WTC Transit Hub - by Santiago Calatrava

[lofter1]

The text given as a handout at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute exhibit states:

The roof of the Hub's freestanding structure will be fitted with an operable skylight located along the central axis - on fine spring, summer and fall days, as well as on September 11th each year, the skylight will open thus providing the interior space with a slice of sky and its natural light. Mr. Calatrava's theme of constant movement encourages individuals to see the beauty within despair and provide hope for a brighter tomorrow.

So it seems that while the "wings" won't move, the top will still open as originally planned.

btw: While watching "Public Enemies" I was struck by a scene shot on a platform of a Chicago's Union Station
that shows a striking visual similarity to some of Calatrava's work for the WTC Hub passageways:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrldvoyagr/2184184146/

[ZenSteelDude]

With all the rain we've had I'm surprised the Tower Two site isn't "Greenwich Lake" or would it be "Vesey Lake" ? Great shots of a nearly forgotten area of the site meh cd.

Thanks for the "steel porn" lofter1, it is a beautiful station.

<Zen has a rivet fetish>

[TonyO]

NY Post
Editorial

OBSCENELY GRANDIOSE
A PATH STATION LARGER THAN GRAND CENTRAL?


Gargantuan: The PATH station that the Port Authority is planning for Ground Zero would be big enough to swallow Grand Central Terminal.


By STEVE CUOZZO

Last updated: 6:35 am
July 6, 2009
Posted: 1:55 am
July 6, 2009

EVERYONE knows the Port Authority's planned World Trade Center Transportation Hub is huge. The PA celebrates the fact, boasting on its Web site that the Hub "is comparable in size to Grand Central Station."

We'll forgive the PA for not knowing it's Grand Central Terminal. But the agency should admit that the Hub's most visible public space -- the one beneath the famous, steel-and-glass "wings" designed by architect Santiago Calatrava -- is actually, and absurdly, much bigger than Grand Central's main hall, as the drawing on the right shows.

This, even though the Hub will serve vastly fewer users than Grand Central.

The PA project is obscenely grandiose -- an elephantine edifice that likely can't be built even for its (already way-over-budget) $3.2 billion price tag. It might never be completed at all -- yet the complexities arising from its vast scale bedevil everything around it at Ground Zero.

Recent news articles have predicted the cost could top $4 billion. The PA naturally said that was ridiculous -- but how would it know? It hasn't yet even bid out the job's largest components.

Yet, the PA seems prepared to pay whatever it takes to satisfy Calatrava. Why? Washington is footing some of the bill for the Hub, but not all -- and the feds' dough could be reallocated to other, worthier transit-related projects downtown.

The Hub is an unconscionable waste of precious Ground Zero earth, money and energy. For starters, it's still basically just a new PATH terminal, serving a relative handful of commuters. Again, the drawing helps make the point.

A precise parallel with Grand Central's main hall is impossible, since the two rooms are different shapes. Grand Central is rectilinear while the Hub is ovoid, with a floor that tapers at both ends and walls that taper as they rise to the top.

But their respective dimensions give you the picture. Grand Central's main hall is about 275 feet long, 120 feet wide.

Meanwhile, the Oculus -- the Hub's main public space, officially called the Transit Hall -- is 350 feet long and 145 feet wide at floor level, which is two levels below the street. It tapers to a "mere" 320 feet long by 100 feet wide when it reaches street level.

At its tallest point, the Oculus is 160 feet tall from the floor to the skylight roof. Grand Central is 125 feet high at its apex.

(And the Oculus represents only about half of the Hub -- there's also an endless, subterranean "PATH Hall" to the west of it that New Jersey riders must traverse to reach their trains.)

All that floor space and volume -- for what?

Grand Central's main-hall floor is traversed by 700,000 people a day, Metro North says. Downtown, the temporary PATH station handles 40,000 riders a day.

Of course, the PA insists that many more will use the completed Hub than today's PATH station. The estimate on its Web site is for 200,000 commuters plus 250,000 "pedestrians" daily. Those estimates, even if true, still pale compared with Grand Central's traffic.

And the PA estimates seem fanciful at best. They assume the Hub will be used by hordes of subway riders making connections from the No. 1 line and from the Fulton Street/Nassau Street station one block east, and shoppers at below-ground stores situated along the sides of the Oculus and the PATH Hall.

