60 Hudson Street

60 Hudson Street is tall and contains 24 stories. It occupies a trapezoidal plot measuring on Hudson Street to the west, on West Broadway to the east, on Thomas Street to the south, and on Worth Street to the north. The Worth and Thomas Street elevations are parallel to each other and perpendicular to the West Broadway elevation. The Hudson Street elevation runs diagonally, intersecting both Worth and Thomas Streets. The building was designed by Ralph Walker of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker in the Art Deco style. 60 Hudson Street was the third Art Deco building in the New York City area that Walker designed, after the Barclay–Vesey Building (1927) and New Jersey Bell Headquarters Building (1929); it was followed by 101 Willoughby Street and 1 Wall Street (1931) and 32 Avenue of the Americas (1932), as well as telephone buildings in Upstate New York. 60 Hudson Street was one of several technologically advanced headquarters erected in the mid-20th century for communications and utility companies in the U.S. 60 Hudson Street's massing mostly uses rectangular shapes in spite of its trapezoid-shaped lot. This may have been a response to architecture critic Lewis Mumford's previous criticism of the Barclay–Vesey Building's transition from a parallelogram shaped base to a right-angled tower, which he regarded as an "annoying defect". Walker subsequently wrote that Mumford's criticism made him realize "a building could take its own form regardless of the land below". 60 Hudson Street's form was also influenced by its interior use, as it was a "hybrid building" that contained offices along with mechanical equipment. There were numerous functions that did not necessitate sunlight and could operate using artificial light, such as the central operating system and the mechanical space, which was placed inside the building's core. The office space, conversely, was placed on the exterior walls, so 60 Hudson Street did not require light courts that were as extensive as in nearby buildings. The use of brick was likely influenced by Dutch and German Expressionism, as well as Walker's preference for "unity and harmony", his dislike of terracotta-on-brick ornamentation, and his observation that stone could change color within a short time. The brick was made by the Continental Clay Products Company of Fallston, Pennsylvania, which also made the facade for the David Stott Building in Detroit, Michigan. Walker also designed the facade with a grid of accented vertical piers, contrasting with horizontal spandrels. This emphasized the vertical lines of the building and, when combined with the setbacks, created an appearance of cascades. Each shade was created by baking the bricks in a kiln run under varying circumstances. The darkest bricks were used in the base, and the bricks on upper stories contained progressively lighter hues; Base The base comprises the first two stories. The lowest section of the facade is composed of three courses of pink granite, while the brick facade rises above that. Around the doors and windows, the brickwork is arranged similarly to curtains. near the intersection with Jay Street. In a similar manner, 60 Hudson Street was described as "housing the production of the service which this company renders". As with his previous commissions, Walker designed the interior in a similar style to the exterior, at a time when many buildings were being designed with modern-styled exteriors and historically-styled interiors. In contrast to the complex stone designs of his previous commissions, the ornamental program at 60 Hudson Street is more subdued and exclusively uses brick. is usually not accessible to the public. The corridor contains a barrel-vaulted brick ceiling. Extending off this corridor are two elevator banks, one on each side, as well as numerous additional doorways to service areas, stairwells, and the storefronts at each of the building's four corners. Also on the south side is a telephone alcove; an entrance to the lobby outside the building's former auditorium; and a passageway to the former cafeteria, Unlike most other Art Deco lobbies of the time, which incorporated traditional motifs with modern materials, 60 Hudson Street's lobby largely uses a modern brick design. Many elements of the facade were also used in the lobby, such as the brick reliefs and chevrons; curtain-shaped thresholds and doorways; use of bronze trim; and the mailboxes and doors, which are designed in a style reminiscent of the exterior setbacks. The ninth floor included laboratories for the company, and the 24th floor served as a "presidential suite". The eleventh through fifteenth floors were devoted to facilities for Western Union's different modes of communication: simplex printers, multiplex transmitters, marine and stock ticker tapes, Morse code equipment, and telephone equipment. Four additional floors were set aside for the possible future expansion of these facilities. This reinforced 60 Hudson Street's role as "the heart of a nerve system of wires and cables reaching to every corner of the nation and the world." ==History==

