Upon completion, 32 Avenue of the Americas was the largest building in the world that specifically handled long-distance calling.

The other ornamental elements give 32 Avenue of the Americas the impression of being both progressive and technologically up-to-date, reflecting its interior use.

[7] 32 Avenue of the Americas was one of several technologically advanced headquarters erected in the mid-20th century for communications and utility companies in the U.S.[4] Its design program was mainly composed of woven motifs, because AT&T had described long-distance switchboard operators as "Weavers of Speech".

[4][9] Though setbacks in New York City skyscrapers were mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution in order to allow light and air to reach the streets below, they later became a defining feature of the Art Deco style.

[11] According to architectural historian Anthony W. Robins, 32 Avenue of the Americas is more geometrically organized than 60 Hudson Street and the Barclay–Vesey Building, as it was the last of the group to be completed.

The bulky 24-story massing of the Lispenard Building's northern and southern elevations were incorporated into the expanded structure, exceeding the sloping "envelope" mandated by the 1916 zoning law.

[8] The western elevation, along Sixth Avenue, consisted of a "screen" with 15-story wings on either side of a central portion rising 16 stories.

[12] A brick facade was used for 32 Avenue of the Americas and for Walker's other communications buildings, since he preferred the material for its texture and its flexibility in color combinations.

On the newer sections, each bay contains single or paired six-over-six sash windows made of steel.

[8] The top three floors were built atop a 90-foot-long (27 m), 450-foot-high (140 m) steel truss, which rested on the roofs of the two new wings, above the height of the original building.

[17] The Church Street side of the lobby is supported by a series of piers along the center of the corridor, and contains two perpendicular bends.

The walls contain pink marble at their bottoms, above which are vertical ceramic tiles separated by red-tile pilasters.

On the Church Street side, the elevator bank used to contain two additional openings; throughout the lobby, signs and lighting have also been changed.

The representation of Europe wears a crown and holds a spear and orb while leaning on an Ionic-style capital; there is a Roman aqueduct, St. Peter's Basilica, and Notre-Dame de Paris in the background.

[14] One of the female messengers in the center of the ceiling is wearing a stiletto heel, which may be a reference to Meière's original design.

There was 800,000 square feet (74,000 m2) of rentable space when the building opened, though the toll and long lines offices occupied about 85% of that area.

[11][23] The block containing 32 Avenue of the Americas was part of the Lispenard family farm in the late 18th century, and the streets surrounding the site were surveyed and paved in 1810.

The 17-story building's facade consisted of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column: namely a four-story base, 12-story shaft, and one-story capital.

The facade was mostly made of brick, but the ground story was faced with limestone, and terracotta cornices separated each of the three sections.

[33] In March 1914, McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin submitted an application to the New York City Department of Buildings for a seven-story addition, which would increase the total height to 24 stories.

[27] The surrounding area underwent multiple changes in the late 1920s and early 1930s that resulted in AT&T's acquisition of the entire block.

[27] The first change occurred in 1926, when the extension of Sixth Avenue southward from Greenwich Village was announced as a means to provide a more direct route for traffic to and from the Holland Tunnel.

[39][40] In August 1929, New York Telephone paid the city $300,000 for two lots along the eastern sidewalk of the Sixth Avenue extension.

The extensions would have a similar design to the existing structure and would take up the remainder of the block between Sixth Avenue and Walker, Lispenard, and Church Streets, except for a chamfer at the building's northwestern corner.

[7] After the completion of 24 Walker Street's annexes, its address was changed to 32 Sixth Avenue,[48][a] and it became the world's largest long-distance communications hub.

[25] AT&T was considering selling off 32 Avenue of the Americas by 1999, and estimated that such a sale would gross $125–150 million, though it planned to lease back 30 to 40 percent of the space.

[22] Upon buying 32 Avenue of the Americas, the Rudins planned to renovate the building into a "New York Global Connectivity Center".

[58] Between 2001 and 2002, 32 Avenue of the Americas underwent an extensive renovation by the architecture firm of Fox & Fowle, which included the installation of new mechanical and communications infrastructure.

[58] The tenants included AT&T, Cogent Communications, iHeartMedia, Qwest, Cambridge University Press, Verizon, T-Mobile, TV Globo International, GloboNews, 360i, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Tribeca Film Institute, Tribeca Film Festival, Stealth Communications, and New York University.

The facility is a convergent point for buyers and sellers of bandwidth; for over 50 terrestrial carriers, content providers, ISPs, and enterprise tenants.