicted to this channel.
Aren't we all?
Same I check every day for a new video. I don’t even live anywhere near NY.
Same here. Never lived in New York, have no plans to move there, much less plans to move to New York City with the crazy real estate prices. But he always presents things in such an entertaining way. Plus the editing is fantastic -- like a professional television show
_I don't even know how but I've become addicted to this channel._
And that's the plan ....
me too lolol
Years ago I worked for an energy company and I had to go check a place which I presumed to be a building, it had an address but I couldn't find it on a map and I had to ask some other employees what was going on. Turned out it was a space under railway tracks and to get there I had to open a heavy duty steel gate and a steel door in a pedestrian underpass. Inside that quite a large place were huge number of computers in racks, I guess they were monitoring trains etc. It was kinda creepy place.
I assume it’s for something else more sinister👁️
😀@@lori5613
Hmmmmmm bet not just trains😢
@@lori5613 Your assumption was right, at last. There hasn't been any feedback from OP for more than 2 months 😢
That fake building is in Brooklyn Heights. I use to live up the block. Comedian Bill Cosby use to live around the corner. There's a bunch of fake buildings in NYC.
I've worked at the dying pier 8 -9 for years.. years before the park was started and well after it was done. This building actually is an access point for FDNY, Con Ed, the EPA and other utilities. And it's no "secret". They be out there posted up with cones and big red utility vehicles sometimes within a year. You will see them working, coming in and out of the building. The real locals within that area knows of it's existence. Even myself, passing by to my once container job, when i didn't want to drive the 15 minutes to and from work, only to struggle for parking once arriving home.
My doctor's office is still in that area as we speak.
You really know how to romanticize New York. Always hated the idea of the city but you make it seem super interesting and the history is amazing. Im a super history nerd and never realized the history of New York is so great
The history of NYC goes wayyyyyy back. It’s been around since the 1700s so there’s plenty of history! You should look it up- there’s a lot of documentaries about the history of NYC and it’s all really fascinating!
IKR.. it’s so much fun, it’s so worth watching for newbies
Right! The NYC area had a lot of action during the Revolutionary War! There were forts all over the place, on up to the Hudson River to West Point. As a kid in the ‘60’s I loved riding over the Throggs Neck Bridge, it seemed to be the highest one in the world. Underneath the Bronx side is a fort called Fort Skyler. There was another fort across the way and I learned that there were huge chains from fort to fort in the water. They would be pulled tight and would block British ships from coming through. A lot of history right there in NYC!
Go to the Brooklyn or New York Public library buildings to get your fill of unbiased NYC history.
How can you be a history fan.. and not have run into any of new yorks history? Like you can barely go back into American history without talking abt New York
I love how you have this whole list of "fake buildings" and then proceed to explain how each one is a completely real building with real stuff happening inside.
“Clear blue waters of the Hudson River.”😂
Had me in laughts too, also the guy fishing there. Imagine fishing in the Hudson, you can get used condoms catfish and beer cans salmon out of it.
I hope he wasn’t serious when he said that- I giggled when he said it!
That's how you generate comments
@@LukeStephens-gw6fbyeah it was sarcasm 😂
Well if it’s owned by AT&T and AT&T trucks parked around it then isn’t it obvious? It’s probably where they have routers, signals and whatever else they use to make the internet and tv work. Theres a place here in my area in Atlanta that looks exactly like it only it’s just one story and it’s also owned by AT&T.
Yep. From Wikipedia: "it is a telephone exchange or wire center building which contained three major 4ESS switches used for interexchange (long distance) telephony, as well as a number of other switches used for competitive local exchange carrier services."
33 Thomas is still used for telephone switching, but some of the space is also used for highly secure datacenters
We have one in Boston in Government center that is tall and also crazy looking owned by the telephone company at least when I was a kid .It is AT&T now . Government center in Boston has some serious crazy looking buildings anyways so it kinda blends but it is giant bunker looking because of the lack of normal windows . Now I want to check to see if it has the unusual cars ?????
I like that you explained what the buildings are instead of leaving everyone to believe the rumors.
The AT&T building at 33 Tomas Street is a telecom switching hub (node switches) for the tri-state area and the northeast. I used to work in the building
yup it's probably a building full of servers for the NSA.
It is. It is one of several sites around the US that collect data on US citizens.
@@AnnSisuLiv You know that because...?
It’s not the NSA, that’s bullshit. It a massive windowless switch building like numerous others in the US. AT&T has ridiculous numbers of copper telephone wires throughout Manhattan. This building is the hub.
