World Trade Center station (PATH)

Station layout

The station currently has six tracks and four island platforms in a basement four stories underground. The new Platform A, next to tracks 1 and 2, opened as part of the Transportation Hub on February 25, 2014. Platform B between tracks 2 and 3 opened on May 7, 2015. The other two platforms opened on September 8, 2016.

The current station has a temporary entrance that has been open since the temporary station entered service in November 2003. With the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, the entrances and size of the temporary station have changed over time. The most current entrance to the station is located at Vesey Street, facing Greenwich Street and adjacent to 7 World Trade Center. The temporary entrance is a one-story building on the south side of Vesey Street with a Hudson News outlet and escalators extending into a lower level mezzanine. A connection to Brookfield Place was made available since October 27, 2013, through a permanent passageway known as the West Concourse. On August 16, 2016, the Westfield World Trade Center entrance opened.

Hudson Terminal

Hudson Terminal was built by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad at the turn of the twentieth century and was located between Greenwich, Cortlandt, Church, and Fulton Streets. The Hudson Terminal included two 22-story office buildings located above the station.

The terminal was an architectural and engineering marvel of its time, designed with ramps to allow pedestrian traffic to flow in and out of the station quickly and easily. The station was served by two single-track tubes connected by a loop to speed train movements. The loop included five tracks and 3 platforms (2 center island and one side) and was somewhat similar to the current arrangement. By 1914, passenger volume at the Hudson Terminal had reached 30,535,500 annually. Volume nearly doubled by 1922, with 59,221,354 passengers that year.

Overall ridership on New Jersey's Hudson and Manhattan Railroad declined substantially from a high of 113 million riders in 1927 to 26 million in 1958, after new automobile tunnels and bridges opened across the Hudson River. The State of New Jersey was interested in getting the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to take over the railroad, but the Port Authority long viewed it as something unprofitable and had no interest in doing so. In the late 1950s, the Port Authority proposed to build a "world trade center" in Lower Manhattan along the East River.

As a bi-state agency, Port Authority projects required approval from both the states of New Jersey and New York. Toward the end of 1961, negotiations with outgoing New Jersey Governor Robert B. Meyner regarding the World Trade Center project reached a stalemate. In December 1961, Port Authority executive director Austin J. Tobin met with newly elected New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes, and made a proposal to shift the World Trade Center project to the west side, where the Hudson Terminal was located.

In acquiring the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, the Port Authority also acquired the Hudson Terminal and other buildings which were deemed obsolete. On January 22, 1962, the two states reached an agreement to allow the Port Authority to take over the railroad and build the World Trade Center on Manhattan's lower west side. The shift in location for the World Trade Center to a site more convenient to New Jersey, together with Port Authority acquisition of the H&M Railroad, brought New Jersey to agreement in support of the World Trade Center project.

Original PATH station

Groundbreaking on the World Trade Center took place in 1966. The site was on land fill, with bedrock located 65 metres (213 ft) below the surface. A new method was used to construct a slurry wall to keep water from the Hudson River out. During excavation of the site and construction of the towers, the original Hudson Tubes remained in service as elevated tunnels. The Hudson Terminal was shut down in 1971 when a new Port Authority Trans-Hudson, or PATH Railroad station was completed. The new station cost $35 million to build. At the time, it had a passenger volume of 85,000 daily.

The new PATH railroad station opened on July 6, 1971, and was at a different location from the original Hudson Terminal. Larger balloon loops in the PATH station platform allowed 10-car trains; the previous station with its tight loops could handle only 6 linked cars. While construction of the World Trade Center neared completion, a temporary corridor was provided to take passengers between the station and a temporary entrance on Church Street. When it opened, the station had nine high-speed escalators between the platform level and the mezzanine level. The WTC PATH station was served by Newark–World Trade Center and Hoboken–World Trade Center trains. The station was connected to the World Trade Center towers via an underground concourse and a shopping center. There were also underground connections to the New York City Subway (A C E trains at World Trade Center, and N R W trains at Cortlandt Street). By 2001, the volume of passengers using the WTC PATH station was approximately 25,000 daily.

The station did not sustain significant damage during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, although a section of ceiling in the station collapsed and trapped dozens. Within a week, the Port Authority was able to resume PATH service to the World Trade Center.

