PHONE COMPANY PLANS 23STDRY HEADQUARTERS Located at Willoughby and Bridge It Will Take in 325,000 Sq. Ft. The New York Telephone Company has assembled a plot at the northeast corner of Bridge and Willoughby for the site of its largest Brooklyn building. It will be 23 stories high and will be headquarters for the Long Island area. Its completion is scheduled for the early fall of 1931.
In the meantime the 12 old brick dwellings on the site will be demolished. The property obtained for the new building is in the block immediately adjoining the present Long Island headquarters at 81 Willoughby st. and its Bridge st. annex, this providing the company with a centralized location for all three structures. The sit has a frontage of 100 feet on Willoughby extending from the corner to the rectory of the Church of St.
Boniface and 255 feet on Bridge extending from the corner to the old Fleet st. Memorial Church, Provides 325,000 Sq. Ft. of Space. The 23 floors will provide 325,000 square feet of space.
They.will house-. the executive and start otncers or. the Long Island area, together with approximately 3.500 employees. In making known the purcha.se of the rite and the general plans for its im provement, J. J.
Robinson, vice president and general manager for this area, which includes both Long. Island and Staten Island, pointed to this project as practical evidence of the rapid and substantial growth, present and prospective, throughout i hese sections of the metropolitan and suburban territory. Will Eliminate Leases. "These new accommodations," Mr. rtobinson stated, "will do away with the necessity, existing for several years, of leasing a large amount of space in other buildings.
It will be thus possible to effect important economies and promote those matters of efficiency and service which are difficult when the headquarters personnel is scattered." "Only seven years ago it was necessary," Mr. Robinson pointed out, "to enlarge the existing eight-story headquarters building, erected in 1899, by an addition which extended its frontage along the entire Willoughby st. block between Lawrence and Bridge sts. and gave it a depth pf 250 feet on Bridge st. These combined buildings house the Main, Triangle and Cumberland central offices as well as various of the executive and departmental officers and staffs.
They will continue to be used, Mr. Robinson said, for operating and other telephone purposes after the new building is erected. 300 Percent Gain in Ten Years. Mr. Robinson called attention to telephone growth.
Today, with some 750.000 telephones, it has nearly 00.000 more than a year ago and more than three times as many as ten years ago. Brooklyn, with some 440.000 telephones, has approximately 30,000 more than a year ago, and Queens, with about 180.000, has 25.000 more than last year. In both boros the increase in ten years has bten more than 300 percent. Main Structure 18 Stories. Mr.
Robinson stated that the final design of the building has not been completed. He said that the main body of the structure, however, will be 18 stories, surmounted by a central tower of five additional stories, the height from the street level being upward of 300 feet. The contract for razing the old houses has been let..