Walking through the West Village a couple months ago I came across this odd building that seemed to have a railroad track running through the second floor.

It turns out the railroad isn’t the only thing noteworthy thing about the building:

• Known as the Westbeth, it’s the largest artists’ colony in the world. It was one of the first industrial buildings in NYC to be converted to loft space for artists, and remains in use today.
• The train tracks on the second floor were originally part of the High Line, an elevated railway that ran up Manhattan’s west side. The track below Gansevoort Street has been dismantled, leaving the Westbeth’s section of track orphaned.
• Prior to becoming an artists’ colony, the building housed a Bell Labs research facility that produced some of the most important electronics advances of the analog era.
• Actor/filmmaker Vin Diesel grew up there.