This photo, which looks north, shows West Broadway running vertically past the building to its right and Hudson Street breaking off West Broadway to the left in the immediate foreground.  The Empire State Building can be seen about two miles in the distance.

A similar, but taller and less ostentatious building constructed by and once occupied by the Long Lines Department of AT&T can be seen a few blocks beyond and to the right of 60 Hudson Street.  New York Telephone occupied a building immediately to the left of where this photo was shot.  RCA Communications and ITT Worldcom occupied other similar, but smaller, structures near what was once the financial district south of 60 Hudson Street near the tip of Manhattan.  The building formerly serving as AT&T headquarters at 195 Broadway in lower Manhattan employed a different design concept.

60 Hudson Street now has other owners, but retains its original appearance and is still occupied by companies in the communications industry.  It is called a "carrier hotel' in the trade, and is one of two with that designation in New York.  Gaining access to the building is difficult now because of the high level of security maintained.  The top seems to have grown bristles of antennas since the Trade Center towers, which served as a communications center, went down.  Another photo of the building with recent information about its current use can be seen at http://www.carrierhotels.com/news/September2001/60hudson.shtml.

Art deco architecture implies buildings put up in the period of rapid business expansion before the depression of the 1930s, and is usually characterized by long thin forms and straight lines, although the Western Union building departs from this norm in that it is not topped by a tower. Numerous buildings employing art deco styling were built to Ralph Walker's designs, including several grouped together in the financial district of downtown Manhattan.

The most famous of those buildings is probably that built for the Irving Trust at 1 Wall Street.  Several depictions of the building and information about it can be seen at http://www.nyc-architecture.com/LM/LM051-BANKOFNEWYORK.htm.

Three art deco buildings were constructed in the late 1920s and early 30s for telecommunications companies in lower Manhattan that stood distinctively apart from their surroundings.  In addition to the two shown in the above photo, the 32 story structure that originally served as headquarters of the New York Telephone Company, known as the Barclay-Vesey Building for the streets that border it on the north and south, was completed in 1927 and is considered to be the first art deco skyscraper.  It was built on what was then the Hudson River waterfront immediately to the left of the site at which the above photo was taken.  Its design won awards at the time it was constructed, and its vaulted lobby is now an official interior Landmark.  It was  adjacent to the World Trade Center towers and was badly damaged by steel beams falling into it in the attack on the towers.  Go to http://www.nyc-architecture.com/LM/LM070.htm to view the building as originally constructed and browse down to see it as it appeared after 9/11.  A photo showing how it appeared after the Towers were built and before the attack can be seen by browsing down about five photos at http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON001.htm.  Note how buildings on the landfill into the Hudson obscured the view of Barclay-Vesey.

Through a series of mergers after the breakup of the Bell System, New York Telephone became New England Telephone, then Bell Atlantic, and then Verison, which is not headquartered in midtown Manhattan.  It was recently reported by the NYTimes that Verizon intends to move its corporate headquarters back into the Barclay-Vesey Building as soon as its renovation is completed.

Although less well known, the ATT Long Lines building in the photograph above is also a New York City Landmark.  It was recently renovated and now has other uses.  It can be seen at http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/SOH005.htm. Its functions were absorbed by a stark, and taller building now known as the ATTT Long Lines Building constructed in 1974 about three blocks east of 60 Hudson Street that can be seen at http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/SOH026.htm. 

The Association recently installed a plaque commemorating the Western Union Building's earlier, but important role in our County's history at its main entrance, as documented below.