The Intercept has published a fascinating, and eerie, investigation into the iconic Brutalist tower at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan. Built to withstand a nuclear bomb, the modern fortress has no windows. At night, the building is a dark shadow blocking the illuminated towers around it.
But 33 Thomas Street wasn't built as a fallout shelter—or not for humans at least. Rather, the building was intended to house a massive array of servers, switchboards and computers. According to the Intercept, it's also one of the NSA's most important spy hubs, "used to tap into phone calls, faxes, and internet data."
Documents obtained by The Intercept from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden do not explicitly name 33 Thomas Street as a surveillance facility. However — taken together with architectural plans, public records, and interviews with former AT&T employees conducted for this article — they provide compelling evidence that 33 Thomas Street has served as an NSA surveillance site, code-named TITANPOINTE.
More on surveillance in the city:
3 Comments
Very interesting!
So those windows halfway up in the top photo... is that the NSA lunch room? (Notes on items in the fridge say things like, "Touch my chicken salad and your kids disappear.")
Looks like it would fit well in Pyongyang
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