A Cold, Hard Tour of Brutalist New York City

With stops at the Salt Shed and the Tribeca Synagogue, the tour was among the highlights of Jane’s Walks, an ongoing series of curated strolls across the city.

On a brisk Saturday morning in early May, tour guide Liza Pagano waited for a group of New Yorkers to meet at the foot of an imposing Tribeca skyscraper that exemplifies Brutalism in the city.

The windowless gray concrete cast tower at 33 Thomas Street, commonly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, was completed in 1974, roughly two decades after the heyday of the post-war architectural style. 

Some denizens argue that it’s one of the uglier buildings looming over Lower Manhattan and fundamentally out of sync with the neighborhood’s Civil War-era cast-iron lofts and postmodernist condos.

Hyperallergic article by Aaron Short