Vintage Telephone Exchange Switchboard Room

Rows of switchboard operators sit wearing headsets, plugging cables into a wall of jacks that stretches the length of the room. Coiled spare cables in red, yellow, and blue hang from a rack beside stacked server cabinets, while a technician crouches to rewire a panel. A teleprinter spits out a curling paper tape next to a bank of cooling fans, and a man dozes at a cluttered desk on a mouse-patterned rug. Two workers wheel an equipment cart past a desk piled with ledgers, a cat trots down the aisle, and a boy tugs at a control panel while a man points to its blinking lights. Coats hang by lockers near a revolving door, a janitor mops a spill, and a tray of coffee mugs is carried toward a break table. Bundled cables run along the floor in color-coded lines, like threads sorted for someone to trace to their source.