If you’re heading to the Big Apple to enjoy the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade tomorrow, add another stop on your list of things to do. It’s an easy drive on down 7th Avenue to West Broadway to Lower Manhattan. Hang a left on Worth Street, and at the corner of Worth and Church, there it is. A 550 foot tall megalithic-looking windowless monstrosity that—in Ghost Busters lingo—is literally the corner of Spook Central.
It’s the formerly mysterious AT&T Long Lines Building. According The Intercept, “the skyscraper is more than a mere nerve center for long-distance phone calls. It also appears to be one of the most important National Security Agency surveillance sites on U.S. soil—a covert monitoring hub that is used to tap into phone calls, faxes, and internet data.” In the SCIF, AT&T is code named Lithium, and 33 Thomas is NSA’s TITANPOINTE.
HISTORY OF MYSTERY
Think of TITANPOINTE as something of a giant purloined letter.If you want to keep something secret, hide it in plain sight. The Long Lines Building isn’t only in plain sight. The design encourages attention and conspiracy theories. “For most New Yorkers,” writes New York Magazine’s Charley Lanyon, “the Long Lines Building is just a curiosity, another pretty-ugly part of our city, easy to ignore and better for it.” Ironically, this hub of NSA snooping “looks like nothing less than a monument to the prize of privacy” writes New York Times’ Jim Dwyer.
TITANPOINTE is the architectural tabula rasa of John Carl Warnecke & Associates. The skyscraper was under construction from 1969 to 1974. Aside from NSA’s play inside the walls, even the plain purpose of the building is sensitive. According to The Intercept’s Ryan Gallagher and Henrik Moltke TITANPOINTE “would safeguard powerful computers, cables, and switchboards. It would house one of the most important telecommunications hubs in the United States—the world’s largest center for processing long-distance phone calls . . . .”
During the cold war, of course, that would be an important target for attack. That’s why Warnecke designed the windowless building to be “capable of withstanding an atomic blast” and stocked with “enough food to last 1,500 people two weeks in the event of a catastrophe.”
Now that the cold war’s over, or at least on hold, cyberwar looms on the horizon, and no amount of cement and lead will keep the hackers out.
UNDERCOVER
It’s a great compliment to NSA that the agency could keep TITANPOINTE so secret for so long. That’s thanks, in part, to security measures reminiscent of Men in Black. For instance, Gallagher and Moltke write, “When traveling to TITANPOINTE, NSA employees are told to hire a ‘cover vehicle’ through the FBI, especially if they are transporting equipment to the site. In order to keep their true identities secret while visiting, agency employees are instructed not to wear any clothing displaying NSA badges or insignia.” Then, once there, “agency employees should ring the buzzer, sign in, and wait for a person to come and meet them.” It’s enough for the movies, to be sure.
So, if you’re in the Big Apple, stop by and take a selfie. The Long Lines Building is certainly one for any spymaster’s bucket list.
And have a great, relaxing, peaceful Thanksgiving holiday.
