Hudson Terminal
Hudson Terminal was a rapid transit station and office-tower complex in the Radio Row neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Opened during 1908 and 1909, it was composed of a terminal station for the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, as well as two 22-story office skyscrapers and three basement stories. The complex occupied much of a two-block site bounded by Greenwich, Cortlandt, Church, and Fulton Streets, which later became the World Trade Center site.
The railroad terminal contained five tracks and six platforms serving H&M trains to and from New Jersey; these trains traveled via the Downtown Hudson Tubes, under the Hudson River, to the west. The two 22-story office skyscrapers above the terminal, the Fulton Building to the north and the Cortlandt Building to the south, were designed by architect James Hollis Wells of the firm Clinton and Russell in the Romanesque Revival style. The basements contained facilities such as a shopping concourse, an electrical substation, and baggage areas. The complex could accommodate 687,000 people per day, more than Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan.
The buildings opened first, being the world's largest office buildings upon their completion, and the terminal station opened afterward. The H&M was successful until the mid-20th century, when it went bankrupt. The railroad and Hudson Terminal were acquired in 1962 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which rebranded the railroad as Port Authority Trans-Hudson. The Port Authority agreed to demolish Hudson Terminal to make way for the World Trade Center, and the railroad station closed in 1971, being replaced by PATH's World Trade Center station. While the buildings were demolished in 1972, the last remnants of the station were removed in the 2000s as part of the development of the new World Trade Center following the September 11 attacks in 2001.
History
Planning and construction
In January 1905, the Hudson Companies was incorporated for the purpose of completing the Uptown Hudson Tubes, a tunnel between Jersey City, New Jersey, and Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that had been under construction intermittently since 1874. The Hudson Companies would also build the Downtown Hudson Tubes, which included a station in Jersey City's Exchange Place neighborhood, as well as a terminal station and a pair of office buildings in Lower Manhattan, which would become Hudson Terminal. Following the announcement of the Downtown Tubes, the rate of real estate purchases increased around Hudson Terminal's future location.The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company was incorporated in December 1906 to operate the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, a passenger railroad system headed by William Gibbs McAdoo, which would use the tubes. The system connected Hoboken, Pavonia, and Exchange Place, three of the five major railroad terminals on the western shore of the Hudson River waterfront. At the time, there was high passenger traffic between New Jersey and Lower Manhattan. Passenger and mass-transit traffic in Jersey City was concentrated around the neighborhood of Exchange Place, while traffic in Lower Manhattan was centered south of New York City Hall. In addition, low construction costs and low property values were considerations in selecting the location of the railroad's Lower Manhattan terminal. The H&M only searched for sites west of Broadway, since there were more transit connections and fewer existing buildings west of that street.
Land acquisition for the buildings started in December 1905. The Hudson Companies acquired most of the two blocks bounded by Greenwich Street to the west, Cortlandt Street to the south, Church Street to the east, and Fulton Street to the north. Some low-rise buildings on Cortlandt Street were acquired to protect the views from the Hudson Terminal buildings. One landowner—the Wendel family, which owned a myriad of Manhattan properties—refused to sell their property, assessed at $75,000, and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against H&M in which they spent $20,000 on legal fees. By May 1906, H&M had taken title to most of the land. The acquired for the complex had cost an average of. The New York Times predicted that the development of Hudson Terminal would result in the relocation of many manufacturing plants from New Jersey to Lower Manhattan.
Excavations at the site of the office buildings were underway by early 1907, and the first columns for the substructure were placed in May 1907. Because of the presence of wet soil in the area, and the proximity of the Hudson River immediately to the west, a cofferdam was built around the site of the Hudson Terminal buildings. According to architectural writers Sarah Landau and Carl W. Condit, the cofferdam was five times larger than any such structure previously constructed. At the time, there was a lot of office space being developed in Lower Manhattan, even as the area saw a decrease in real-estate transactions. The project was completed for $8 million. The buildings were owned by the H&M Railroad upon their completion.