No, Google builds those… 😁
Or just where all the servers are.
Incredible! I absolutely love old buildings structures and hearing the stories about them! When my old man takes me up on Garrett Mountain in Paterson to our landlords place on a clear day you an see that bridge to Manhattan on a good day!
As a New Yorker, i love this video! Thank you for showing aspects of this city that i wouldn't otherwise see.
33 Thomas Street is definitely some data center of sorts, I'd imagine. There are main hubs for internet backbones that have to live somewhere. Seems pretty reasonable to convert a beefed up building that was originally a telephone exchange into a highly secure data center. I wouldn't have any doubts of it also being used for government shenanigans as well.
Great video. Love the history and cool stuff about NYC - not just the daily doom and gloom from this channel. Love this video
Not understanding the whole "Fake Building" thing. If a building was built, it's a real building! If that building was used for a different purpose in the past than it is today, or abandoned doesn't mean it's a fake building. It only means that building had a purpose, or has a new purpose. With that said, a real building isn't based on it's purpose! A real building is what's physically there, and what's physically there is the building materials that make it a real building😳
@ulysses_757 If you can’t getcher clicks legitimately, you make shit up.
Yep exactly. Fake buildings are things built to hide other stuff, not stuff built to be what it is…
while i get what you mean, i think you're taking things a bit too literally. he means 'fake buildings' as in buildings with no interior, no reason to enter them, and therefore register as fake.
I don't think you're taking things too literal as suggested. That first building is literally a real building and people lived there for decades; now it has another use.
If my house was bought and the new owners removed all the interior and locked the doors from the outside would it suddenly be a fake building? No. 🤣
unless it's just a wall
This is another great video. You would make a great reporter Cash!
I've noticed a lot of fake buildings as I've traveled. I figured they were electric or telecommunications substations, held some type of pumps or are even server farms. I thought they made them blend in so it didn't look ugly in the area and also for security.
I know one that's a server farm but all the employees work remotely, only coming in if there is an emergency. It's located in the middle of a busy downtown area with lots of clubs and bars. They only have like 10 parking spaces and they are very clearly marked "no parking ever - you will be towed at your expense. Please do not park here, even for" just a minute "
As you can imagine, people park there. There are several security cameras and you can see them pull in, park, walk to wall with the no parking signs and the name and contact number of the tow company who will tow their car. They stare at the signs, look at each other, discuss, then teeter off in their stilettos. Within 10 minutes, the car is towed. When they come teetering back 4 hours later and are outraged and confused about their car, calling the police only to be told it's been towed.
Cash u r now an investigative reporter. Awesome dude!!!!👏👆👊
he may be the best in NYC, he seems to be the most evenhanded, reports whats happening, rather than what he wants to have happened.
waiting for the spiderman arc to complete the cycle@@scottmcshannon6821
Investigative Reporting sounds VERY interesting.
None of this is news and has been in PRINT MEDIA for decades, genius.
“Clear blue waters … of the Hudson River” this made me chuckle.
me too
lordy lol it's so polluted it probably catches fire. all I see is dead fish there
Yeah I sensed a touch of sarcasm there. 🤣
@@josefmazzeo6628REAL ITS LIKE GREEN
Thats good sarcasm haha
Cash...
Your videos are more and more interesting. You are way more than a realtor.
I've been saying that for a minute. He could either be the permanent host of Saturday Night Live or a reporter on Sixty Minutes if not mayor of the greatest city on Earth. Maybe all three at the same time. While still showing us sink sprayers in shoebox apartments. No joke!
_Your videos are more and more interesting. You are way more than a realtor._
Undeniable.
The “clear blue Hudson” made me laugh. That entire river is full of PCB from the Federal Dam in Troy, all the way to New York Bay. You can’t even eat fish out of the river, sadly. PS- great, informative video. Subscribed.
Why did they dig the PCB’s up in Troy ..weren’t they safer if left buried ?
Down the road from me, which I live next to a watershed, is a abandoned small building. I was told it’s a well/pumping station and it’s pipes are underground, go down my road, to pump water into a stream that then fills a reservoir (lake) that supplies water to a nearby town. It’s used when there is drought, the watershed and stream dries up. Otherwise, it looks like an ordinary abandoned small barn.
@0:02, there is a similar grand looking fake facade building at 23-24 Leinster Gardens in London (UK) which serves as a vent for the Metropolitan tube line. The Strecker building is beautiful. Glad that it is being reused rather than falling into dereliction.