Yet the stores seem too awkwardly positioned to draw much of a crowd. They'd make a lot more sense on the otherwise empty, 350-foot long Transit Hall floor -- but try telling that to Calatrava.

And, while 275,000 people a day use the Fulton/Nassau subway station, how likely is it that the Hub will serve as a grand passageway for them? That depends on connecting the Hub to the planned Fulton Street Transit Center -- which is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and at least six years behind its original scheduled opening.

Indeed, it's hard to see how the all-but-bankrupt MTA can possibly finish the Fulton Street boondoggle. Its recent promise that a planned June 2014 opening is "signed in blood" is ridiculous.

And, even if the Fulton job miraculously is completed, why would subway riders use the underground passageways leading to the Hub except to stay out of the rain?

All in all, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub makes no sense as a transportation hub. Its gargantuan dimensions suggest that the PA regards it as something more -- namely, as the authority's very own 9/11 memorial, one every bit as disproportionate to Ground Zero's size and to its own functional role as is the official, 7-acre memorial itself.

scuozzo@nypost.com

[TonyO]

^ I don't necessarily agree with Cuozzo that the PATH Terminal be further cut so that other transit projects receive the funds (especially now that Fulton St. Transfer Center is fully funded), but the comparisons are interesting. What would make the PATH Terminal fully warrant it's design and size is a JFK connection.

[MidtownGuy]

Cuozzo has an axe to grind about this project, this being the second article he wrote that trashes the whole thing. What a relentless killjoy. In the long run, this station will be a great thing for New York, and will be far more iconic than the towers planned down there.

[Alonzo-ny]

Surely there will be many people who connect to the subway through the station?

[ZippyTheChimp]

These comparisons with volume bigness and the number of users is pointless.

So GCT is the percentage standard? Why not Penn Station? It's smaller than GCT, but handles more passengers. So GCT is a waste of space.

No one can say what will happen with transportation at the WTC in 20-30 years. But right now, it directly connects with 3 subway lines, and more with the Fulton Transit Center.

People other than commuters go to GCT, some just to see it. Doesn't Cuozzo remember the old WTC concourse (with its small PATH ridership), how crowded and claustrophobic it was, how everyone wanted the PA to bust through the plaza and open it up to the sky?

Nobody visits Penn Station.

[stache]

Unless they have to!

[Dan Kohn]

No one can say what will happen with transportation at the WTC in 20-30 years. But right now, it directly connects with 3 subway lines, and more with the Fulton Transit Center.

Were you counting the 3 directly connected lines as being 1, E, and PATH?

Here's a nice image of what will be available from the Fulton Transit Center, when it finishes in 2014 (!!):



Also, I was never able to figure out the dense downtown connections (almost as if the lines had been designed by 3 competing companies) until I found this PDF.

More generally, I agree with your premise, that it's ludicrous to suggest that all future transportation hubs must be scaled so that they have less passengers per cubic foot than Grand Central. If anything, I'd like to see that statistic increasing over time.

Speaking of which, can anyone make a rough estimate of the volume of WTC Hub versus the GCT main hall? Because I think GCT is still bigger, given that the Calatrava design almost fits inside.

[stache]

The lines were in fact designed by competing companies, which is why there are clots of stations in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Were you counting the 3 directly connected lines as being 1, E, and PATH?

Besides the PATH, the 3 subway lines that touch the site (had direct entry from the old concourse) are the E, 1, and R/W.

[CitiesfromSpace]

When people talk about the oculus they're usually talking about the Fulton St. Transit Center, which is totally different from Calatrava's WTC Station. Calatrava's building has a central hall, not an oculus. I don't understand why he's using those things so interchangeably.

Plus, I love how symbolism, beauty, civic and national pride obviously have no importance at all to him... The article might as well say "why did the French spend all that money on some dumb statue in America when they could have used it to pave their streets better?"

[Daquan13]

Let me get this straight;

When both the Fulton Street & PATH Stations are completed, will people be able to walk underground from Fulton all the way over to the WFC without ever having to come outside?

If so, that would be amazing!!

[stache]

But it will cost $2.25.

[CitiesfromSpace]

Not if you're unlimited