Viewpoints – Placecloud (English)

San Juan Hill, United States. This is one of AT&T’s principal telco buildings in Manhattan, built as the Long Line headquarters in 1932, and is heavily connected to the backbone of the internet. The meet-me room on the 24th floor is known as the Hub, and is a major carrier neutral co-location point in the city.

Bellingham, United States. A few years ago the Leu family, the owners of a house there, began construction on a retaining wall at the bottom of their property, which slopes downwards towards the boundary line. The International Boundary Commission became aware of the construction, and determined that the wall was 30 inches inside the vista line, and would have to be removed. The homeowners protested, and legal wrangling ensued. When things were settled, the wall stayed, but the US head of the Boundary Commission, Dennis Schornack, was fired for handling the matter poorly.  He did not go down easily though. The appointment of the US Boundary Commissioner is made by the President of the United States. After receiving the letter from President Bush informing him of his dismissal, Commissioner Schornack responded with a letter to the President, saying that he had no authority to fire him, according to the International Treaty of 1908 that created the IBC. President Bush fired him anyways.

Daysville (historical), United States. This was the original headquarters for America Online, otherwise known as AOL, one of the first major consumer internet access and email companies. Its campus is now owned by Verizon, since the company purchased AOL and Yahoo in 2017. Verizon named the new entity, Oath, then renamed it again in 2019, calling it simply Verizon Media. The site is across the street from a major Raytheon complex, and located in the middle of the largest data center cluster in the USA, Loudon County, Virginia.

Peterson (historical), United States. Digital Realty’s data center in Chandler, Arizona, is at the southern edge of Phoenix’s sprawl, near a massive Intel plant, and companies like Orbital ATK and Iridium. The facility is said to be the largest data center in Arizona, totaling 519,000 square feet with 23 MW of IT power.

Newark, United States. The Old Macy’s Building, in downtown Newark, was an underutilized building that has been transformed into a data center. The building is large, and thus has sometimes been referred to as the “largest carrier hotel in the world” (it is not, but it’s up there). This is not the only former downtown retail department store to have been converted into a data center.

Phoenix, United States. A data center and internet exchange building in downtown Phoenix, across from Freeport McMoran’s headquarters building. Possibly the most connected building in Arizona, with several fiber optic backbone connections running through it. In 2006, Digital Realty Trust purchased the facility for $175 million.

San Juan Hill, United States. 111 8th Avenue is one of the most important internet buildings in the world. The Art Deco structure was built in 1932, and occupies an entire block. With nearly three million square feet, it was the largest single structure in New York for more than 30 years, and became a large telco hotel in the early ages of the internet. It is now the east-coast hub for Google, which bought the building for $1.9 billion in 2010.

Snake Nation (historical), United States. This warehouse has been converted into a 500,000 square foot data center, northeast of downtown Atlanta, operated by QTS as the Atlanta Data Center. Initially it was the largest data center for Twitter, and the first dedicated space developed by the company outside of its headquarters in Silicon Valley. Twitter also operates on NTT servers in Ashburn, Virginia, and many other places now.

Ealing Broadway, United Kingdom. The Hammersmith Apollo is an iconic venue, nestled in the heart of Hammersmith. It began its journey as the Gaumont Palace in 1932 and was designed by Robert Cromie in the Art Deco style, originally serving as a cinema.

Ealing Broadway, United Kingdom. Joy Boughton was born into a world humming with artistry and creativity. Her father was a composer, known for painting emotions with his compositions, and her mother carved out her niche in the world of design.