Yes, we all saw that Sherlock episode 😂
Yes we all saw that Sherlock episode 😂
When I goggle mapped it, (the 'fake house') and did the overhead satellite image, it said "IRT SUBWAY VENT" ! Wha?????? Now I can't wait to finish watching your video, thank you! SO interesting!
It is wild the things people could build so long ago and now they cut corners to build homes.
Yeah, too bad we have to pay workers a living wage, right?
@@653j521Missing the point entirely. People want quality but not willing to pay the cost for it. That’s also not counting developers who cut corners and pocket the excess. Because developers can never be corrupt or greedy right? /s
Junk everywhere
That big, ugly, tall building may be AT&T's POP (which stands for Point of Presence) in NYC. The switches (now-a-days they're computers) that handle all the telephone traffic on the upper East Coast and transAtlantic may be housed in that building. Think about the call volume at any given moment in the northeastern US, along with call volume from the US and Europe, and you're looking at millions of calls at any given second. May also do some processing of cellular traffic as well. (Worked in telecommunications for 29 years)
That explains the ventilation, they probably have need to cool down the thousands of super-computers processing all of the regions internet and telephone traffic. Insane.
@@karlwithak. I never said storage of data... transitive data processing and routing is probably what goes on. You realize there is quite a bit of computation that needs to be happen for every single HTTP request? DNS lookup for example.
Every city has one of these windowlessCenter Office or Network Operation Centers managed by the phone company. Yes, it once needed to handle miles of copper cables converging and analogue switching. You'll also commonly see electric substations camouflaged as buildings.
It's depressing to know that we built so many great things at a time without computers, we invested in jobs and infrastructure, while today with massive wealth generated over the past 70 years of prosperity since ww2, cash is staying idle not going into new investments that can create so much positive change for the world. Talk about the rich hoarding money...
One thing the rich never do is hoard their money lol.
You dont typically hit those levels of wealth without investing or having your own company.
Dont forget, the rich, chances are great, sign your paycheck
2:30 we have these in London for the underground.
its not fake if the buildings have purpose....
And this purpose is what???
@@andremohrke5112 You can't gather that from the video??
@@andremohrke5112substations for the subway was the answer for several of the buildings… did you not actually watch the video?
Yea the erroneous repetitive use of the word “fake” is starting to erk me because they are clearly actual buildings and not just a wall meant to appear as a building but has no inside
Ok fine, but the exterior is still fake. Why fancy windows? Its not a laudatory feature
I had no idea New York has all these fake buildings, the last one might be a data farm, you have to have ventilation for those gigantic computers. Thanks Cash
I think all major cities have real buildings that have been converted to other uses. I know here in St Louis we do. One not far from me is a power substation inside an old building.
damham5689,
It's something I never thought about, nor has anyone ever pointed it out. So St. Louis too, I live in San Francisco, so now I've got to see what's up here. Thanks
@@bkm2797 they are hard to a spot . I would have never know about the substation except my cousin works at the power company and told me about it.
There's nothing fake about these buildings, except for the Brooklyn Heights hollowed out house.
lawrencesiskind3554,
You got to admit that last building looked like something you'd see in Hell,lol,geezus.
Cash a real urbanist and voice for city planning. Love it!!
Very cool video. I loved the X-Files bee sting reference as my family just watched that movie. Keep these great videos coming. You are hilarious 😂.
AT&T is totally helping the government illegally eavesdrop on Americans.
They don't need to. We all sign up to social media accounts and willingly hand over every single thing about us.
And Verizon and T-Mobile and Comcast and…
It's not illegal thanks to the PATRIOT act
@@KaitouKaiju Patriot Act expired in 2020 thanks to Democrats. And it is still illegal.
@@NiaLaLa_V Only nitwits do that. Rule of thumb, ever since the AOL days and before (like 1989) you use "handles" or pseudonyms on the internet. You NEVER give out your real information. Never. That's why I have no idea that ever since Snowden so many people are ok with Smart Phones.
The AT&T massive building built during the Cold War Era can only suggest one conclusion - providing as secure communications center as possible, just in case. And I also have it quite easy to imagine that wired connection might still be of more value than cell phones in a big time emergency. And in fact, how are the cell tower transmitters getting their signals in the first place? Or where and how do they forward your cell phone calls? I think wired connections to some central switching facilities are to be expected even in the cell phone era.
People in Nashville found out fast how useless cell phones were when that RV bomber took out the AT&T hub. All their little idiotphones were destroyed but landline phones still worked.
