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Comment by magila | Hacker News Reader

I work across the street from this building. One thing I noticed is that in early 2015 they boarded up the balcony on the 6th floor. Presumably it was to stop someone from gaining access to this room by climbing up the side of the building and breaking in through the balcony door.

http://imgur.com/SA4DRjo

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That's interesting. Why would they do that? I mean if somebody is willing to break through a balcony, traversing between floors shouldn't be a big problem. And the second balcony is quite far away, there could be the same secure entrance between it and the room, as the floor entrance (If you can't just get there through the elevator). Maybe it's more about being able to see people who work there?

That could be, although in the time I've been here I've seen people out on those balconies maybe twice, and one of those was when they were installing a microwave antenna. I get the impression they are there mostly as a place to shelter in an emergency.

Edit: Typically the stairs and elevators in buildings like that are pretty well locked down to prevent unauthorized access from inside. The elevator probably opens into a small lobby with heavy locked doors blocking access to the rest of the floor. The balcony doors may not have been so well secured.

Maybe it's just to protect the antennas from weather.

Wow, I've been commuting past there for nearly a year and had no idea!

There are a lot of places like that, just Google something like:

(secret OR sensitive) (facility OR building) INSERT-LOCATION-NAME

I had a pretty good chuckle when I did that. First result was "Nut-free and scent-sensitive facility - elementary school". Second up was "Culturally-sensitive treatment facility".

I do know of a few pretty sensitive places nearby, and I'm kind of glad they didn't come up on Google searches.

There's definitely locations listed online that should not be, though as areas become less populated, best way to find secret location is visual analysis of satellite maps, or call a local social hotspot, claim to be from a major newspaper and asked if they know any; point being, it's possible to find them unless they're very careful.

Where's the sidewalk? I thought San Francisco was supposed to be mad pedestrian friendly, but that neighborhood looks like shit

The entire strip between the trees and the base of the building.

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