Did THIS Building Jinx The Ciattarelli Campaign?

I'll never forget the night -- or the setting.

It was June 11, 2025 and Jack Ciattarelli hosted a huge party to celebrate his primary election win, becoming the Republican party's nominee for governor of New Jersey. The party had everything: booze, a wide array of food, a big media presence, an impressive collection of Joizee hotshots and a stunning performance by Ciattarelli who won every one of the Garden State's 21 counties, emerging as the GOP's overwhelming favorite.

Ciattarelli took the stage like a celebrity amidst wild cheers and in his echoing victory speech, he alluded to the event's spectacular setting. No, we weren't in the typical hotel ballroom or at catering facility. We were enclosed within a vast, iconic architectural edifice that Ciattarelli cited as an historic center of innovation.

And large as Ciattarelli's party was, it was pea-sized within this behemoth which looms over the horizon of Monmouth County's flat, coastal plain with an ominous presence. Even the approach to the building is imposing as this maze like structure seems to sit in the middle of a sprawling, open field. 

As I entered the building I had the sense of two football fields directly in front of me, surrounded by dual soaring rectangles of open office corridors rising floor-after-floor. The place is called Bell Works. Designed by modernist architect Eero Saarinen, this former Bell Labs research complex features a distinct, dystopian, and extended glass-and-steel design. My initial reaction? This place is big, it's cold and, well -- it's just plain weird! I tried to take some photos but the vastness of the place defied depiction.

OK, fine -- yet not enough to jinx the campaign, right? Correct! 

But what I didn't know that night (and later discovered) is that Bell Works in Holmdel serves as the eerie Lumon Industries office building in Apple TV's creepy, ongoing series Severance. I bring this up because I've since had a chance to watch Severance and it's absolutely terrifying as it depicts a vast corporate empire where employees have their brains medically altered. The building is as much a preternatural character in the show as the stars.

Ever since Bell Labs was dismantled following the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, things have never been quite the same at its former home. It's sort of a ghost headquarters with an old phone booth, sitting forlornly in a dark corner like a faded relic. It all seems so empty, so immense, so commodious that any attempt to liven it up appears bound to be met with the chilly response of a mausoleum.

Jack Ciattarelli seemed to be on the road to success on the night of June 11. All systems looked to be "go" and the sky was the limit. But looming above was the horror of Lumen Industries and the folly of whoever picked this dreary "kiss of death" for a party. Jinxed? Stranger things have happened!