Mind you, I'm not sure if that AT&T building would survive a Russian nuclear attack, though. The Russians still have missiles armed with a _25 megaton_ nuclear warhead specifically to attack underground bunkers and to take out large metropolitan areas, and the blast effects of a 25 MT warhead is probably strong enough to topple even this building.
The Cold War was a farce... it wasn't even real. There is something else going on with that building.
@@Sacto1654 I don't know why you're even talking about that like it's relevant. If Russia did that then we would would press the big red button and life as we know it on this planet will be wiped out. I don't think it's relevant if this building would survive an end of the world attack.
Hey I like your energy! Life goals my man
Little known fact. Speaking of fake buildings, in the 1980's NYC's Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) decided to make some of the burned-out building shells in the south Bronx look a bit less awful by covering broken windows with a large plastic sticker portraying an intact window, a window shade, and a small flower pot with a few blooms. This was just a pilot/experimental program, with a $50,000 budget. The media and city planners almost universally praised the program and said it was 50G well spent. So the city expanded the program with a $500,000 budget. Then the same critics who said it was 50G well spent, turned around and called it an outrageous waste of a half million dollars. Go figure.
Many years ago, one was over the cross Bronx express way at Arthur Ave . From far you could see the flowers, curtains and so on. con Ed has one on the Bruckner express way in the 140s it looks like townhouse building.
I don't think many people, especially Millennials, know the history of the Bronx, and how not that long ago, parts of it looked like Gaza or Ukraine.
Wowee Cash, your real estate and city videos have been really entertaining for the last couple years 🎉now with your excellent reporting I’m gaining
real in-depth knowledge! Really appreciate all your hard work as a business and family man🤓
Cash, I don't know if you covered it yet, but the Irish Famine Memorial Park (?) is quite interesting. It looks like a city park located inside a giant concrete bowl.
I am a Canadian, this is one of the most unique videos that I have ever watched. Very informative about all these fake buildings in NYC. Thank you Cash for sharing your knowledge
Toronto has some buildings like this to hide electric generators?
A quick Google search will give you some interesting looking houses made to look like houses built in the area
You need to branch out more and go to other sources. This is pretty basic stuff. Your actually left with more questions than answers.
It's always amazes me to learn how long ago they were constructing engineering marvels that still seem almost impossible to build today.
Because we’re not the ones that built them, these buildings were already here, New York City was already here before it became a City, the buildings were founded not built. They found them
@@josevaladez8056 bruh
@@josevaladez8056🤨🤔👀
@@josevaladez8056that’s spot on.
@@josevaladez8056lol conspiracies time
33 Thomas St looks to me like a huge data center. I worked at one for ExxonMobil which was very small in comparison but I could understand the function of this building if that is what it is.
Interesting application of urban design. Interesting how most of them are ventilation units for the tunnels. That's something most folks don't think about until they have to.
This is so interesting! Great job Cash!! ,Love your videos!
You'd think vents and stuff could be incorporated in the stations themselves. That's what I assumed but apparently not.
That first building kinda elevates the aesthetic of the block because it's so neatly painted and provides some contrast. Also the history of Roosevelt Island itself is pretty interesting.
As a lover of architecture, I found this video fascinating.
Me too😊
It _WAS_ interesting !
AS A HUMAN BEEING, i found this video fascinating.(Well, joke a part, as i am also a building engineer...)
Your storytelling skills are great! I’ve been trying to grow my UA-cam channel with similar stories! This is great!
I really enjoyed this video Cash very interesting.
Cash-Your selection of content is absolutely fabulous! You present material that everyone is interested in. That was a great idea.
A++
Keep going!☮️👏👏👏👏
I used to work in a building like 33 Thomas Street, but in a British city. The building facade was a British Telecom HQ and switching station, the basement and lower floors held offices and garage space and workshops for regular BT engineers so the regular coming and going of engineers would look normal. Through a heavily fortified security side gate (covered by CCTV) was a door. A key fob opened the door and revealed a single room, a small, square windowless lobby. In the lobby was one lift (elevator). A fob would open this lift, and take you to the top of the tower, only one floor was on the button panel. Exiting the lift at the top of the tower was another lobby, with a security guard and a set of double doors. At this point if you showed the guard your tucked away Ministry of Defence ID you could enter the floor proper, where various routing equipment, recording equipment, satellite equipment etc was in use by MOD staff. The big giveaway were the aerials and dishes on the top of the tower, but to the casual passer by it was an old office block and telephone exchange.
