Ventilation Building

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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Ventilation Building
Governors Island
New York, September 2007

“The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel has a total of four ventilation buildings: two in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, and one on Governors Island. One of the Manhattan ventilation buildings is granite-faced and designed like a monument, due to objections to the building's design during the construction process. The Manhattan ventilation structure was depicted as the men in black's headquarters in the Men in Black movie franchise. The Governors Island ventilation structure, designed by McKim, Mead & White, is an octagonal building located over the midpoint of the tunnel's route, at its lowest point. According to the MTA, the ventilation buildings can completely replace the tunnel's air every ninety seconds. During construction, tunnel engineers touted the ventilation system as being so efficient that the ventilation towers could blow 25,000 tons of clean air into the tunnel every hour. The system consists of 53 fans that each had a diameter of 8 feet (2.4 m).” (Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, Wikipedia)