In case you didn’t know it, the whole internet runs through downtown LA – One Wilshire specifically. Today Xeni filed this report of a tour though the building which is, well, as she puts it:
“If the Internet is a superhighway, One Wilshire is a really popular roadside hotel. It’s a 30-story building, and once exclusively housed law offices… …23 of the building’s floors are now designed to house not people, but some of the most important communications infrastructure in the country.
“The site is what’s known as a “carrier hotel.” The occupants: connection hardware from nearly 300 Internet and telecommunications giants from around the world. Familiar U.S. companies such as AT&T and Google are here, but so are carriers from Europe, India and Asia.”
Here’s a flickr set of photos (including the one above) that she took, and here’s a link to the MP3 for iTunes or the archive on NPR. Definitely one of the cooler things about downtown that you’d never know from appearances.
I think my mom actually used to work at One Wilshire many many many many years ago as a secretary.
Glad to see the old law offices are being put to a better use. But sheesh…one good quake it comes down and takes the ‘net with it!
wonder what would happen if it “went down” , via earthquake or insurgency