So I guess it doesn't have a faucet sprayer Cash !! 😢
Cash does it again! Posted another weirdo video I didn’t know I wanted to see. 😂😂😂
As a native New Yorker this video was quite enlightening, interesting, educational and also hilarious (some of your introductions were too funny). Thanks for this video. 👍🏻
Loved the informative content of this video, thank you!! 💖
Dope video! learned something new today.
The AT&T building could also house servers. When I used to live on Ave U near the N in BX. I lived across the street from a building that version owns. No windows, and was told its lower server hub for the company, hosting phone, cable, and internet.
This is one of the reasons I love NY. Story after story, mystery after mystery. It's not for everyone, a lot of people like it quiet and pared down. But if you like a good tale of paranoia and intrigue and fake brownstones...
The Roosevelt Island lab is beautiful. Romanesque Revival. Originally between a smallpox hospital and a charity hospital. I would love a home in this style.
Designed by New York architects Frederick Clarke Withers & Walter Dickson, the building was constructed in 1892 and was administered under the direction of Charity (later City) Hospital to conduct pathological and bacteriological work. The building was the gift of the daughter of a Mr. Strecker, and as Dr. Charles G. Child Jr. wrote in his history of City Hospital (1904) it was “an illustration of what lasting good an intelligent woman can do to perpetuate the memory of a dear one.” Pathological medicine made rapid advances during the 19th century, and laboratories such as this one reflect the increasingly scientific nature of its study and investigation. Roosevelt Island Historical Society
I went by the smallpox hospital yrs ago and I am pretty sure it was haunted back then.
I grew up on Roosevelt Island, and there were whole bunches of abandoned buildings with weird stuff in them at the time.
By now, the whole south end of the island is quite effectively blocked off, but in the 1970s and 1980s there was a pretty pathetic wall that was easy enough to get past by any child with a little resourcefulness. Since no adults usually went to that area of the island, it was an endless play area for the kids, on the grass among the old buildings.
The problems came when one idiot teen accepted a dare to walk along the window ridge of one of those abandoned buildings. That building had once been part of the public hospital, and it had all kinds of scary stuff dumped inside, left over from its previous use. The kid slipped and fell, sliced himself up on ancient gurneys and other things made of rusty metal, and had to have an arm amputated (at least according to the children's gossip network at the time -- take with a grain of salt).
And that gave the adults a way to know where we kids were spending our time when we went out to play. They rebuilt the wall blocking off the south end of the island, in a way that was no longer trivial for kids to get around. We kids were deeply annoyed at the ones who got caught and ruined our fun... the rest of us knew better than to go anywhere near the buildings, though. We played outside in between them, but the abandoned buildings themselves were not to be messed with. We knew perfectly well that they weren't safe, and most of us weren't stupid.
The entire south area of RI is now redeveloped.from the former site of Goldwater Hospital, now Cornell Tech, Southpoint Park which belongs to RI, and the Four Freedoms FDR park which is only closed off on Tuesdays. I think its partl NY Parks but it was redeveloped by the FDR Foundation and is basically Louis Kahn brutalist style including a giant FDR head. Venue for private events as well. The old Smallpox Hospital is cleaned up as a stabilized ruin and fenced off.
Those of us with long memories remember the 400 foot Delacorte Fountain at the far south end of RI, but that is long gone. Used to see it from my office floor at one of my first jobs at 800 Third by 49-50th street. Reputedly the mist used to dirty up the windows on Sutton Place (hard by the East River Drive, ha ha), defoliated vegetation, and was a hazard to navigation, so the city had it disabled by sometime in the later part of the 1980s. But it was quite lovely at a distance!
@@donnafromnyc I remember that fountain! I was still a teenager when they took it out of commission, but I lived on the island since 1977 -- we were literally the first residents who ever held our first co-op apartment there. I was only about eight when we moved in, so I spent most of my childhood there. My first wedding was held in one of the community center buildings, because I felt strongly about getting married from Roosevelt Island as the place where I had grown up.
Really, they've developed the whole south now? I haven't been back in years, not since my mother died and I sold her apartment. At that point, they'd developed everything between the original town and the tramway, with the subway station and another set of buildings there, but past the tram was still pretty much closed off. Do you know when they opened it up?
@@donnafromnycI would love to see what the old Smallpox hospital looks like now. It was so creepy when I saw it. If there was ever a place that looked haunted that was it.
Awesome video!! I learned today, and made my next visit to NYC more interesting. Thank you!!
