All a-Twitter

All a-Twitter The original headquarters of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, located at 111 Eighth Ave. in New York City, was the hub of the region’s massive transportation activities. Google recently chose this 2.9-million-square-foot modern office building and retail center as its North American advertising sales headquarters and largest engineering center outside of its California headquarters. The building will reportedly house software engineers, system administrators, site-reliability engineers, technical writers, quality engineers, test engineers, user experience researchers, product managers and more. Whatever happened to the days when technology companies were located in campus settings with idyllic and well-manicured grounds, where employees relax and maximize their creative juices? Word has it that Twitter is likewise moving into urban space in San Francisco. This trend signals an important shift in how and where technology types live and work. Good news for downtown locations, more bad news for suburban developers. I guess at lunch break Google employees will now play stick ball in the streets of New York.