Licensed Creative Commons Attribution, by rustybrick

"Step out of New York's 14th Street subway stop, turn up Eighth Avenue, and there, in the heart of Chelsea - amid the traffic, delis, pizzerias, and restaurants - is Google's largest software engineering center outside of Mountain View," reports Information Week. Google opened their new NY offices 5 months ago and already has around 500 employees who work on print ads, Google Finance, Google Spreadsheets, Checkout and more. "Five hundred Google engineers, salespeople, and support staff work - and play - in more than 250,000 square feet of space in an Art Deco icon that once housed the Port Authority of New York, the bistate agency (New Jersey included) that manages the metropolitan area's transportation infrastructure."

Google explains why they chose to be there: "The New York thing is very simple. There are a large number of incredibly skilled computer scientists in the area," says Google engineering director Craig Nevill-Manning.

Gothamist visited Google New York and has some beautiful pictures. "The fourth floor lobby of Google's NYC headquarters is as bright and bold as its homepage, accented by a gigantic Google Earth which virtually transports you to view any location in the world as it zooms in on places throughout the day. The primary colors of Google's logo are reflected throughout the office where every day of the week Google makes life colorful for its employees."</img> </img> </img>