Hello Cash!! Have you ever thought of doing a live chat so we can ask you questions about Real Estate and about yourself?! That would be awesome!!! Maybe interview some of your colleagues and get their opinions on what their favorite Apartments and their least favorite Apartments that they have ever toured?!? Love you!!! 😊
@CanadianEbikeoutlet I have no idea what you are talking about but ok!😢
Another journalism masterpiece by Cash!
The last building is most intriguing! Is it truly owned by AT&T, or the NSA? Is the AT&T just a ruse ? Has anyone ever done license plate checks on those AT&T vehicles and those darkly tinted window cars parked around the building ?
Has any investigative journalist ever surveled the building? Seen who is going in and out of the building, or followed any of the cars leaving the building? Has anyone ever posed as a homeless person sitting out in front of it, to see how long it is and who tells them to move on? Would it be regular police or someone else?
Does the city inspect it like any other building? Does it have a fire escape plan? Could it even have a fire? What about terrorist sabotage? Is it a bunker? Who is it a bunker?Is it actually vented some how? Does it have its own air filtration system? What is under it?
Intriguing.
All that is known but nobody is telling YOU! Ah ha ha ha ha.
I had a thought about maybe the building is a giant faraday cage to protect NSA assets, along with whatever else they have going on in there???
Similar to One Wilshire?
Gov datacenter.
Good questions
So it's a material building. It isn't empty. It's being used for a specific purpose. Where's the fake? It's a real building with a real ventilation shaft or servers or whatever. That's not fake.
"Paper and pencil...is how we got the Holland tunnel" ....indeed, Cash! We CAN accomplish things, without machine computation.
Blacks are now 13% of the U.S. population. What will the future be like? 😱
Paper and pencil and slide rule. The last we don't have anymore.
@@edwardmiessner6502 They still exist. Any engineer could learn to use one. Children did.
I worked with a guy (VERY smart man) who used a slide rule in calculations all the time, back in the late '70s. I hope he's still alive-such a smart guy.
This is such a brilliant video and very unique 🤣. Great job Cash! 💯
I wonder if 33 Thomas St. has something to do with the transatlantic cables?
Interesting Cash. Exploring the secret buildings os New York City.😊😊
I work in a building that can hold 3000 lbs per sqft.
It was because there were 2 or 4 wires for every household and they were on massive racks to make phones work.
These buildings are now mostly data centers
People didn't mind because they're usually in favor of massive racks
Verizon eliminated much of their copper infrastructure with the rollout of FiOS, VOIP phones, and mobile phones over the years.
Just think, a couple fake windows a few houseplants and no one would give a damn about the building. Instead, they hire Darth Vader's personal architect to make a hell-hole even more hell-holish.
Right!? They’re barely trying to be inconspicuous
I’ve never had the chance to visit New York City, I love that I can get a guided tour of the city from someone so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the city.
I hope you get to visit one day. New York City is a whole different world. 🗽
It’s pretty disappointing lol.
That "Townhouse" looks normal except for the windows. The laboratory building looks nice, I like the brick work. The 100yr old buildings for the tunnel stay maintained but not the New York sewer system- go figure.
Which is harder to do?
I am an electrician and worked at the Roosevelt Island “biolab” back in like 2016. Worked for a contractor that was hired to do a lot of work there. I knew nothing of its history when I was there, so cool just seeing this randomly haha. Some of the best electricians I’ve met built the upgrades in that place. MTA wanted to get it done quickly. They had around the clock shifts guys working 10-12hr shifts 7 days a week (everyone there wanted to be there and the overtime money was ridiculous). I was more part of the work in the tunnels going on underground there. Interesting video!
Yes, the "things" we are seeing trough the window are cooling fins for a transformer. Right?
2:52 Imagine paying 6m for that shit. What an absolute waste.
Only in NY lol
New Youk
😮This video was very interesting. You are so funny and gave me my morning chuckles. I would not want to have an apartment with a view of that ugly building with graffiti.
Are those doors watertight and the doors where those cars going down in the garage area are they waterproof a building w no windows how did the doors above where u shown are they glass or u can’t see through them also ??
What a great day Cash!! Still love NY❤
Great episode!
Now, i will be looking at buildings in a different way. Thanks for sharing 👍🏾
I knew I recognized you as we walked past at 1:26. Can't wait for more videos on Brooklyn!
This WAS a very interesting video.thank you for inviting me to watch your video ‼️🙋🏽👍🏽😃.