Sirius HeadQuarters Tour
The SiriusXM NYC headquarters are awash in a bright, quiet energy – a unique office where the people and technology mix and mingle in their work. Nestled on the 36th floor of the McGraw-Hill building, the Sirius headquarters open up to a wide, spacious lobby where fresh faced employees clang away on keyboards under beaming white lights. A massive screen plastered to the panoramic window declares “SIRIUS WELCOMES …” followed by the name of a guest. The office is flushed in blue and white, glass separator walls dominating every inch of the space.
To the right, a hall is closed off by a little white door, a poster of a black fist guarding it. Here, the word “HOWARD” is written – with an air of finality and mystery, sealing off Howard Stern wing.
The left wing of the office is divided into a garden of glass boxes, sometimes with signatures and stickers decorating the panes. Some house an array of wires, switches and machina, others house people – working in front massive computer screens and sweeping switchboards, seated in circular tables with microphones jutting out at them.
On the walls, interns’ computers sit in a tight row. Small triangular beacons hover above – some screaming “ON AIR” in soft yellow light.
Inside a studio, a producer and director are seated before a button infested switchboard in a cramped room. As they are partitioned from their show’s host, Andrew Wilkow, by a soundproof glass screen, they filter callers and their questions through shorthand on a broad computer screen, toy with sound bites and incoming calls, and communicate to Wilkow with their hands – signing to relay information.Wilkow is deep in conversation with his invisible audience, pausing his speech only to address a radio caller who asks him a question. He then gets passionate, and begins to rant into the tall microphone that juts out from the table, just as his crew waves their hands back and forth behind the glass for him to take a break.
The variety of broadcasts on the Sirius network are as expansive and diverse as its crew. Sirius offers content in comedy to hip hop, from right-wing conservative talk to Catholic broadcasting. In the individual studios – the office’s glass boxes – Sirius employees and radio hosts speak, gesture and laugh to each other, their mouths glued to massive microphones. They are inaudible from outside and sometimes concealed by sweeping velvet curtains or little white doors. Those who aren’t hidden wave and smile to whomever passes by in the hallway, never breaking concentration from the task at hand. Those who are live on the air like Andrew Wilkow can greet and communicate with those passing by, without the listening audience none the wiser.
Every host, journalist, intern, producer, director and other Sirius employees seem to be in place with the machina that rules this office. They mingle efficiently with the technology and the broadcasts as they work, conducting an orchestra of computers, mics and switchboards. Music softly blares from overhead office speakers, but everyone seems to be in tune with their task. The office is alive blending the organic nature of human work and sound, filtered through an armada of technology and soundproof glass. Every wire and human hand working towards sending news, music, culture, and even social change through the airwaves – in perfect harmony.