Opening and usage
By April 4, 1908, tenants started moving into the towers. Originally, the northern office building was called the Fulton Building while the southern office building was called the Cortlandt Building, reflecting the streets that they abutted. The H&M terminal opened on July 19, 1909, along with the Downtown Tubes. The combined rail terminal and office block was the first of its kind anywhere in the world.The space in the office buildings was in high demand, and the offices were almost fully rented by 1911. The following year, McAdoo denied rumors that H&M would acquire the low-rise buildings on Greenwich Street to expand the Hudson Terminal buildings. Upon the tubes' opening, they were also popular with New Jersey residents who wanted to travel to New York City. Passenger volume at Hudson Terminal had reached 30,535,500 annually by 1914, and within eight years, nearly doubled to 59,221,354. Several modifications were made to the complex in the years after its completion. Smaller annexes were added to the office buildings at some point after they opened, during the early or mid-20th century.
A passageway to the Independent Subway System 's Chambers Street station was opened in 1949. The passageway measured wide and long. Construction contractor Great Atlantic Construction Company described the tunnel as "one of the most difficult of engineering feats", as the passageway had to pass above the H&M tunnels while avoiding various pipes, wires, water mains, and cable car lines.
Early tenants of the Hudson Terminal buildings included companies in the railroad industry; the offices of U.S. Steel; and some departments of New York City's general post office, which had been crowded out of its older building. U.S. Steel, the post office, and six railroad companies occupied, or over a third of the total space in the buildings. The top floors of each building had private dining clubs: the Downtown Millionaires Club atop the Cortlandt Building and the Machinery Club atop the Fulton Building. With the exception of a brief period between 1922 and 1923, the terminal's post office operated until the United States Postal Annex at 90 Church Street opened two blocks north in 1937. Space in the buildings was also occupied by agencies of the United States federal government in the 1960s.
Decline and demolition
H&M ridership 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 H&M had gone bankrupt in 1954. The state of New Jersey wanted the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to take over the railroad, but the Port Authority had long viewed it as unprofitable. In 1958, the investment firm Koeppel & Koeppel offered to buy the terminal buildings for $15 million, as part of a reorganization hearing for the H&M.The Port Authority ultimately took over the H&M as part of an agreement concerning the construction of the World Trade Center. The Port Authority had initially proposed constructing the complex on the East River, on the opposite side of Lower Manhattan from Hudson Terminal. As an interstate agency, the Port Authority required approval for its projects from both New Jersey's and New York's state governments, but the New Jersey government objected that the proposed trade center would mostly benefit New York. In late 1961, Port Authority executive director Austin J. Tobin proposed shifting the project to Hudson Terminal and taking over the H&M in exchange for New Jersey's agreement. On January 22, 1962, the two states reached an agreement to allow the Port Authority to take over the railroad, rebrand it as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson, and build the World Trade Center on the Hudson Terminal site, which was by then deemed obsolete. The World Trade Center project would include a new PATH station to replace the Hudson Terminal station, as well as a public plaza to replace the buildings.
Groundbreaking on the World Trade Center took place in 1966, and as with the Hudson Terminal buildings, a slurry wall to keep out water from the Hudson River. During excavation of the site and construction of the towers, the Downtown Tubes remained in service, with excavations continuing around and below the tunnels. The Hudson Terminal station closed on July 2, 1971, to allow a three-day maintenance period to divert service to its replacement, the original World Trade Center PATH station. The World Trade Center station opened on July 6, 1971, west of the Hudson Terminal station. Just before the buildings' demolition, in early 1972, the New York City Fire Department used the empty Cortlandt Building for several fire safety tests, setting fires to collect data for fire safety. The Hudson Terminal complex was demolished by the end of 1972.
After the World Trade Center station opened, the sections of the Downtown Tubes between the Hudson Terminal and World Trade Center stations were taken out of service and turned into loading docks for the 4 World Trade Center and 5 World Trade Center buildings on Church Street. The original PATH station was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The last remnant of the Hudson Terminal station was a cast-iron tube embedded in the original World Trade Center's foundation near Church Street. The tube was above the level of the PATH station and the station's replacement after the September 11 attacks. The cast-iron tube was removed in 2008 during the construction of the new World Trade Center.