Verizon Building being converted to luxury apartments [telecom]

Inside the Art Deco skyscraper that once serviced 200,000 landlines in Manhattan -- but that is now being turned into luxury apartments as the dying technology is stamped out

By Jennifer Smith, Dailymail.com, 21 October 2016 | Updated 22 October 2016

The Verizon Building at 140 West Street was built as one of the first Art Deco sky scrapers in 1927. Its 32 floors contained an enormous network of copper wires which connected New York's phones Most were sold in 2014 to property developers to turn into luxury condominiums worth up to $100million. Some of the old fashioned copper wires remain in the building and were photographed recently.

The Verizon Building in New York's Manhattan once serviced 200,000 landlines across the city. Built in the 1920s and with more than 1million square ft of space over

32 floors on 140 West Street, it was one of the telecommunications company's most bustling factories.

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Neal McLain

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Neal McLain
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It should be noted that many landline subscribers like their service and don't even have any alternative - fibre does not serve many places. To say the old technology is "dying" is premature, at least until reliable alternatives are rolled out for everyone.

Unless Western Electric operated there, the building was not a "factory", but rather a switching center.

Also, fibre lines still need to be switched, as well as calls coming into Vz from the internet or wireless systems.

I suspect the article author is confusing "copper" with switchgear. That building likely originally housed panel switches, and modern ESS is far more compact. Also, the building probably housed operator services - local, toll, and information, and those services are virtually gone.

As mentioned, before, Vz buildings in other cities have been converted into other uses. A handsome switching center at 1835 Arch Street in Philadelphia is now luxury housing, with polished Bell Telephone emblems still remaining on the exterior.

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HAncock4

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