Inside Google: Notes and Photos from Media Day at Google’s Manhattan Office

Google hosted a small open house at their new Manhattan offices today. They were kind enough to invite me, so I lugged along my ancient digital camera and took twenty-odd photos. Check them out here. Below, four photos from the tour.

Other notes:

• Engineering director Craig Nevill-Manning said Google chose the building because it fit Google’s Silicon Valley culture. The open spaces allow for collaboration. In response to my question about why the best place for Google’s culture happened to be in a huge carrier hotel, he said “No, there are no plans to open a data center.”
• Craig: “We’re excited that the high line will be made palatable for the public in the next few years.”
• Google chose to make Manhattan its second largest engineering office because there are a lot of great engineers who don’t want to move to California, and NYC has a history of excellence in software development.
• Maps, Spreadsheets, half of Checkout, Blog Search, and mobile search were all developed in Manhattan
• Tim Armstrong: The MySpace and AOL deals originated out of this office

Tim also told a story about the first time NYC Googlers tried to close an advertising deal. Armstrong said the first advertiser they called hung up on them. When they finally got a deal worked out, they needed to have a fax machine to fax the signatures. The NYC Googlers called Larry and Sergey in Mountain View and asked for a fax machine, but Larry and Sergey asked them to first send a copy of their pipeline to ensure this deal wasn’t a one-off kind of thing.

The photos: First is a whiteboard drawing I saw in the hallway. That’s a death ray bottom left, and a life extinguisher on bottom right. In parentheses it says “death rays are evil.”

Here’s a shot of the Google game room, complete with foosball, basketball, air hockey, pool, and Guitar Hero.

The Google chef explained to the sous chefs and media that Googlers like to have three small desserts instead of one large dessert.

New York engineering director Craig Nevill-Manning listens to VP ad sales Tim Armstrong give a presentation.

More photos here.