On September 11, 2001, the station was shut down by the Port Authority after the first airplane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. In the minutes after the first plane hit at 8:46am, three PATH trains were pulling into the station. One was arriving from Newark and two others from Hoboken. The first Hoboken train turned around without stopping, not letting off passengers or opening any doors. The second Hoboken train arrived on track 3 at 8:52 a.m., was ordered to be evacuated, employees included. This train never left the World Trade Center complex and was found later in 2001 during the long recovery process. The train from Newark that came into the terminal at 8:55 a.m. stopped only to pick up passengers. An empty train was sent to the station at 9:10 a.m. to pick up a dozen PATH employees and a homeless individual, leaving the station empty.

Temporary PATH station

With the station destroyed, service to Lower Manhattan was suspended for over two years. Exchange Place, the next station on the Newark–World Trade Center line, also had to be closed because it could not operate as a terminal station. Instead, two uptown services (Newark–33rd Street, red on the official PATH map; and Hoboken–33rd Street, blue on the map) and one intrastate New Jersey service (Hoboken–Journal Square, green on the map) were put into operation.

Cleanup of the Exchange Place station was needed after the attacks. In addition, the downtown Hudson tubes had been flooded, which destroyed the track infrastructure. Modifications to the tracks were also required since the Exchange Place station was not a terminal station. The Exchange Place station re-opened in June 2003. PATH service to Lower Manhattan was restored when a temporary station opened on November 23, 2003. The inaugural train was the same one that had been used for the evacuation.

The temporary PATH station was designed by Port Authority chief architect Robert I. Davidson and constructed at a cost of $323 million. The station featured a canopy entrance along Church Street and a 118-by-12 foot mosaic mural, "Iridescent Lightning," by Giulio Candussio of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli in Spilimbergo, Italy. The station was also adorned with opaque panel walls inscribed with inspirational quotes attesting to the greatness and resilience of New York City. These panels partially shielded the World Trade Center site from view.

In the 9/11 attacks, some sections of the station, including the floor and the signage on the northeast corner, were only lightly damaged in the collapse of the World Trade Center. These sections of the station were retained in the temporary station, and remained in the new station, where it connects with the platforms for the 2 3 A C E trains. Following its reopening and the resumption of Newark–World Trade Center and Hoboken–World Trade Center services, the station quickly reclaimed its status as the busiest station in the PATH system.

The station was also home to a Storycorps booth, which opened in 2005. Through this program, visitors could arrange to give oral recorded histories of the disaster. The booth closed in the spring of 2007 to make way for construction at the World Trade Center site. In June 2007, the street entrance to the temporary station was closed and demolished as part of the site construction. A set of new staircases was constructed several feet to the south, and a "tent" structure was added to provide cover from the elements. The tent structure, by Voorsanger Architects and installed at a cost of $275,000, was designed to have an "aspiring quality," according to architect Bartholomew Voorsanger. That entrance on Church Street was closed in April 2008 when the entrance was relocated once again. On April 1, 2008, the third temporary entrance to the PATH station opened for commuters. The entrance was located on Vesey Street, adjacent to 7 World Trade Center, and served until the opening of the permanent station, designed by Calatrava, and also to make way for a Performing Arts Center if the proposed building finds approval.

World Trade Center Transportation Hub

The World Trade Center Transportation Hub is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's formal name for the new PATH station and the associated transit and retail complex that opened on March 3, 2016. The station's renaming took place when the station reopened. It was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and composed of a train station with a large and open mezzanine under the National September 11 Memorial plaza. This mezzanine is connected to an aboveground head house structure called the Oculus—located between 2 World Trade Center and 3 World Trade Center—as well as to public concourses under the various towers in the World Trade Center complex.

In addition, the station was designed to connect the PATH to the New York City Subway system, and to facilitate a below ground east-west passageway that connects to the various modes of transportation in Lower Manhattan, from the Fulton Center to the Battery Park City Ferry Terminal. Furthermore, to replace the lost retail space from the original mall at the World Trade Center, significant portions of the Hub are devoted to the new 365,000 square feet (33,900 m²) Westfield World Trade Center mall.

