World Trade Center station (PATH)
The World Trade Center station is a terminal station on the PATH system, within the World Trade Center complex in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It is served by the Newark–World Trade Center line at all times, as well as by the Hoboken–World Trade Center line on weekdays, and is the eastern terminus of both.
The World Trade Center station is near the site of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad's Hudson Terminal, which opened in 1909. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey bought the bankrupt H&M system in 1961, rebranded it as PATH, and redeveloped Hudson Terminal as part of the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center station opened on July 6, 1971, as a replacement for Hudson Terminal, which was closed and demolished as part of the construction of the World Trade Center. Following the September 11 attacks, a temporary PATH station opened in 2003 while the World Trade Center complex was being rebuilt. Work on a permanent station building commenced in 2008. The main station house, the Oculus, opened on March 3, 2016, and the terminal was renamed the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, or "World Trade Center" for short.
The station has five tracks and four platforms in the middle of a turning loop. Trains from New Jersey use the loop to turn around and head back to New Jersey. The platforms are four floors below ground level. The floor immediately above the platforms is occupied by the station's fare mezzanine. The New York City Subway's WTC Cortlandt station is adjacent to and above the mezzanine.
The Oculus station house, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, consists of white ribs that interlock high above the ground. The interior of the station house contains two underground floors, which house part of the Westfield World Trade Center mall. The transportation hub connects the various modes of transportation in Lower Manhattan, from the Fulton Center in the east to the Battery Park City Ferry Terminal in the west, and includes connections to various subway stations. It is the fifth-busiest transportation hub in the New York metropolitan area. The new station has received mixed reviews: although the hub has been praised for its design, it has also been criticized for its high costs and extended delays.
Station layout
The station has five tracks served by three island platforms and one side platform in a basement four stories underground. 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.Above the station, there are three mezzanine levels. The top two levels contain shops as part of the Westfield World Trade Center. The first mezzanine level below ground also contains the Cortlandt Street–Greenwich Street station for the and a direct entrance to the northbound platform. A connection to the Cortlandt Street–Church Street station's southbound platform, for the, is located at the far east end of the mezzanine, past the mall's shops. The second mezzanine level contains the entrances to the station, as well as more connections to the subway. The third mezzanine level, located directly above the platform, contains the fare control and access to the platforms.
Prior to reconstruction, there was a temporary entrance on Church Street, which opened along with the rest of the temporary station in November 2003. With the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, the entrances and size of the temporary station have changed over time. In 2007, the Church Street entrance was relocated to the south, and the old entrance was closed and demolished. In April 2008, a third and final temporary entrance to the station was located at Vesey Street, facing Greenwich Street and adjacent to 7 World Trade Center. The temporary entrance was a one-story building on the south side of Vesey Street. On March 3, 2016, the permanent PATH station building opened and the temporary entrance was closed. The former temporary entrance was demolished later that year to make way for the Performing Arts Center.
A connection to Brookfield Place opened on October 27, 2013, through a permanent passageway known as the West Concourse. On August 16, 2016, the Westfield World Trade Center entrance opened. To accommodate repairs to the Downtown Hudson Tubes, service on the Newark–World Trade Center line between Exchange Place and World Trade Center was suspended during almost all weekends in 2019 and 2020, except on holiday weekends.
Hudson Terminal
Hudson Terminal was built by the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad and opened on July 19, 1909. Hudson Terminal included two 22-story office buildings located above the station on the two blocks between Greenwich, Cortlandt, Church, and Fulton Streets. The terminal was 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 and was somewhat similar to the arrangement of the first and second World Trade Center stations.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 the 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 H&M went 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.
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 and build the World Trade Center on the Hudson Terminal site, which was by then deemed obsolete.
Old PATH stations
Original PATH station
Groundbreaking on the World Trade Center took place in 1966. The site was on land fill, with bedrock located below the surface. A new method was used to construct a slurry wall to keep out water from the Hudson River. During excavation of the site and construction of the towers, the original Hudson Tubes remained in service as elevated tunnels. The new station cost $35 million to build. At the time, it had a passenger volume of 85,000 daily.The Hudson Terminal station closed on July 2, 1971, to allow a three-day maintenance period to divert service to the World Trade Center PATH station. The new PATH station opened on July 6, 1971, west of the original terminal. Larger balloon loops in the PATH station platform allowed 10-car trains; the previous station with its tight loops could only handle trains of up to 6 cars. When the station opened, it 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. By 2001, the volume of passengers using the WTC PATH station was approximately 25,000 daily. While the 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.
The station sustained minor damage during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; 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.
The station was closed on September 11, 2001, after American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.. In the minutes afterward, three PATH trains pulled into the station. One had arrived 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. and was ordered to be evacuated, employees included; the train never left the World Trade Center complex and was found during the 9/11 recovery process. Two lightly damaged cars from that train were subsequently sent to museums. A train from Newark came into the terminal at 8:55 a.m. and stopped only to pick up passengers. After United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., dispatchers ordered the closure of the Exchange Place and World Trade Center stations; the former was closed due to severe water damage. A fourth 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. The station was subsequently destroyed during the collapse of the World Trade Center.
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 and one intrastate New Jersey service 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 uptown PATH tubes, ferry routes, and NJ Transit lines across the Hudson River could not handle the displaced ridership on their own, and it was deemed necessary to rebuild the World Trade Center terminal. After the reconfiguration of the Exchange Place station was completed, it was reopened to PATH trains on June 29, 2003. The setup was temporary: passengers at Exchange Place would transfer to ferries to Lower Manhattan until the World Trade Center station could be reopened later that year.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. It was located at the same place as the original station. The station featured a canopy entrance along Church Street and a 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.
Some sections of the station, including the passageway and the signage on the northeast corner, were only lightly damaged on September 11, 2001, during the collapse of the World Trade Center. These sections of the station were retained in the temporary station, and remained in the new station. 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. However, it had several limitations. The temporary station had 8-car-long platforms, whereas the original station had 10-car-long platforms. The station frame was also not strong enough to support development above it, and parts of the station were located outdoors in the "bathtub". The temporary station had only one entrance, at Church Street, and disabled patrons needed to take four elevators to go from street level to platform level.
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. It was demolished with the opening of the permanent Calatrava-designed station, since it was on the site of the future Performing Arts Center.