#thanks club dial ladies I pass this concrete dinosaur every morning and I love it

[power-chords]

The New York Telephone Company Building was one of the first completed projects in the 130-acre White Plains Urban Renewal Area. A telephone building previously occupied the site, and the company announced plans in 1968 to renovate and expand the structure, citing anticipated growth from the urban renewal area as the “chief reason for the necessary expansion.” (The Reporter Dispatch, 1968). Because of the building’s structural integrity, it was saved from demolition, but the “bulky ugliness” of the building led New York Telephone to an “imaginative design [that] turned this clumsy monster into a modern functional sculpture. In this special instance, the architectural challenge was mainly aesthetic.” (Club Dial, 1974)

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The building was described by Paul Goldberger for the New York Times as overbearing while also being ambitious, “aggressively sculptural and altogether unwelcoming.” (New York Times, 1983) Goldberger was critical of White Plains' automobile-centered urban renewal development, but especially tough on the Telephone Building, stating it “may look intriguing as one passes it in a car, but that makes it like most of the new downtown White Plains, a place that if it works at all, it is from the vantage of the automobile.” (New York Times, 1983) However, the Club Dial, a magazine published by the Woman's Club of White Plains, took a liking to the brutalist behemoth, writing it was cleverly rejuvenated and a fresh new look of a previously boring structure:

“Instead of a variety of different window types, the architect applied one single element, a flat, rectangular concrete slab (like a Venetian blind's blade) creating an intricate appearance by the positional and directional variations of the same element. The dynamic relationship of the horizontal and vertical positions interrupted by omissions at unexpected locations performs like a symphony and dispels the last trace of boredom of the original structure.” (Club Dial, 1974)