Viewpoints – Placecloud

A remote and barren outpost on an island in the middle of the Aleutian Chain, the Naval Air Facility in Adak had a community of 5,000 as recently as a few years ago, until its closure in 1997 as mandated by the Base Realignment and Closure Act.

Grants United States An ancient native pueblo atop tall mesa, Acoma is one of the longest continuously inhabited communities in the country, established over a thousand years ago. Acoma, today, is a most unusual-looking place, with thousand-year old buildings that have been updated with modern improvements, such as doors from Home Depot.

Newcastle United States The Accidental Oil Company operated this oil well attraction in eastern Wyoming starting in 1970. The primary draw was a hand dug 24 foot-deep oil well, an excavated underground cavity that visitors could walk into through a lighted tunnel, and admire from a 58 foot-long viewing gallery.  Topside was a pump with a crank so people could pump oil out by hand. There was also o...

Keith historical United States In 1808, Abraham Lincoln’s father bought a property called Sinking Spring Farm, and built a cabin next to the spring, where his son, Abraham was born a year later. The property is now a National Historical Park with a visitor center about the revered 16th president of the USA.

Blackdom historical United States Possibly the only school constructed entirely underground, simultaneously serving as a fallout shelter. Built in 1962, at the height of Cold War fears. Said to have a capacity of 2,000. An above ground school has been built adjacent to it.

La Cueva historical United States The Abiquiu Reservoir was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1963, primarily for flood control, originally. In the 1970s, with the new water coming into the system from the other side of the Continental Divide through the San Juan-Chama Project, downstream cities, including Albuquerque, successfully petitioned to have more water stored in the reservoir. In th...

London United Kingdom This viewpoint is about a building in Bloomsbury that was the centre of social justice work over a century ago. It’s 41 Russell Square—where an Australian relative of mine worked for several years following World War I. Find out what she has to do with Australia's most prestigious literary award.

Birmingham United States The larger of two coke works in Birmingham is the Alabama Byproducts Corporation (ABC) plant, with 132 ovens, making 730,000 tons of coke for the steel industry per year. There are only a half dozen independent merchant coke plants left in the USA, and this is one of the largest. More often coke is manufactured on site as part of the “integrated production” of Old Steel pl...

Bedford United States A partially constructed pyramid, now long abandoned. In 1979, Bedford, the "Limestone Capital of the World," received over $700,000 in government grants to build an eight-story replica of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, as well as a 650-foot-long rendition of the Great Wall of China, out of native limestone. Work proceeded until funds ran out in 1982.

8100 Boone Blvd. at Tysons Corner in Vienna, Virginia, was the original location for MAE-East, the first principal exchange point for the commercialized internet on the East Coast. It was set up in this building by Metropolitan Fiber Systems in 1992. Around 50% of internet traffic in the early 1990s is said to have passed through this point. Today it is a small but still well-connected data center...

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 dat...

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 popul...

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, hul...

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 manufactu...

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, reflect...

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.

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...

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...

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.