World Trade Center (PATH station)

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Oculus , main hall of the station, April 2016
View of Oculus from the east with the One World Trade Center

The station World Trade Center is a metro station of the regional metro Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) in New York City . It is located directly under the World Trade Center site in Manhattan , the place where the two towers of the World Trade Center stood until the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and a number of new skyscrapers have since been built.

The station was opened on July 19, 1909 by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad . Due to the construction of the World Trade Center complex, it was temporarily closed in 1966 and reopened in 1971. The current station was put back into operation in November 2003 after being destroyed in 2001.

A transfer station, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub , opened on March 3, 2016. The system allows transfers between the PATH station and the New York City subway stations WTC Cortlandt (IRT Broadway - Seventh Avenue Line) , Cortlandt Street (BMT Broadway Line) and World Trade Center . One World Trade Center , Two World Trade Center , Three World Trade Center and Four World Trade Center are also directly accessible from the Transportation Hub . The Transit Hall is the heart of the new transfer station. It houses 45,000 square meters of retail outlets under a roof designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava .

Hudson Terminal (1909-1966)

The Hudson Terminal (right) seen from the Hudson River , left the former Singer Building , photo taken in 1909

Until 1966, the station opened in 1909 was called Hudson Terminal . Above the underground station were two 22-story high-rise buildings, which were also referred to as the Hudson Terminal , with the railway systems only under the southern building.

In a geography book in 1928 , the Hudson Terminal was described as follows: “It's an entire city in itself, nestled in the middle of New York's business district. Towering high above, reaching deep below, a mountain of steel and masonry with streets that lie one above the other with banks, post offices, telegraph and telephone exchanges, fire brigade, police, shops, huge gas and electrical works, steam engines, amusement parks, train stations, inns , Clubs, cafes and a public (roof) garden high above New York. The population of this city of steel can be 10,000 souls, 10,000 by day and only a few hundred at night. They have 5000 rooms at their disposal or, if one assumes the average of a normal house with 10 rooms, 500 houses. "

In the late 1950s, the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad went bankrupt. The states of New York and New Jersey were able to agree on a redevelopment plan, which included that the railway company handed over the site of the Hudson Terminal to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey , so that they demolish the building and with the World Trade Center a new contemporary one Building could create. Its rental income was used to renovate the railway . As early as 1962, the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad was taken over by the Port Authority and renamed PATH, which stands for Port Authority Trans Hudson .

In 1966 the construction of the World Trade Center complex began. As a first step, all the buildings in the Hudson Terminal were torn down to make way for the huge complex, which included the two 110-story twin towers. The Hudson Terminal station was closed that same year .

World Trade Center Station (1971-2001)

Construction work on the PATH station World Trade Center; left in the picture the steel frame of the north tower of the World Trade Center, 1969

After construction of the gigantic complex had begun in 1966, the subway station of the new World Trade Center was completed in 1971, while the two 400-meter-high twin towers, the tallest skyscrapers in New York City , were only in the Years 1972 (WTC 1) and 1973 (WTC 2) were completed. The entire complex was completely finished in 1977. The owner of the World Trade Center complex, including the train station, was the port authority of the states of New York and New Jersey . The Port Authority, which operates the PATH traffic, is also responsible for road connections between New York and New Jersey and the airports. In the years after the opening of the WTC complex, the PATH station was very busy, especially as it had direct access to the two twin towers and offered short connections to several stations on the New York City Subway. Around 50,000 people worked in the entire World Trade Center complex. Many of them got to work on the subway or on the PATH line from New Jersey.

After the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 , witnesses reported that the ceiling of the train station partially collapsed. After a week of renovation work, the subway station could be used again.

Due to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA and the complete destruction of the World Trade Center complex, the PATH station was badly damaged and the tunnel adjacent to the station was flooded. Because of this, the railway had to be stopped.

New World Trade Center train station

Provisional PATH access from the east that was in operation from 2003 to 2007. In the background 7 World Trade Center

After the terrorist attacks in autumn 2001, the PATH could no longer travel to the World Trade Center because the station was destroyed. After the clean-up work on Ground Zero, which was officially completed in May 2002, the railway systems were restored and a new entrance was provisionally built by the New York Port Authority, which was able to start operations on November 22, 2003. Since the rebuilding of the complex was also planned, the station kept its previous name. After the final design of the new World Trade Center complex was determined in 2006, new facilities for public transport, called the World Trade Center Transportation Hub , were also designed . They were designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava . Above ground, the new station will consist of a large glass structure that will be flooded with light. It will be located between Towers 2 and 3 ( Two World Trade Center and Three World Trade Center ) of the new complex. However, there should also be direct access from the Transportation Hub to the One World Trade Center and Four World Trade Center . Another underground passage will lead to the neighboring World Financial Center . This is also planned as a light-flooded corridor.

The entire construction of the new station was financed and commissioned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey . The Port Authority also owns Ground Zero, while the complete reconstruction of the World Trade Center was carried out in collaboration with real estate company Silverstein Properties . Construction of the Transportation Hub began in 2008. Part of the first platform went into operation in February 2014. On March 3, 2016, the main hall of the station called Oculus was opened. The first steel framework for the underpass to the World Financial Center was installed in July 2008 at the point between the construction sites of the One World Trade Center and the World Trade Center Memorial .

The construction costs amounted to about 4 billion US dollars . This made it the most expensive train station in the world at the time it went into operation.

New York City Subway

The following New York City Subway stations are in the immediate vicinity of the PATH station :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ World Trade Center Site Plan , PANYNJ, accessed April 9, 2012
  2. ^ H. Harms: "In Neuyork" , migraver.wordpress.com, 1928 - Lift & von Bressendorf Verlag Leipzig
  3. Information on the Hudson Terminal from the book by Ric Burns, James Sanders, Lisa Ades: New York - The Illustrated History from 1609 to Today. Frederking-Thaler Verlag, Edition 2002.
  4. Information on the employees in the former WTC from the Marco Polo New York Travel Guide, 2007 edition
  5. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/27/nyregion/explosion-twin-towers-overview-blast-hits-trade-center-bomb-suspected-5-killed.html
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAa4IOSgXFg
  7. ^ WTC Transportation Hub , information on the Transportation Hub on the World Trade Center website
  8. ^ WTC Transportation Hub , information on the Port Authority website
  9. ^ Port Authority Open First New World Trade Center PATH Platform. In: Press Release Number: 48th Port Authority, February 25, 2014, accessed February 27, 2014 .
  10. a b Kate Hinds: Photos That Will Make You Want To Ride The PATH Train. In: WNYC Transportation Nation Blog. February 25, 2014, accessed February 27, 2014 .
  11. Santiago Calatrava's Transit Hub Is a Soaring Symbol of a Boondoggle , nytimes.com, March 2, 2016

Coordinates: 40 ° 42 ′ 43.2 "  N , 74 ° 0 ′ 45.5"  W.