Background

A large transit station was not part of the 2003 Memory Foundations master plan for the site by Daniel Libeskind, which called for a smaller station along the lines of the original subterranean station that existed beneath the World Trade Center. Libeskind's design called for the Oculus space to be left open, forming a "Wedge of Light" so that sun rays around the autumnal equinox would hit the World Trade Center footprints each September. In early 2004, the Port Authority, which owns the land, modified the Libeskind plan to include a large transportation station downtown, intended to rival Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. In a nod to the Libeskind concept, the Oculus was built to maximize the effect of the autumnal equinox rays (coinciding with the skylight opening on or around September 11 every year).

Design

Calatrava said that the Oculus resembles a bird being released from a child's hand. The roof was originally designed to mechanically open to increase light and ventilation to the enclosed space. Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic of The New York Times, compared the design to the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain in Central Park, and wrote in 2004:

Another New York Times' critic Michael Kimmelman wrote later in 2004:

However, Calatrava's original soaring spike design was scaled back because of security issues. The New York Times observed in 2005:

The design was further modified in 2008 to eliminate the opening and closing roof mechanism because of budget and space constraints.

In 2014 The Atlantic's CityLab criticized the emphasis placed on form over function, citing design flaws driven by aesthetic choices that detract from the station's usability as a transit hub:

...the Port Authority's new hub fails its customers, the PATH-riding public. One platform is already completed, and its design flaws are obvious. Staircases are too narrow to accommodate the morning crowds who come streaming out of the trains from Hoboken, Jersey City, and beyond, while the narrow platforms quickly fill with irate commuters. Anyone trying to catch a train back to the Garden State risks a stampede. The marble, bright and sterile, picks up any spill, and a drop of water creates dangerously slippery conditions until a Port Authority janitor scurries out of some unseen door, mop in hand. Passenger flow and comfort, two of the most important elements of terminal design, seem to be an afterthought. The PATH Hub is shaping up to be an example of design divorced from purpose.

Steve Cuozzo of the New York Post described the station in 2014 as it was being built as "a self-indulgent monstrosity" and "a hideous waste of public money". Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, referred to the structure as "a kitsch stegosaurus". New York magazine referred to it in 2015 as it neared completion as a "Glorious Boondoggle" and, while withholding final judgement on the unfinished structure, did note the "Jurassic" appearance. The New York Post editorial board also described the station when it opened in 2016 as the "world's most obscenely overpriced commuter rail station — and possibly its ugliest", deeming the transit hub a "white elephant" and "monstrosity", comparing the Oculus to a "giant gray-white space insect".

Before the redesign, the station design had received critical acclaim. One writer for Curbed NY stated, "The platform's mezzanine level ... is kind of amazing and shows off the station's soaring ribbed structure." A committee for Manhattan Community Board 1 called the station "beautiful."

West Concourse

The West Street pedestrian underpass (the West Concourse, formerly the "east-west connector") links the WTC station mezzanine with Brookfield Place in Battery Park City, on the west side of the World Trade Center site. It opened on October 23, 2013. Access to One World Trade Center from the West Concourse became possible for employees when the tower opened on November 3, 2014. On May 29, the same day the tower's observatory opened, the entrance to the observation deck opened.

Cost and delays

The Transportation Hub has been dubbed "the world's most expensive transportation hub" for its massive cost for reconstruction—$3.74 billion dollars. By contrast, the proposed two-mile PATH extension connecting Newark Liberty International Airport to the NWK-WTC service is projected to cost $1.5 billion. The hub has also been criticized for being delayed almost 10 years. However, even in inception, the hub was projected to cost almost $2 billion. The high cost for a single station is attributed to the extravagant design, which stems from the PA needing to convince the government of New Jersey to pay for a project situated entirely in New York.

Originally, the reconstruction was to be funded by the Federal Transit Administration, which gave approximately $1.9 billion to the project. The costs of the hub were still expensive, but it was to be finished at budget in 2009. In 2014 dollars, the cost of the hub and the adjacent Fulton Center, combined, was $5.1 billion. The hub cost twice as much in 2014 as it should have originally cost in 2004. A single hallway in the elegantly constructed hub cost $225 million and was billed as the "world's most expensive hallway", while construction, maintenance, and management alone cost $635 million; the Port Authority awarded several subcontracts, most of them costly. The fees of the main construction team took up almost a billion dollars, and utility installation around the entire World Trade Center site cost another $400 million. Over $500 million in cost savings was overlooked.

