Several times during recent years, I have traveled through the PATH station at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan and watched it go through different stages of construction. Each time, I have marveled at this beautiful, airy station as it slowly unfolded. White marble, high ceilings, and the unique structure gives the impression that you’re walking through a dream. Maybe you fell asleep on the train, and your subconscious is playing with the idea of walking through the lobby of a museum dedicated to displaying the giant skeletons of ancient mythical creatures.
The West Concourse of the World Trade Center PATH station is now called the World Trade Center Transportation Hub because it connects the PATH to several subway lines and includes new pedestrian walkways. The station, created to replace the World Trade Center station that was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, was designed by Santiago Calatrava. He and his project have come under fire in the New York press for being delayed and overbudget. This article, The Glorious Boondoggle, discusses the controversy, as well as this article.
The design has also been mocked for its look, which is intended to represent a bird taking flight. Critics have had fun with this one, calling it “a turkey skeleton after it’s been stripped clean at Thanksgiving,” and saying that it “looks like the inside of some fantastically large (but immaculately clean) marine organism” here. They say this, of course, after praising the beauty and majesty of the space.
Parts of it have been opened over the past year or two, and according to this article, it seems that the station’s centerpiece, the Oculus, opened to the public last month. The photos of the finished Oculus in the article are exciting, and I can’t wait to see this in person.
Even walking through the station in a limited capacity, with jersey barriers, fences, and bright orange construction barrels marring the view, I leave awe-struck and inspired by this dreamy place that is unlike any other normal, functional, (mostly concrete) train station on my journeys into the city. It’s going to be amazing to walk through the completed space.
Here’s one more dreamy version of the white marble corridor.
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I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge for the month of April. The idea is to post every day, except Sundays, and end up with one post for each letter of the alphabet. It’s a good challenge to help me to blog every day.
Very happy to see it here in the post. I live and work near Edison, so never actually got a chance in the recent past to be at the Path (i worked next to Times Square a couple of years back).
Thanks, Alok. I hope you get to see it in person. It’s breathtaking, and I haven’t even seen the Oculus yet!
I have never seen the WTC so this is a wonderful post to enjoy and learn more about the WTC. Thank you.
Thanks, Lori. I have yet to visit the WTC memorial or observation deck, but I’m always happy to walk through this lovely space nearby.
A very impressive place. Your photos show its beauty well.
Thanks so much. I hope to capture more images when I visit next time.
Stunning !!!
Thank you, Lynne!!
Calatrava’s style is so distinctive, I knew immediately this was his work! I’ve been to the art museum in Milwaukee, which he also designed.
That’s cool that you recognized it. I haven’t heard of him before researching this station, but I checked out his website and I do see a distinctive style.
Absolutely, once you’ve seen his work, he’s pretty easy to pick out of a crowd.
Agreed
Wow very interesting! thanks for sharing!
I’m happy that you found it interesting 🙂
I really did, you have so much to show us!
Thanks! I love to share…there’s so just so much cool stuff out there to see 🙂
So true!
What a fascinating station. Look forward to more photos.
Thanks, it’s really something special. I hope to get back there soon!
I remember the old WTC PATH station ~ this looks like “the future” made live. I wish we could flash forward 20 years and see it. I wonder if it would look dated or just as modern as it does right now?
It is very modern, and I think the look will stay so for a while. From a train station perspective, it’s so different from the other dim, concrete PATH and subway stations that I think it will stay fresh. To me it feels like walking through a museum, and I hope it will stay timeless in that way. In the main section of the Oculus, they will open shops this summer, which will add another element of staying new and fresh. I don’t remember much about the old station, except for those long escalators that seemed to go on forever the few times I saw them as a kid.