Western Union, founded in 1851, became a major provider of telegraph services in the late 19th century. In 1875, it built the Western Union Telegraph Building at 195 Broadway between Dey Street and Fulton Street. Western Union was acquired by AT&T in 1909, and the next year, AT&T revealed plans to improve Western Union's offices "for the accommodation of the public and the welfare" of workers. William W. Bosworth was commissioned to design new headquarters on the same site, the present 195 Broadway, which was completed in 1916. The newer Broadway building came to be mainly associated with AT&T, to the extent that by the 1920s, Western Union did not have a building with which its headquarters was mainly associated. Under the tenure of Western Union president Newcomb Carlton, the company's operations grew and its equipment was upgraded to modern standards. Development Western Union began land acquisition in September 1924, when the firm bought two seven-story buildings on Hudson Street (one occupied by grocer R. C. Williams & Company), a four-story stable, and a one-story building on Thomas Street. Western Union agreed to lease back R. C. Williams & Company's building to that company for five years. The site was close to 24 Walker Street, as well as the company's major clients in Lower Manhattan: the American Stock Exchange at their Trinity Place building, the New York Cotton Exchange, the New York Produce Exchange, and the ticker service on Wall Street. Western Union hired intermediaries to negotiate for the remainder of the block so existing property owners would not become suspicious. Western Union bought two additional five-story buildings at 160 and 166 West Broadway in January 1927, thereby securing much of the block. At this time, the company indicated that it would probably erect a structure of up to 36 stories on the block. Newcomb Carlton, president of Western Union, announced on October 4, 1927, that the company had completed plans for a 15-story edifice on the block, which he said would be the world's largest telegraph building. Carlton estimated that the structure would cost between $6 million and $6.5 million excluding the site. At the time of the site's official groundbreaking, the building was expected to be completed in January 1930. Excavations started the following month.; according to The Wall Street Journal, the building was the first project in New York City where the excavation used a "well-point system of drainage". Western Union years Western Union started moving from 195 Broadway on August 29, 1930. At the time, Western Union did not occupy the entire structure; the first floor and mezzanine on Hudson Street were rented out to other companies, as were the fourth to seventh floors. The first transcontinental telegraph wire from the building was activated two days later. Just before the building's opening, Carlton protested against plans to demolish the adjacent Sixth Avenue elevated railroad in preparation for the construction of nearby subway lines, stating that it would inconvenience Western Union employees; the line remained open until 1938. The Western Union Building was a premier nexus of worldwide communications during the heyday of the telegraph and was called the "Telegraph Capitol of America". In 1948, Western Union sold 60 Hudson Street to a Chicago-based company for $12.5 million, leasing back the structure. The proceeds from the sale would be used to pay back long-term debt and pay for modernization of the company's equipment. By late 1971, Western Union had indicated its intention to move corporate offices to New Jersey, although it would retain nearly 3,000 workers at 60 Hudson Street. Western Union moved its headquarters to Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, in 1973 and continued to occupy much of 60 Hudson Street. At the time, The New York Times said the building was one of five in Lower Manhattan where at least of continuous vacant space could be rented immediately. Western Union remained in the building until 1983, when a second sublease was made. Afterward, Western Union gradually moved out of its space. 60 Hudson Street remained a major telecommunications hub, as the wires of six long-distance communications providers converged under the building. Internet hub and offices , also known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, is at right After Western Union left, 60 Hudson Street was converted into a colocation center and grew into one of the most important internet hubs in the world. Hundreds of telecommunications companies interconnect their respective internet networks (known as peering) as well as conventional TDM traffic through numerous meet-me rooms and optical and electrical lines placed throughout the building. Many data center colocation providers are tenants in the building. Epsilon Telecommunications, one such company, has built optical and electrical cabling facilities throughout the building since 1997. Various data centers including Epsilon, Digital Realty, and DataBank house internet and telecommunications providers for the purpose of collocating high capacity transport equipment used to terminate traffic both inbound and outbound with each other. The exteriors and ground-floor lobbies of 60 Hudson Street and two other telecommunications buildings were designated city landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1991. After Western Union moved out of 60 Hudson Street, some of the space was occupied by city and state agencies. These included the New York City Department of Buildings, which had an office there by the late 1980s, and the New York City Department of Correction, which moved there in 2002. The city's departments of buildings and correction left 60 Hudson Street in 2010, and the space was subsequently used by internet providers. There has been some controversy about the usage of 60 Hudson Street as a colocation building. Residents of the surrounding neighborhood complained in 1999 that the cooling structures on the building were too loud. 60 Hudson Street's then-owners, Hudson Telegraph Associates, agreed to mitigate noise coming from the building. In 2006, a New York City panel approved the storage of nearly of diesel fuel on six floors of the building, part of some of fuel oil stored in the building. Community opposition had been raised regarding concerns that the presence of the fuel oil posed a fire hazard that could result in a catastrophic failure of the building. 60 Hudson Street underwent some renovations starting in 2015. In early 2022, Cordiant Digital Infrastructure announced that it would acquire the building's owner, DataGryd, whose sole property was 60 Hudson Street. == Critical reception ==

The facade served to give emphasis to the building's shape: the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City observed that 60 Hudson Street resembled "a huge red rock projecting out of the city". Stern wrote that 60 Hudson Street's decoration was "rather integral" to the brick facade, as opposed to at the Barclay–Vesey Building, which contained decorative elements and a facade in "contradiction" to each other. Architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern described the interlocking slabs of the massing as fulfilling "Hugh Ferriss's poetic conceit of the tall building as a manmade mountain". ==See also==