The design was costly, with Calatrava netting $80 million in design fees and the overall architectural design being another $405.8 million. Speeding up the pace of construction also contributed to the higher cost, with $100 million dedicated to building the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and another $24 million to speed up delivery of construction materials. The price of the station was further driven up by Calatrava's architectural decisions. He wanted to import custom-made steel from a northern Italian factory, which cost $474 million, and have a columnless, aesthetically based design; skylights in the ground, instead of trees; and large, soaring "wings", or rafters. Another $335 million was added to the cost overrun because the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had to build around the New York City Subway's IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (carrying the 1 train), since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority refused to close the line for fear of inconveniencing commuters from Staten Island taking the Staten Island Ferry. The line had to be supported on a bridge over the station instead of on columns through the station. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy damaged several hundred million dollars worth of materials. Some of the additional cost and delay was due to additions and modifications to the original plan by the Port Authority. Calatrava's original entry pavilion was scaled back for security reasons, for instance.

The hub's skyrocketing costs also attracted much controversy, with an editor at The New York Times saying that "Mr. Calatrava is amassing an unusually long list of projects marred by cost overruns, delays and litigation", referring to his other projects around the world that were over budget. Especially because the current station has a ridership of only 46,000 daily passengers compared to 250,000 at Grand Central Terminal), the renovation is sometimes depicted as overpriced and overstylized. In fact, one Esquire magazine writer stated that the hub's massive expense was in spite of the fact that operating the PATH itself was a waste of money for the Port Authority.

On November 5, 2015, the opening was delayed to early 2016 by a leaking roof. When the hub actually opened, the director of the Port Authority, Pat Foye, declined to hold an event to celebrate the opening of the Hub, describing it as "symbol of excess" and noting he was "troubled with the huge cost" of the construction project.

Construction

Construction of the Oculus called for relocation of the landmark World Trade Center cross in April 2006. However, the Oculus's construction did not begin in earnest until July 8, 2008, when the first prefabricated "ribs" for the pedestrian walkway under Fulton Street were installed on the site. The mezzanine level of the station was undergoing major construction and work on the foundation was underway. By March 2011, over 225 of the 300 steel pieces that make up the roof of the station were installed. Later that month installation of the Vierendeel Truss, one of the hub's key components, began with the installation of a 50 short tons (45 long tons) section of the 271-short-ton (242-long-ton) truss. The truss serves as the mezzanine roof and also acts as a support for the northeast corner of the WTC Memorial.

The Oculus's $542 million construction contract was awarded to Skanska in summer 2010. The project included steel erection for the substructure; construction connecting to Vehicle Security Center complex; the Greenwich Street corridor and the steel and concrete placing under the 1 train subway box; and preparations for installation of east arch truss By June 2013, 10 pieces of exterior arches were installed for the Oculus. The initial construction was expected to conclude in the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015, and the internal construction including paint, turnstiles, ticket booths, etc. was expected to complete in the end of 2015, with an official opening scheduled on December 17, 2015. On October 23, 2013, the West Concourse opened with access to the World Financial Center, now renamed the Brookfield Place. The storefronts were covered and not yet opened, and the second floor was still closed for construction of One World Trade Center.

On February 25, 2014, half of the first platform of the new station, Platform A, was opened to the public with service to Hoboken. The new platform, an island platform, was fully modernized and contains new lighting, speakers, illuminated signs, escalators and elevators. The west side of the platform was walled off at the time. By June, nine wings had been installed, as well as the remaining eight ribs. The construction of the white rafters, or tips, was started. On November 3, the same day One World Trade Center opened, the West Concourse's escalators, which had been closed off since October 23, 2013, opened with access to the second floor and to One World Trade Center. Eight days later, the Fulton Center and Dey Street Concourse opened to the public. The Dey Street Concourse entrance into the Transportation Hub was closed until the Hub opened. On November 22, the 114th and final rafter was installed. Also by this date, one crane had been disassembled and painting of the hub continued.

