Photos: Google takes Manhattan
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Following a year of speculation, Google has finally opened its new office in the Big Apple at 111 Eighth Ave., in the heart of the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, New York.
Google will occupy about 300,000 square feet on three floors of the building. Built in 1932 for the New York Port Authority, the building is home to such companies as Global Crossing and Barnesandnoble.com. It is the second-largest building in Manhattan in terms of square footage.
About 500 of Google’s 8,000 employees currently work in New York.
New York is home to Google’s largest advertising sales office. It also houses the largest software engineering development outside of the company’s home base in Mountain View, Calif. The new office space, which is very open, will allow for more collaboration among teams, executives say.
Just like at the home office in California, Google employees can be seen scooting around the 300,000 square feet of office space on their Razor scooters.
Craig Nevill-Manning, Google’s New York engineering director (left), and Tim Armstrong, vice president of advertising sales, say a New York City presence is crucial to the company’s success because it helps Google to recruit top-notch talent.
More than 100 engineering projects are housed in the New York office. And where there are engineers, there will be games. Google’s game room features a ping-pong table and a basketball hoop. Employees also can play pool, foosball or air hockey.
What game room would be complete without a video game setup and electronic guitar setup? Not Google’s.
One of the perks of working for Google is access to free food all the time. This is one of many fully stocked kitchens that employees can use.
This micro-cafeteria offers ready-made sandwiches and salads.
In addition to the snack bars, the new offices house a small cafeteria. Here employees can take advantage of a salad bar, dessert table, prepared hot dishes and ready-made sandwiches. Google also plans to open a full cafe on the eighth floor of the building in November that will offer employees an even greater variety of food options. Google employs a full-time chef and kitchen staff.
