463 West Street is a 13-building complex located on the block between West Street, Washington Street, Bank Street, and Bethune Street in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York. It was originally the home of Bell Telephone Laboratories between 1898 and 1966. For a time, it was the largest industrial research center in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and further designated as a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

, as Bell Telephone Laboratories. Many early technological inventions were developed here including automatic telephone panel and

crossbar switch In electronics and telecommunications, a crossbar switch (cross-point switch, matrix switch) is a collection of switches arranged in a Matrix (mathematics), matrix configuration. A crossbar switch has multiple input and output lines that form a ...

es, the first experimental talking movies (1923), black-and-white and color TV, video telephones,

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

, the

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It ...

, medical equipment, the development of the

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

record and the first commercial broadcasts, including the first broadcast of a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

game and the New York Philharmonic with

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orche ...

conducting. It also served as the headquarters for the company from 1925 to the early 1960s,ATT history
/ref> after which the headquarters moved to

Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill is an unincorporated community located within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County, in the northern portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the longtime central location of Bell ...

. The site was also the home for part of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

during World War II. After two years of renovations by Richard Meier, the building was reopened in 1970 as Westbeth Artists Community for low- to middle-income

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

s. In addition to affordable artist housing, the complex contains a theater, an art gallery, and a synagogue. It was declared a

in 1975. The complex was listed a second time on the National Register in 2009, for its high-profile and successful example of adaptive reuse of the property. The southern viaduct section of the West Side Line railroad passed underneath the building at first floor level. This segment remains in place but is now isolated from the rest of the former railroad viaduct, which is now the High Line elevated park. Western Electric complex NYC 1936

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in New York Industrial buildings completed in 1898 Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Telecommunications buildings on the National Register of Historic Places National Historic Landmarks in Manhattan West Village Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New York City West Side Highway Bell Labs AT&T buildings

See also

References