The Fake Buildings of New York: What Happens Inside Their Mysterious Walls

You can’t go on a walk with a seri­ous enthu­si­ast of New York his­to­ry with­out hear­ing the sto­ries behind at least a few notable, beau­ti­ful, or down­right strange build­ings. Yet most long­time New York­ers, famed for tun­ing out their sur­round­ings to bet­ter strive for their goals of the day, tend not even to acknowl­edge the struc­tures liable to catch the atten­tion of out-of-town­ers. Take 58 Jorale­mon Street in Brook­lyn Heights: “From the out­side, it looks like your typ­i­cal town­house,” says urban explor­er Cash Jor­dan in his video above — but then you notice its blacked-out win­dows, bunker-like met­al cladding, and appar­ent­ly un-open­able door.

Though it was indeed a town­house when first built in 1847, 58 Jorale­mon Street was hol­lowed out and con­vert­ed into one sub­way-sys­tem vent back in 1907. But the build­ings right on either side remain res­i­dences, one of which, as Jor­dan finds, sold not long ago for $6 mil­lion.

In a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, more iso­lat­ed con­text stands the Streck­er Memo­r­i­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry on Roo­sevelt Island. Built in 1892 as a lab­o­ra­to­ry for City Hos­pi­tal, it opened as “the first insti­tu­tion in the nation for patho­log­i­cal and bac­te­ri­o­log­i­cal research,” an activ­i­ty it makes sense to keep apart from a dense urban envi­ron­ment. Aban­doned in the nine­teen-fifties, it lat­er became anoth­er sub­way facil­i­ty, specif­i­cal­ly a pow­er con­ver­sion sub­sta­tion.

Jor­dan also vis­its a fake build­ing well out on Pier 34, and one that also pro­vides a func­tion essen­tial to New York tran­sit: ven­ti­lat­ing the smoke and exhaust out of the Hol­land Tun­nel. Owned and oper­at­ed by pub­lic agen­cies, these struc­tures per­form well-doc­u­ment­ed and entire­ly non-secret func­tions. The same can’t be said of the last and most strik­ing fake build­ing Jor­dan intro­duces, a win­dow­less Bru­tal­ist tow­er con­struct­ed in 1969 at 33 Thomas Street in Low­er Man­hat­tan. Owned by AT&T, it seems once to have been a tele­phone switch­ing sta­tion, but has late­ly been rumored to be a “huge dooms­day bunker.” That’s one the­o­ry, any­way, and the build­ing’s sin­is­ter appear­ance could inspire count­less oth­ers. Not that many locals are imag­in­ing them, obey­ing as they do one of the cen­tral com­mand­ments of Man­hat­tan: don’t look up.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Sto­ry of the Flat­iron Build­ing, “New York’s Strangest Tow­er”

New York’s Lost Sky­scraper: The Rise and Fall of the Singer Tow­er

An Intro­duc­tion to the Chrysler Build­ing, New York’s Art Deco Mas­ter­piece, by John Malkovich (1994)

The Old­est House in New York City: Meet the Wyck­off House (1652)

Archi­tect Breaks Down Five of the Most Icon­ic New York City Apart­ments

A 3D Ani­ma­tion Shows the Evo­lu­tion of New York City (1524 — 2023)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.