The Cable Building, Beaux Arts building in NoHo, Manhattan, United States.
The Cable Building at 611 Broadway is a nine-story office and cultural building in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. It has a limestone base with a two-story arcade at street level, and the upper floors are covered in light orange brick with terra cotta trim.
The building was constructed between 1892 and 1894 to serve as the power station for the Metropolitan Traction Company's cable car network. It supplied energy to lines running from Bowling Green in the south up to 36th Street.
The entrance is flanked by two large sculpted figures by J. Massey Rhind, created to honor the engineering achievements of the late 19th century. This kind of public art was a common way New Yorkers celebrated technical progress at the time.
The upper office floors are entered from the Broadway side of the building, while the Angelika Film Center has its own street entrance. Only the basement levels where the cinema is located are open to the general public.
Four floors below street level once held massive steam engines and winding machines that moved steel cables weighing around 40 tons. These machines ran continuously to keep the entire cable car network moving through the city.
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