Viewpoints – Placecloud (English)

San Francisco, United States. 611 Folsom in downtown San Francisco is one of AT&Ts principal telco buildings in the city, making it a major data center and internet connection point. The site gained some notoriety when the National Security Agency’s tap into the telephone company’s fiber backbone in the building (conducted out of Room 641A), was exposed to the public in 2006.

San Juan Hill, United States. 60 Hudson Street is one of Manhattan’s “Big Three” networked buildings (the others are 32 Avenue of the Americas and 111 8th Ave.). Built in 1930, it was the former headquarters for Western Union. The meet-me room on the ninth floor is one of the most connected places in the world.

San Jose, United States. The Market Post Tower in San Jose was the original MAE-West building, a vital connection point in the early internet. Like its east coast affiliate, MAE-East, started at 1800 Boone Street in Tysons Corner, Virginia, MAE-West was set up by Metropolitan Fiber Systems in the early 1990s. The building is among the most connected fiber sites in the nation, and is still a busy data center. It is associated with the One Wilshire tower in Los Angeles.

Runnymeade (historical), United States. 529 Bryant Street, in Palo Alto, is an important early data center and internet connection point, once known as the Palo Alto Internet Exchange, and the “Winchester Mystery House of the Internet.” It was a local telephone company building that was developed as an independent carrier neutral exchange point in 1996, and was the headquarters for Alta Vista, a popular early internet search engine. The facility is now operated by data center giant Equinix, whose founders first set up PAIX there. It is located just of the main drag of University Avenue, behind an Apple store and a Starbucks.

Lubbock is the capitol of cottonseed oil production in the nation, and there are several large-scale plants and storage sites associated with the industry, like this cottonseed oil mill operated by PYCO Industries. PYCO is likely the largest cottonseed cooperative in the nation, with more than 60 member gins. Cottonseed oil produced here is used for cooking, and the byproducts–cottonseed meal, hulls, and linters– are used for nutritional ingredients by the livestock industry, and also for manufacturing products such as mattresses, upholstery, paper, and plastics.

San Juan Hill, United States. Measured to its roof (1,396 feet above the street), the slender residential tower at 432 Park Avenue is amongst the tallest in New York City. Despite its height, 432 Park Avenue has a base of only 100x100 feet, making it likely the most expensive 10,000 square feet of ground in the nation.

Glencoe, United States. 3M’s plant in Hutchinson started out as a hemp plant, making rope for World War II. After the war, it was purchased by 3M and converted to make cellophane tape, famously known as Scotch Tape. In 1956 a second building was constructed next to the original rope/tape plant, and in 1995 the two buildings were connected, making the tape plant the company’s largest single manufacturing plant. It still makes tape today, including blue painters tape, as well as other office and consumer adhesive paper products. 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing), is based in Maplewood, a suburb of St. Paul, and operates 40 plants around the USA.

Hastings, United States. The largest of five 3M plants in Minnesota is the Cottage Grove Center, on the Mississippi, south of the Twin Cities. It was established in 1948, and has around 35 buildings on its 1,750 acre site. It is a Research and Development, as well as a production center, and developed many of the company’s widely used coatings and films, such as Scotchguard, window coatings, reflective sign coatings, and the adhesives used on Scotch Tape and Post-it Notes. 3M, one of the most Minnesota-esque companies, with the three Ms representing Minnesota, Mining, and Manufacturing, is based in Maplewood, a suburb of St. Paul, and operates 40 plants around the USA.

San Juan Hill, United States. 375 Pearl Street, generally known as the Verizon Building, next to the Brooklyn Bridge, was built as a switching center for the New York Telephone Company in 1975. Later bought by Verizon, which still operates some telephone switching facilities on floors 8-10, much of the building’s data storage function is owned by the data-center developer Sabey Inc.

San Juan Hill, United States. The windowless slab of 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan is a 550 foot tall telephone switching center, the largest in the city, and among the largest in the world. It was built by AT and T in 1974, as its new Long Lines (long-distance) hub. It is still a telco switching center, though it now houses equipment for Verizon, as well as AT and T. It is also a major data center.