On May 7, 2015, Platform B and the remaining half of Platform A opened, and Platform C closed. A few weeks later on May 29, the entrance to the observation deck in the West Concourse was opened on the same day One World Observatory also opened. In late September, the temporary new West Walkway opened with access from the platforms to the West Concourse.

On March 3, 2016, the Oculus partially opened to the public, along with new entrances. Only the west end of the Oculus and the Westfield Mall corridor to Four World Trade Center was opened. Two months later, on May 26, 2016, PATH riders received a direct underground link to Fulton Center and Cortlandt Street through the Oculus. The PATH entrance into 2 World Trade Center opened on June 21, 2016, and the temporary PATH entrance to outside 7 World Trade Center closed five days later. Yet another entrance opened to the public when the Westfield World Trade Center mall was opened on August 16. On September 8, 2016, the restrooms were opened on the south side of the mezzanine. The last two station platforms in the hub, Platforms C and D, were also opened, as was the permanent West Concourse walkway. On December 19, the direct underground link to the New York City Subway's World Trade Center station, at the northeast corner of the complex, reopened.

On October 13, 2016, the first birth inside the Oculus occurred. A woman was walking through the station with her husband when she went into labor, eventually giving birth on the floor of the station. (Another woman had previously given birth inside the old PATH station in August 2015.) A few months later, on February 11, 2017, the first death inside the Oculus also occurred. A woman from New Jersey fell to her death from the escalator. News reports initially said that she was trying to retrieve a hat dropped by her sister, but lost her balance and fell; it was later revealed that the woman "was pretending to be flying" while lying on the escalator's handrail. After the woman's death, there was some focus on the height of the 3-foot-4-inch (1.02 m) handrails, and how they could pose a safety risk.

Adjacent transit connections

The Transportation Hub is designed to connect the PATH subway system to the New York City Subway system. The 1 service, which runs through the Transportation Hub, was reconstructed under this project to run above the PATH mezzanine, and the rebuilt Cortlandt Street IRT station will have direct access into the Hub. There is also a direct access to the Chambers Street–World Trade Center/Park Place station complex. The Cortlandt Street BMT station also has direct access into the Hub. In addition, the Dey Street Passageway along Dey Street connects the Transportation Hub east to the Fulton Center, providing access to the 2 3 4 5 A C J Z N R W services. A passageway, known as the West Concourse, connects west to Brookfield Place and the Battery Park City Ferry Terminal. A proposal for a connection to the Long Island Rail Road and John F. Kennedy International Airport via a new tunnel under the East River, the Lower Manhattan-Jamaica/JFK Transportation Project, was studied starting in 2004, but as of 2009 was a lower priority than other projects competing for funding.

Current services include:

The Fulton Street station complex (where the Fulton Center opened in November 2014) is two blocks away to the east and features the following services:

At the northeast end of the station is the exit to the World Trade Center station of the New York City Subway. The doors and original ADA-accessible ramp, as well as the structure from the first World Trade Center leading into the station, survived the September 11 attacks. The station itself was not damaged, but it was covered by dust and was subsequently closed. The passageway reopened for a while to provide an ADA-connection from the temporary PATH station to the New York City Subway station, but was closed again when the temporary PATH station closed for a reconstruction. The passageway was then covered in plywood for preservation purposes. The renovated entrance, leading to the New York City Subway station from the Oculus headhouse and the Westfield World Trade Center, opened on December 19, 2016. The newly reopened passageway retained its pre-9/11 design, save for a door on display that has the words "MATF 1 / 9 13" spray-painted on it (a message from Urban Search and Rescue Massachusetts Task Force 1 of Beverly, Massachusetts, who searched the World Trade Center site on September 13, 2001). There is a plaque above the spray-painting, explaining the message on the door. PATH was required to preserve the passageway's original design as per Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, as a condition for getting funding to construct the Oculus and new stations. The passageway will not be made ADA-accessible again until 2017, as there are twenty-six steps down from the mezzanine to the Oculus headhouse's lobby.

The M55 New York City Bus route runs northbound on Church Street and 6th Avenue to Midtown, and southbound to South Ferry on Broadway.